Last nights BBC Tonight report on the Great Freeze of 1963

[charles]

I was a bit upset when the water in the glass at the side of my bed froze solid.

[Sn!pe]

Pink don't stink but Blue do.

[Andrew]

My Grandmother still used one in the mid to late 1970's to dry the washing in her kitchen. She had one of those racks that looked like two or three wooden coat hangers with about half a dozen horizontal bars or dowels connected to the (high) ceiling with two lengths of waxed cotton washing lines and three pulleys.

The (non portable) paraffin heater was positioned underneath :-)

[Andrew]

halfords used to sell round flat circular dumpy things that were a paraffin heater and you put it under the sump of your car.

[Andrew]

1963 went on and on and on, but 1947 was colder, I believe. 1979 was quite bad too. ASLEF were on strike 2 days a week, tuesday and thurday, so none of the de-icer trains ran and Southern Region resorted to towing their electric trains with diesel locos.

'Luckily' in those days, there were about a 100 drivers permanently in reserve at three bridges depot with dozens of diesel engines just idling in sidings in case of an 'emergency' (all year round).

They even had a steam powered crane waiting, in steam in case something heavy needed lifting.

[Andrew]

If you let it run out the wick stunk out the whole house though.

[charles]

my father used one of those in the late 40s & 1950s. I don't think the lock-up garage had electricity.

[The Natural Philosopher]

hurricane lamps. Primus stoves. Blowlanps. You can still buy 'lamp oil'

[NY]

I didn't know that primus stoves and blowlamps could run off paraffin as opposed to bottled (butane *) gas.

(*) I presume it's butane since the cylinders were greenish-blue rather than the orangey-red of propane. I think the bottled butane was marketed under the trade name (Camping) Gaz.

[Steve Walker]

Greenhouses? Garages? Sheds?

[nightjar]

We had one when we went camping. I think the blowlamp was also a Primus product.

[nightjar]

Reminds me of something I was told by a former engine fireman. In 1963, at Old Oak Common, they had oil drum fires between the tracks, which were supposed to be kept burning overnight, so that the diesel locomotives did not suffer waxing of their fuel. Somebody let them go out and the next day, the only locomotives that could run were the relatively few steam locomotives.

[Bob Eager]

We're talking a *proper* Primus stove here.

[nightjar]

My father built an oven out of a biscuit tin, with a door in the side, to use on top of one. I don't know how successful it was, but I don't recall it being used very often. Lighting the stove, usually fell to me, as my mother didn't know how and my father didn't have the patience.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Yes I might catch up on that one. I lived through it. It was fun at age 13, not sure it would be so much fun at 71. As for the cars, yes they were nice looking in their day, with those vents either side at the back. Rust buckets though, according to those who had one. Mind you lots of older cars were like that at the time.

Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well they needed to be designed for it.

Once that came in the old style Primus and paraffin blowlamps vanished

But of course I gave a 2500 liter tank half filled with paraffin here now. It's called 'kerosene' or 'domestic heating oil' these days

My Aga is the direct descendant of a paraffin stove

[NY]

Yeah, I (mistakenly) thought that a gas Primus stove *was* a proper one. I bet my grandparents, who used to have a Dormobile and go camping, used the term "Primus" to describe their butane-gas-powered (*) burner, and I mis-learned from that.

Was paraffin similar to diesel in that it doesn't give off much flammable vapour at room temperature and is hard to light if a spark lands on spilled paraffin, and so it safer to carry around than petrol, even in open containers as opposed to tightly-stoppered bottles.

(*) I remember the squat cylinders, about 4" in diameter and about 3" high, with a large dimple in the top/bottom.

[nightjar]

Primus AB is a company that manufactures stoves, so there are butane gas powered Primus stoves. It is just not what people of my generation think of when they hear Primus stove.

Even getting vaporised paraffin to light took a bit of doing. There was an annular dish around the base of the nozzle, which you filled with methylated spirits, then lit. You waited until it had almost burned away, then started pumping the stove to build up pressure. That fed paraffin into the heated nozzle and, if all went to plan, it would catch light.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It virtually is diesel.

Paraffin is a broad term for a range of light long chain hydrocarbons of which Avjet, Diesel, Red Diesel, kerosene, heating oil , lamp oil are all broadly similar, differing only slightly in the actual composition, but rather more heavily in the nature of what additives are included.

e.g. lubricants m, anti-waxing agents, water absorbing detergents and so on.

Jets used to be referred to as 'paraffin blowlamps' in the 1950s

All these fuels are slightly difficult to light. It helping if they are in vapour form first, hence diesel glowplugs and the use of wicks to create a larger surface from which vapour can evaporate.

Great for starting bonfires since they do not vapourise that readily and the chance of a fuel air explosion - common with petrol - is lessened,

They will burn fiercely when atomised - as e.g. by an aircraft's slipstream. Cf Concorde crash.

Still available.

[Tim Lamb]

You'll be able to fuel a petrol/paraffin tractor. Agricultural tractor vapourising oil TVO was green last time I saw some. WW2 vintage tractors and up to mid '50's. Supposedly fitted with a fuel vapourising plate warmed by starting on petrol.