Memories

[DerbyBorn]

Remember when if you bought a light bulb the shop would put it on a tester to show it worked?

[Tim Watts]

Yes - a nice little panel of live sockets at finger height on the counter in Victor Towler's in Banstead IIRC (1970s) :)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - and was told this wasn't a good idea. Burnt off the protective coating applied to protect the filament from vibration etc during transit.

[Roger Hayter]

ISTR these devices had a switch operated either by inserting the bulb or a lever adjacent to the socket, so weren't live when casual fingers touched them.

[Dan S. MacAbre]

Remember the foot x-ray machines in some shoe shops?

[Tim Streater]

A lot of common sense stuff has disappeared. Mind you, so have nationalised industries (electricity showroom, anyone?) so it's not all been bad.

[newshound]

25% discount at Electricity showroom if you worked anywhere in the industry

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 19/04/2018, DerbyBorn supposed :

That was in the days when such bulbs were relatively much more expensive to buy.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Yep, it was fascinating to watch your toes wiggle in the shoes. Lewis's had one in Leeds centre.

[whisky-dave]

I suppose some of you still remember the gas lamp man coming around extinguishing the gas lamps in the street and shouting out what time it was ;-)

[Max Demian]

Woolworth's [1]. Bulbs were packed in special cartons that enabled you to test them in situ. Corrugated paper sleeve with a square end piece with a hole for the bulb base. I think they also tested batteries before sale - though my memory is a little hazy on this.

On a different subject, does anyone remember sugar paper? Granulated sugar was sold in similar white paper bags as today (except they were

2lbs rather that 1kg), but inside there was a layer of blue "sugar paper" Why was this done, and why did they stop? [1] Stuffy old Woolworth's used to object to that common designation with the stores always signed "F.W. Woolworth"; but they later relented and allowed themselves to be called "Woolies" in the adverts.

[charles]

Edinburgh's gas lamps had modern techology. A clockwork mechanism in each lamppost turned on the gas supply in the evening. ;-)

[Mike Clarke]

The one I remember in Woolies had big pushbuttons at either side of the box. Both had to be pressed to power up the bulb, ensuring that both hands were well clear of the connector when it was live.

Must have been a very advanced safety measure for that era.

[Bill Wright]

When I was a teacher in the 70s we used to have A0 sheets of quite rough pastel-coloured papers. They were used for art and craft. They were known as 'sugar paper'.

Bill

[Peter Parry]

Even better was to jam small brothers head into it and watch his jaw work as he complained..

[Brian Gaff]

Yes they are probably banned on health and safety grounds, could not have open mains level pins facing up on a counter top, oh no. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Oh yes they were. At least the one in our local shop was. I know tis as somebody dropped a nut in one once and phut. I'm sure switched ones were made, but this was certainly not one of them! Brian

[Brian Gaff]

That sounds like an urban myth, most bulbs survived for ages in inspection lamps that were just chucked in the back of vans several times a day, and they were only using normal bulbs. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Yes True form had one in 1957 in I think Clapham Junction. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

The issue with these was not so much the dose of the person being scanned, but the dosage received by the assistants in the shop operating it of course. No lead aprons back then. Brian