Of Gert, cranks and hand-throttles

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I used the term ‘cranking up’ in a recent comment and @MALUSE asked the meaning to which @pgntwo replied and I quote ‘Getting up to speed. Cranking was there term applied to spinning up the flywheel on a generator by hand to get it going under its own steam (well, diesel or petrol engine usually). The crank handle was removed once the flywheel was being powered by the engine.’ This was a much better explanation than I could have managed but I was reminded of the time Vince took me to the movies in an old Hillman car that he had at the time. It rejoiced in the name of Gert. When we came out of the theatre and got into the car I was informed that we had to sit for a while. When the street was deserted of people, Vince got out and cranked the car to get it started. The other interesting story about Gert was that it had a sunroof. Vince would sometimes drive it by sitting on the back of the driver’s seat with his head out the opening and steer with his feet. It had a hand throttle which could be set like an accelerator so it would keep moving slowly. We would also set the hand throttle then walk beside the car throwing mallee roots into it through the open sunroof. Mallee roots made great firewood. By this stage Gert was just about due for the scrap-heap so we didn’t worry too much about the damage we might be doing to the interior. The photo is of Vince driving Gert and trying to get the back wheel off the ground.