Things that used to be common place in people’s homes

[swt_passenger]

A gas poker. Flexible hose connected device for getting a coal fire started.

 

[Ediswan]

I have even seen a splitter that you could plug into the light socket so that you could do the ironing with the light on.

Some examples: https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/OldBritish4.html

I definitely recall using one to power a soldering iron in the garage.

Sideboards on legs.

Those are back.

 

[eoff]

I use mine all the time. I've got an old dot matrix as well, that I occasionally use with vintage computers.

It has been a long time since I have had the dot-matrix sound experience, at an airport gate waiting for the plane to depart.

For the computer people I have a parallel printer cable, SCSI cables (various types), Exabyte tapes/drive, QIC 150 tapes/drive, modem, floppy floppies, optical mouse, trackball mouse, 'thin' ethernet cables, etc. at home. Technology seems to date very quickly.

You don't see many treadle sewing machines nowadays.

 

[Busaholic]

Work for a Company that used to be owned by The Rank Group.......????

Cinema (Odeon) ?
Hotels ?
Cinema Advertising ?
Nightclubs ?
Holiday Camps ?
Ice Rinks ?
Motorway Services?
Amusement Arcades ?
Film Making / Pinewood Studios ?
Rank Audio Visual ?
Rank Xerox ?
De Luxe Film Labs London?

Can't think of any more !!!

You're forgetting the ever-profitable casinos?

 

[najaB]

You don't see many treadle sewing machines nowadays.

My grandfather had one and made his living as a tailor using it (and some electric ones) up until he died about 15 years ago. I think it's still in his house.

 

[MotCO]

And I have many memories of the walk down to the phone box at the end of the street with my Mum, and then queuing outside the phone box whenever she wanted to make a phone call.

Not to mention Phonecards. Both BT and Mercury.

 

[Non Multi]

Not to mention Phonecards. Both BT and Mercury.

Recently found an unusable unused BT Phonecard that my mother had stashed away, you could actually accurately date it from 1995 as it advertised PhONE day.

Not really surprised it ended up being unused as Phonecard kiosks were mostly in urban areas and transport hubs. Our local village payphones were always coin operated.

 

[Journeyman]

Recently found an unusable unused BT Phonecard that my mother had stashed away, you could actually accurately date it from 1995 as it advertised PhONE day.

Not really surprised it ended up being unused as Phonecard kiosks were mostly in urban areas and transport hubs. Our local village payphones were always coin operated.

You might want to stick that on eBay - a lot of people collect those.

 

[Butts]

You're forgetting the ever-profitable casinos?

They still own the Casinos !!!

He worked for a business that they offloaded.

 

[Non Multi]

You might want to stick that on eBay - a lot of people collect those.

I'd read that the collector's market for phonecards has slumped in the last decade. Not enough interested collectors, plus some Landis & Gyr employees offloaded their big personal collections, so they're not fetching as much as they did 15 years ago.

 

[Journeyman]

I'd read that the collector's market for phonecards has slumped in the last decade. Not enough interested collectors, plus some Landis & Gyr employees offloaded their big personal collections, so they're not fetching as much as they did 15 years ago.

Ah, that's a shame. The value of these things can go all over the place.

 

[Bevan Price]

I have even seen a splitter that you could plug into the light socket so that you could do the ironing with the light on.

Somewhere I still have one of those, but not used it for years. Indeed I no longer use an iron. Most of my shirts dry with few creases when I hang them to dry using coat hangers -- and anyway, they start to look creased as soon as I wear them. And I could never see the point of ironing underwear - a total waste of time.

To add - I think that "splitters" were used because in smaller rooms of older houses, there was often no power socket. Even in larger rooms, there was often only a single power socket.

 

[eoff]

I came across the following Museum of Technology site which has an amazing list of old products that you could find in a UK home...

Museum of Technology, The History of Gadgets and Gizmos

(Previously The Great War and WWII). NOW OPEN, the Museum spans that very small period in history from 1850 - 1980 in which the technological revolution took place.The collection traces the progress of electronic and engineered artefacts including telegraphy, telephony, audio, military and civil...

www.museumoftechnology.org.uk

 

[Lloyds siding]

Somewhere I still have one of those, but not used it for years. Indeed I no longer use an iron. Most of my shirts dry with few creases when I hang them to dry using coat hangers -- and anyway, they start to look creased as soon as I wear them. And I could never see the point of ironing underwear - a total waste of time.

To add - I think that "splitters" were used because in smaller rooms of older houses, there was often no power socket. Even in larger rooms, there was often only a single power socket.

When I started working in housing in the late 1970s I went to many houses that had their original electrical installations from the 1920s, 30s, 40s. A small house would have electric lighting and ONE electrical socket, often in the kitchen. Didn't see many splitters, but often irons and even radios (valve) plugged into the light socket after the bulb had been removed.
Quite a few houses were lit by gas...the last one that I went to was in about 2005...in the rather posh suburb of Formby!

 

[DelW]

To add - I think that "splitters" were used because in smaller rooms of older houses, there was often no power socket. Even in larger rooms, there was often only a single power socket.

