Irons TV's etc running off light socket adaptors


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He should have borrowed some of the bulbs used for the offices....LOL They were all 240 volts.

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When I lived down Medders lots of houses didn't have many mains sockets (we had one in our living room, non in front room), so light socket adaptors were used to run TV's, irons, hoovers, radios, elec

A house I lived in at mapperley was the same.....came as a shock when turning the light on in the kitchen at night, the twintub burst into action as it had been left plugged in.

Down Medders we ad 1 socket and it wa round pin, we were lucky.

"Foreigners" comes to mind on jobs done in the companies time.

Scrap trepanners ended up at a scrap merchant who contracted with the NCB.

We were in the canteen at Clifton after a nightshift, one of the miners had a plastic shopping bag crammed with some heavy duty water hose.

It developed a life of it's own and started to uncoil from the bag like a snake coming out of hibernation.

The new security officer decided to sit down at our table as he knew a couple of the lads...After a short time, he leaned over to the new owner of the coiled up hose/snake and said, "You'l better get yer sen off 'ome before that hose jumps out that bag and I have to book you" Everyone burst out laughing, and said fellow picked his bag of borrowed hose and left at double speed...

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When I was 15 I worked in the cable shop at Hucknall pit (not permitted to work underground till 16) the silencer blew up on one of the blokes moped. We made a new silencer for him & he let me ride the moped round the pit yard for a bit, I was hooked, just before I was 16 I got myself a Honda 50, I rode it legally on my 16'th birthday, happy days..

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my mum did not have electric till just before i was born early fifties and there was only one socket in the front room we only had a radio in our house until late50s early 60s mum never used an electric iron although my older sisters did i remember them standing on the kitchen table to plug it in and unplug it when they had done using a sheet on the table as an ironing board mam only ever used her irons you warmed up on the range for ironing she had four , two big heavy ones so she could change them when they got cool one medium and one small one that i could just about pick up when i was little, this was for things like colers and cuffs baby cloths or small awkward bitsnever saw her use an electricone till we moved to carlton in 1953.think the first time i used a electric iron was at senior school for ironing things we made in neddle work class,

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Foreigners was the title in the railway works. A fellow I knew at Derby Loco (chargehand patternmaker) had come from Crewe where his dad was the brass shop foreman. He said he had once been to see the "old man" in his office. Dad seemed a bit distracted and kept standing up to look out of his window down the shop. George's eyes followed where he was looking and glimpsed a not-quite-concealed very nice decorative kettle nearing completion on one of the benches. After a minute or two Dad clapped his trilby on and strolled down the shop carefully avoiding the offending bench, but exhibiting his presence, and then returned to the office. Still the work on the kettle went furtively on. A couple of minutes more and Dad repeated this little performance - and still the labour of love continued. Finally, Dad snapped. Red in the face, he turned to George and said "He's had two chances to put that ..... thing away, and that's enough!" With that he marched straight down to the bench, picked up a big hammer and beat the work of art shapeless. Then, not a single word being spoken to the miscreant, he just turned on his heel and marched away.

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I lived in Brookfield Place off Derwent Street as a lad.

The terraced railway owned house was 6ft from the railway viaduct carrying trains to Victoria station - with Arkwright Street station just above my bedroom window.

When the loco's stopped at the platform, they spat out burning ashes and soot, down into the yard, toilets and coal-houses.

Many a time a neighbour would rush up to me clouting me over the head - I had to wait until they finished to find out if the engines hot ashes had again set me hair on fire, or if I'd done something wrong!

At night, as the London expresses belted passed, the light would go on and off as the house shook, slates often came off the roof, the ceiling cracked, windows rattled despite the Evening News and Football Post pages crammed into the joints, floorboards creaked, and the me clock would fall over or off me chair.

The radio which was using the adaptor, would sometimes come on of its own accord - or go off!

When me and Dad eventually moved many years later - I could not sleep in the new house - it was too quiet methinks!

Happy days... ah!

