I remember exactly those 'reusable' envelopes back in the early '70s. They were usually store in a department stationery area so that maximum reuse would take place. Although the window on the tab would lose all its stickyness, normal sellotape was used to close them until the tab fell off. One sort of game was played by re-using those that had previous addresses that were high-ranking executives/directors or other interesting characters. Recipients would then sometimes open them somewhat quicker.
When half the country had square pin sockets and the other half still had round (and one or two still needed to bayonet an appliance into a light fitting) fitting a “standard” plug was pretty pointless.
Natural selection
I have known how to fit mains plugs since may age was a single character. why there couldn't have been an adult education programme since WW2 I can't understand.Natural selection
There was a time when it was generally expected that knowledge would be passed from parents to children (usually fathers to sons in this case) - unless of course you had servants to do it or were getting electricity for the first time, when I suspect someone (either from the electricity board or Radio Rentals) would have shown you.
We always seemed to have more appliances than plugs in our house, so it was often necessary to borrow one from something that wasn't currently (no pun intended) in use in order to plug something else in, especially when a newly purchased item had arrived without one. My Hammant and Morgan Duette seemed to be a frequent donor, causing annoyance and disappointment whenever I found the bare ends of the flex. I did learn to wire a plug at an early age though.
Agree,I often wonder why basic "life skills" weren't taught in schools ( well not in mine anyway) everyday things like writing a check/basic introduction to finance etc,all the little things that smooth the river of life !I have known how to fit mains plugs since may age was a single character. why there couldn't have been an adult education programme since WW2 I can't understand.
I did however live in a house from age 12 to age 20 where the plugd had a large round ground pi, a smaller neutral pin and a screw-in fuse as the line pin. That was nice and easy to change the fuse, but sometimes the thread on the pin would strip, and it was left in the wall socket, with 240V ac on it!
That’s what parents were for! Far less recognition in those days that not every family matched the “Ladybird Book” ideal (but also I suspect a higher acceptance of those responsibilities).
Although I don’t have children and little expertise on our current school system, I agree, these things plus the basics of civil/criminal law and how to question and research nonsense presented on social media seem to be lacking.
Ours tended to get hoarded in the recipients' desks. For some reason most of us always seemed to get more internal post than we sent.
That'll be the one on the right in my screenshot in that post; the orange one on the left was the one with the not very sticky self adhesive bit.
Surely in that situation, you throw the old Hoover away and buy a new one in this disposable era
.Surely in that situation, you throw the old Hoover away and buy a new one in this disposable era
My mum taught me when I was about 8 or so - and she never wired a plug again, just handed it to me. Came in useful in 1986 though, both O level physics and home economics (food) had questions that year demanding labelled diagrams of wiring a 3 pin plug
I'm presuming that the order failed at some subsequent point, or there would be a big story here<snip>
On one occasion, I had a large batch to do in one go, something like 10 or 11 different requis. I had long since had a suspicion that the managers were just blindly signing them without really reading them, so I wrote an extra one which I slipped into the middle of the pile. This extra one was for "a grey pachyderm on four legs with two metres of flexible trunking attached."
The manager signed it...
It's law that electrical goods now have to be fitted with plugs, this was largely due to a campaign by BBC Watchdog.
Clearly, the sheer inability of the average domestic user of mains powered equipment to correctly wire a BS1363A ('13A mains plug') is a potential hazard is now less of a safety hazard where moulded plugs are now the norm. There is another hazard that lurks with the use of moulded leads where the appliance has a 3 pin plug and the lead has a 3 pin 'kettle plug' style free socket. The rectangular plug pins are gripped by cheeks of flexible beryllium copper or brass, and with repeated mating become fatigued, making for a poor electrical connection. The consequences can be arcing and burnout of the line &/or neutral pins or worse, unreliable earth connections. Working with a lot of instrumentation, the PAT testing included a pull test and measurement of the connection resistance under movement.
The procedure was that the manager returned the signed requis to the person who filled them in and that person then popped them in the internal post to Purchasing.I'm presuming that the order failed at some subsequent point, or there would be a big story here
I was taught it in a very early physics lesson in the late 60s. I think as an 11 year old I’d already been shown by my dad though. I always thought it was a bit of an own goal that new plugs all came with a 13A fuse, wouldn’t it have been better to guide people to buy the right size?
I didn't learn plug wiring at school (would have also been late 60s), but from a younger age from my father, who was a pharmacist but did electrical work on the side.
Ours tended to get hoarded in the recipients' desks. For some reason most of us always seemed to get more internal post than we sent.
That'll be the one on the right in my screenshot in that post; the orange one on the left was the one with the not very sticky self adhesive bit.
We would be using these envelopes right up to the early 2000s even after e-mail came in.
...and all this reminds me of triple carbon paper requisition forms, to be written in with what you needed, sent to your line manager for signing and then sent on to the Purchasing department who would actually place the order.
On one occasion, I had a large batch to do in one go, something like 10 or 11 different requis. I had long since had a suspicion that the managers were just blindly signing them without really reading them, so I wrote an extra one which I slipped into the middle of the pile. This extra one was for "a grey pachyderm on four legs with two metres of flexible trunking attached."
The manager signed it...
