Doorbells - what is it

[Bob Eager]

Saying you're a burglar is better.

[Nightjar]

These days, I would probably laser print it and use a clear resin to laminate that to a flat rigid sheet of GRP.

You could even decide where the road changes, by putting up the two names side by side. If it is a long enough road, it may well have once had the same name throughout its length, but what that name was depended upon which village you started from.

Colin Bignell

[Davey]

I was referring to the quotation about twist mechanical door bell operators, not the effectiveness of Cold Calling in person.

[PeterC]

A bell that can be heard outside can also, prsumably, be heard inside; a knock that can be heard outside(!) might not be audible inside much past the hall.

I know the reason - I was just pissed off by an unemployable, spotty yoof pestering me and trying to insist on an answer. I must keep my ice axe just inside the front door...

[PeterC]

Which one? There can be only one

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yerrs..not a few times in my life I have 'done something' that has been accepted as 'done by the powers that be' and faithfully kept going long after I had forgotten it was there.

[Mark]

'S funny how salesmen, Jehovas witnesses and canvassers manage to use the bell push unlike couriers who tap lightly on the glass before putting the postcard through the letterbox ("collect parcel from depot

50 miles away") and then run off.

[Nightjar]

As anyone I want to visit me has a key, I favour WHY, in the form of a sound effect such a large dog barking or door bell followed by a baby crying.

Colin Bignell

[djc]

So true. Long ago (circa 1972) when I lived in Enfield , after a long lunchtime in the Crown & Horseshoes, returning to the workshop we noticed the date (18??) on a little cast iron bridge over the New River. I returned from the workshop with paint pot and picked out the date and makers mark in white paint. The bridge has been repainted quite a few times since; as far as I know the lettering is still picked out in contrasting hue.

[Chris J Dixon]

This is how it is done near me:

[Terry Fields]

Stone the crows...in the summer of 1966 I worked as a van driver for W Sutton and Co, who were based in Horseshoe Lane. I parked my car on Parsonage Gardens, just round the corner. Being new to the firm I had the worst 'run', which was from Battersea to Esher, and my load was always last to be packed. While waiting, I used to get the landlady of the C&H to make my lunch, usually two crusty corned-beef rolls, for some nominal sum. I sometimes ate these while parked in a ford somewhere around Esher, but I can't find the location on satellite photos.

I see the former site of Suttons is now 'Derby Court'. I can't remember if there was a local builders in Horseshoe Lane at the time, but at least once a pickup truck turned up there and its registration number was my birthday...17 MAR; it must be worth a fortune these days.

Terry Fields

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Any experienced courier has a torch for exactly that.

[Davey]

Maybe, but I have no control over what couriers carry. To me, the householder was the stupid one in the first place.

[djc]

Suttons must have closed or moved around 1970. The warehouse was acquired by the local council and used as a scenery store by various local drama groups In including Enfield Youth Theatre who used it as a workshop, which is where I got involved. It was semi-derelict, and we had the run of the place, (no elfin safety nonsense in those days). I think the housing was finally built in the 1980's.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Lack of forethought and planning, nothing new there. I think some people don't like their house being too easily identifiable on the street by name or number being easily visible, but that's a different kettle of worms.