All Done by Electricity 1968

[spuorgelgoog]

just been shown on Talking Pictures.

Some nice old fuseboards, modern 3 pin plugs, and a gentleman gets electrocuted in the bath while his wife does the ironing.

Owain

[Scott]

Fascinating. I know some people that could learn from it !!!

[Brian Gaff]

Kind of reminds me of the Iron my granny bought from Arding and Hobbs, it had a bayonet plug like the end of a light bulb and the instructions showed it plugged into the overhead light in a kitchen. Do not remember the make now, but can you imagine the uproar if one tried this today? Brian

[NY]

I can remember my grandma having an iron with a bayonet fitting. She had an "extension bayonet" fitting with a male end that plugged into the existing pendant light fitting, and then straight-through female end for the light bulb and another female end at 45 degrees for the iron.

shows what I mean. until I saw the illustration, I'd forgotten that it included a switch for *one* of the outlets (just the light bulb, with the iron being unswitched). Looks as if it's made of genuine Bakelite, as well ;-)

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff explained :

Not that unusual back in the day, few people had and wall outlets. You could even buy BC double adaptors, so you could plug the iron in and have the bulb lit. Many of the homes with socket outlets, probably only had a single 5amp two pin in the whole house. I remember my dad running an electric fire, radio, Christmas tree and later a TV via a multi way adaptor from a 5amp two pin. If the fuse blew, rewire with an even bigger wire :-)

[Bob Eager]

This reminded me of something I saw today.

Q. Is there anything you did when you were young that you would consider too dangerous today?

A. I wrote to Jim'll Fix It.

[charles]

when we got our first house in 1964, it had had a 1946 rewire: 4 15A power points (one in each bedrooom and one in the kitchen). There was also a 2 pin 5 A socket in the sitting room. That was it.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

charles formulated on Monday :

Luxury..

[charles]

indeeed, The house cost £4000!

[harry]

I bought a house in 1970 for £400.

[harry]

I can remember installing such stuff.

[Brian Gaff]

Yes even in the 1970s you could by fairy lights all wired in series across the mains, usually 20 bulbs with one fusible bulb which had bayonet connector on one end. Highly lethal, no double insulated wires and the sockets were just in hard plastic mouldings. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Ha ha, I will drag this back on topic but before I do, would one get away with Billy Connolly's song In the Brownies after recent revelations? So back on topic. I have to say that to my shame up stairs in a four way socket bar is a wall wart of the 2 pin shaver plug type which I managed to get into the two live terminals of the 13amp socket by pushing the shutter open with a screwdriver in the earth hole. Ahem. I'm sure in the past many people used wires wedged into 5 amp sockets just to test the device of course. I also had a tap output from a live chassis TV by using a small isolating transformer and earthing the live chassis on the other side. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Does anyone I Remember those weird connectors on vacuum cleaners with two pins and if you were lucky and earthed strap on the sides that connected to springs on the inside of the socket which had the pins. These were always working loose and getting hot and sparking and it was quite common to see them held together with tape and the sockets mended with araldite. It seems we did not really take electrical safety very seriously back then. It was not that long ago that electric lawn mowers had isolator cut outs on the house end of their cables. I still have on in a drawer. Both my sheds nearly always had some 2 pin plugs, very handy with those plugs that you just poked the wires under loops and did the lid up to clamp them. Brian

[spuorgelgoog]

We had them in kindergarten. Every Christmas we added to the effect by making little paper lanterns to fit over the hot filament bulbs.

We also had a squirrel in a cage in the classroom and were told not to put our fingers through the wire.

Owain

[stephenten]

And in my recently rewired house, there are:

10 doubles in dining room

6 doubles in lounge

5 doubles in kitchen plus 3 fused spurs for kitchen appliances

All of the 5 bedrooms have 5 or 6 doubles....

Not only that, all rooms now have between 3 to 4 multimedia plates comprising of Freesat, Freeview, FM, DAB, telephone, networking, cable TV, and proper foreign satellite.....

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff presented the following explanation :

I well remember those two pin plugs - like a brass split pin, for the contact pins. You just stuck the bared wire through the top loop and the tightening of the threaded cover, forced the 'split pins' tight onto the bared wires. I also kept a 5amp socket and such a plug in my workshop for years, as a quick connect. Then along came those made for the quick connect job things - three clips (L+N+E) mounted in a plastic body, fused, where contact to the supply was only made as the lid was closed up.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff pretended :

I still see lots of those lethal sets around. I saw some for sale last week on a second hand stall in a market.

[newshound]

Not to mention the Supataps!

[tabbypurr]

for some vague value of tight. Clix plugs etc. At least the nylon ones gripped better than the bakelite did. And no cord grip or earth.

Scarier were the IDC mains plugs. Each plug pin had a prong on its side, and moving them from splayed out to operating position skewered the mains flex. But there was nothing firm about it, the connection was I'm sure abysmal. I don't recall the name of those ones.

NT