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Interesting Colly - my grandmother was living with her parents, brothers and sisters at 96 Glapton Road at the time of the 1901 census. Her dad, Alfred Short, was a good checker with the Midland Railway. By 1915 when she and my grandfather were married, they were living at Beauvale Road.

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  • 6 months later...

Just spotted your post Stephen, sorry for late reply......I remember being told that a lot of houses round the Glapton road area were for railway workers. We rented our house (number 48) off two old spinsters, the rent was 30 bob a week in 1968. When we moved to Bestwood Village (Park road) we rented off the coal board (Dads employer) for 5 shillings and 6 pence a week, Dad was chuffed at the saving. Dad bought it for £2,500 in 1978, about half the market value..

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A bit like running things off the light socket, I was working at J.Jones in their new Daleside works, I'd stripped a large 600 HP electric motor, tested the windings, examined the rotor, cleaned and painted all the parts. Order was put in for the new bearings.

It was a 2pole motor, 3000rpm and the starting load was way higher than our test set could handle and way over the EMEB's service could handle at that time...Seems the local substation breakers wouldn't handle the starting load either!!

I didn't get the job of assembling it when the bearings came in, but it was finished and taken to our test bay for a run. Prior to connecting it up, we had a crew from the EMEB on site and at the main subs up the road.

To reduce the maximum starting load it was hooked up to the output of a transformer that could be "Star delta" switched.

Phone rang and our Foreman gave the thumbs up, it was "inched" up slowly, ie on off pause, on off, pause, lights kept going dim each time!!

On...off, pause, she was going at a fair speed now and was emitting a high pitched whine, as expected, on.....BANG!!! Blew our service fuses...EMEB guy rushed to change the fuses before the motor stopped, thumbs up, on........off, pause.....On....power went out, subs had tripped...Power back on, and they carried on "winding it up" we lost power a few more times then the motor was running at full speed and well within the load limits..EMEB hung on for about an hour so as the motor could be run for the test and cleared ready to ship back to it's owner..

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#28 NewBasfordlad. The expression 'jarvo' for a job for oneself, came from Rolls-Royce Hucknall. It might have originated at RR Derby. People moved jobs and it is likely that an ex-Rolls-Royce employee took the term with him to Bestwood pit.

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Surely there's no reason why you can't operate your iron from a light fitting now?

If you can obtain a bayonet type fitting and wire your iron flex into it then swap it with the bulb and away you go.

At least the flex would be out of the way instead of trailing on the floor!

I think the reason many older houses had so few plug sockets was because no one envisaged so many electrical appliances and gadgets ever being invented!

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It's not wise to run an iron from a light socket, one, there is no earth, two, the light socket is designed just for that, low wattages, your iron takes more current than the light socket is designed for..

Years back, we didn't have much choice, but the risks were great..

I'm a 66 retired electrician......

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Pentwater, where I now live, used to have a reputation for house fires in which people were killed. We wonder if the fact that the local mortician was also the local electrician may have had something to do with it!

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Drumming up business....

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It's shocking what some electricians will do!

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My boss used to say something like that when one of us screwed up...LOL

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Limey re: #42. When we first came to this little town, the funeral director and the ambulance service were the same owner. If he didn't save you with one, he got you with the other!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I remember my aunty in her house at carlton with the iron plugged into the light socket,she had to get through the ironing while it was light as you couldn't use the iron and have the light on,she got through a few bottles of double diamond while she tackled the ironing.

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  • 3 years later...

My wife runs a line dance class at South Normanton  & I'm her gofer/dogsbody: Last Monday I was setting the audio equipment up & I'd forgotten the extension lead (lots of shouting & fuss from SWMBO) I rigged up 4 plug bars I'd scrounged from various places in series to reach the stage & we were up & running just on time, it was a close one. Don't know what H & S would have said, lol..

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They'd have said "you can't do that mate, your not qualified in this that and the other to which you could have said Pi$$ off afore you catch for one in the earhole

 

Rog

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