Electric goods

[McT]

Before the war and the National Grid, mains electricity frequency in Britain was not standardized and some power stations produced electricity at 25Hz or 40Hz (and even DC). During the conversion to 50Hz, engineers would have to visit every house to check whether there were any appliances which couldn't cope with the change in frequency.

There is a story that one householder, unable to be at home at the appointed time, put a note on her door asking the engineer to "...leave the extra cycles in the coal shed".

McT

[peteroldracer]

Over 35 years ago, when I was a technical trouble-shooter on printing equipment, I was sent to Belfast to sort out some stuff. On the first day, I had to take a stores lad with some burnt out motors to get them rewound - to run on DC mains! I am not sure which was the most frightening - the thought of DC current, which is more unforgiving if you get a shock from it, or the drive through streets where the kerbs started out painted red white & blue, with slogans like "FTP" on the walls, into the area of the motor workshop, where the colours were very much green orange and white, with vivid murals of masked gunmen. I never did get used to streets that looked so much like Croydon, but with sandbagged gun-posts, armed troops patrolling, and having to submit to a body search before being allowed into Woolworths! Different times........