Yes its a strange name , but just after the 2nd world war as the u.k slowly began to turn back to normal , many families had roller skates and once they were well worn the skater not wanting to skate anymore ,
then they decided to get a wooden box with a short plank and screw down the box onto the plank and with the skate wheels screwed under the box and at the other end on the plank
thus the skate box was born ,
the only problem was it was nice being pushed down the road sitting on the plank with the box in front of you but there wasn't any way of steering the thing ,
but for children of those times it was fun going up and down the road as other children took turns of both having a ride and later pushing some one else .
Q; if you were old enough to have seen and had a go on these home made trollies what else do you remember of those times, if so will you share your memories with us,
I don't remember skate wheel trollers Alfred..
I remember the carts that the boys made with regular wheels and they had string to the front that was used to control the steering.. No brakes ..just shoes and boots..
We live in a valley here and they would ride on these carts.. down the middle of the road at great speed..
We also had valleys in the park.. one led down to the lake.. When it snowed we went down on sledges.. the valley was called Break Neck.. Nobody ended up in the lake.. we just stopped short very near to it..
I've seen kids put a book on top of a skate and use that. Most of the better class trollies (such as the one I had) used old pram wheels. I think I couldn't find any wheels and ended up buying the trolley I had off somebody.
I don't think I've ever seen trollies using skates, the only ones I remember were old pram wheels on half planks of wood
My mate Dooley and me had a bogey and lots of hills to exploit. The best one was very near home and had a difficult bend to negotiate while going pretty fast. Great precision was needed as the road was surfaced with gravel.. I remember taking half my face off on that gravel. A clean line down my face, one half scraped and bloody, the other clean as a whistle.. :bandaged: :grin:
we had such a device, but being cunning little sods we arranged for the two front wheels to be on a separate beam which pivoted, so with a bit of rope attached, we had steering. Automatic transmission came later 😁
Mike
Brakes courtesy of shoe leather. :grin:
Absolutely