Danny remarks on the vagaries of Memory.
I have from time to time in my Posts referred to a peculiarity of my memory which I have named the "Carlstrom Syndrome" (from its association with the Carlstrom Field in Florida, where I did my Primary Flying training in'41). Here the subject was the view from the air of the domestic camp and hangars, etc. (now long demolished) of the airfield.
During my two months there, I flew 60 hours from it on the "Stearman" trainer, and must have looked down on that camp area a hundred times. Obviously it would have been as familiar to me then as the back of my hand. But two years ago, when I began my story, I was utterly unable to visualise any details of it, not even the plan shape (it was a circle in fact). Not all that surprising, after 70 years, you might think.
But then Chugalug found and printed out on Post an aerial photograph of Carlstrom Camp in its heyday. You would expect my reaction to be immediate, pleased recognition: my memory of it to be instantly refreshed as new. On the contrary, I looked at it baffled, as of a place I'd never seen before. It was as if my memory stubbornly refused to "reinstate" it in its "files", and that still continues: it is as if I'm seeing a strange place for the first time.
Now that is weird enough (are there any psychologists in the House ?), but the story I'm going to tell now seems to indicate that there is a sort of "inverse" Carlstrom in play.
In '65 or '66, the 403 was showing the first signs of age. Specifically, the silky-smooth power take-up from standstill of the "Coupleur Jaeger" was becoming "lumpy" and "snatchy". I am no electrical (or any other kind) of engineer, but the Coupleur was a very simple mechanism, and I knew that the "iron filings" between the two parts of the clutch, were "excited" into scrumming-down together (and so transmitting the drive) by an unregulated voltage from a third brush on the dynamo (no alternators in those days). As the motor speeded-up, so did the dynamo; the voltage increased and 'Bob's yer uncle'.
Clearly the dynamo was the place to look, I had it off and on the dining table (well, it was chilly outside - and I'd put a couple of sheets of newspaper down underneath). I inspected the three "portes-balais" (brush carriers -["broom" carriers in Googlese]). The two main ones were all right, but the third (smaller) job was a poor design. The carbon brush was held down by a sort of bent paper-clip, the bare metal loop on the clip bore directly on the friable graphite brush, the top of this had crumbled; there was my problem.
Clearly some sort of conductive pad was the answer; the morning's milk bottle top was rescued from the gash-bin, washed and a piece cut out, folded to size, and put between paperclip and brush. Put all back: we had our Rolls-Royce once again. "Shame on Peugeot", I thought "I'd always found their engineering to be first-class". Then of course, it struck me. It wasn't their fault at all. Motor manufacturers buy in alternators, starters, batteries and all sorts of electrical widgets from outside firms (in those days Lucas was a prime supplier for British cars). So what French equivalent had done this sub-standard job for Peugeot ? Who cared ? What did it matter ? Why would I even want to find out ? So the matter rested for 50 years, until I got the idea for this Post.
A day or two later, I was thinking about something entirely different. Two names popped up, unbidden, bright and clear - Ducellier and Paris-Rhône ! Checked with Google/Wiki: they're still in business.
Why, oh why on earth, should these two names, which I had no possible reason to remember at all at the time , let alone for a half century, have stayed intact for so long on a sort of dusty old shelf in my memory, when there was absolutely no conceivable reason for them to do so ? Beats me.
Goodnight, all.
Danny42C.
"......and now I come to think of it....!"