I think that it wasn't uncommon for houses to be wired for lighting only in the early days.
My father once told me that when he and his parents moved house in 1928, he (then aged 9) was impressed that the "new" house had electric lighting. However I think that the power sockets were only installed not long before I was born in 1952.

 

[Lloyds siding]

I think that it wasn't uncommon for houses to be wired for lighting only in the early days.
My father once told me that when he and his parents moved house in 1928, he (then aged 9) was impressed that the "new" house had electric lighting. However I think that the power sockets were only installed not long before I was born in 1952.

Yes, houses that had an old range often didn't have electric sockets. The landlord would consider that they didn't need electric cookers, kettles, or heaters.

Something that was fairly common down my way (well my house and most of my neighbours had them too) was a belfast sink with three taps.
Any guesses as to what the taps were?

 

[swt_passenger]

Yes, houses that had an old range often didn't have electric sockets. The landlord would consider that they didn't need electric cookers, kettles, or heaters.

My grandmother‘s house had a fairly primitive electrical installation that had fairly obviously only had lights to begin with, and only a very limited number of sockets added much later, (eg only one upstairs on the landing), and the sockets (15A round pin) were all wired on the surface and had a separate small rewireable fuse panel of a different age and design to the original lighting. Not ring circuits so would that date it to pre war or 1940s?

The original lighting circuits had a much better standard of workmanship, ie properly hidden. Quite a few of those splitting adaptors were available for plugging into lighting bayonet sockets with twin flex dangling to supply stuff such as radios - and I distinctly remember my grandad used an electric razor that he usually plugged into the bedroom light...

 

[trebor79]

Something that was fairly common down my way (well my house and most of my neighbours had them too) was a belfast sink with three taps.
Any guesses as to what the taps were?

Hot water
Cold water
Mild

 

[GusB]

Twin-tub washing machines were mentioned upthread and we had one until the early eighties, but I was just thinking the other day about an old neighbour of mine who actually had a boiler in her shed which she used to wash her white towels/sheets etc. She had a normal automatic washing machine in the kitchen for everything else, but swore by the boiler for whites. I used to run errands for her occasionally and was occasionally asked to buy the stuff to put in it - soap flakes I think. I can't remember exactly what it was now - it could have been Lux, or maybe even Fairy Snow.

 

[eoff]

Soap flakes were used for that type of boiler, and to mix with paint for use in nursery schools.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Soap flakes were used for that type of boiler, and to mix with paint for use in nursery schools.

Really? Why's that?!

 

[najaB]

Really? Why's that?!

So that it would wash out more easily.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

So that it would wash out more easily.

Every day's a school day on here!

 

[Stan63]

I remember buying various electrical items and finding out there was no plug supplied with them. Really annoying back in the day.

Stan

 

[najaB]

I remember buying various electrical items and finding out there was no plug supplied with them. Really annoying back in the day.

Stan

That was back in the days where pretty much every adult knew how to fit a plug (at least in theory). Moulded plugs are a lot safer, but it does mean that most people now are too terrified to even attempt to fit one and would call an electrician.

 

[nlogax]

That was back in the days where pretty much every adult knew how to fit a plug (at least in theory). Moulded plugs are a lot safer, but it does mean that most people now are too terrified to even attempt to fit one and would call an electrician.

In the relatively rare instance of devices supplied with plugs, these could be horrendously unsafe - I remember some were two-piece designs with faceplates that could come off in the hand when removing them from a socket, exposing the live terminals inside while the pins were still plugged in.

I learned to wire plugs while in the Cub Scouts..'Handyman' badge I think! Am struggling to imagine calling an electrician to wire a plug, that blows my mind.

 

[takno]

In the relatively rare instance of devices supplied with plugs, these could be horrendously unsafe - I remember some were two-piece designs with faceplates that could come off in the hand when removing them from a socket, exposing the live terminals inside while the pins were still plugged in.

I learned to wire plugs while in the Cub Scouts..'Handyman' badge I think! Am struggling to imagine calling an electrician to wire a plug, that blows my mind.

I learned to wire plugs (and change fuses, which unaccountably still seemed to blow in those days) when I was 8 or 9. I don't think I knew it was supposed to be dangerous until a few years later when I saw archive footage of Ken Barlow's first wife dying on Coronation Street from it

 

[najaB]

I remember some were two-piece designs with faceplates that could come off in the hand when removing them from a socket, exposing the live terminals inside while the pins were still plugged in.

Which is, I believe, one of the main reasons why UK sockets are generally fitted with a switch.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I remember buying various electrical items and finding out there was no plug supplied with them. Really annoying back in the day.

I actually bought such a device only last year (to be fair, it was a fish pond filter, so arguably the kind of thing you ought to have some understanding of electrics to use anyway). Luckily, for some reason I had a few spare plugs in the house - and still know how to fit them (with just a quick Google to double check which colour wire is which).

 

[Ediswan]

I remember buying various electrical items and finding out there was no plug supplied with them. Really annoying back in the day.

Stan

That was a hangover from the era before the 13A socket became standard. Different homes would need different plugs. For a while Morphy Richards ran an advertising campaign "The one with a plug on". Then supplying with a plug fitted became a legal requirements.