Yes, there's even some nostalgia in these ads for non-technical people: Our old LSD currency for example, and just look at those lovely old London telephone numbers - PERivale 8831 and ACOrn 0174. I love looking through stuff like this as well.

Crabtree and Wylex are two very well known manufacturers here and are still in business. Even that Manchester phone number for Wylex still works (998-5454), although it's answered as "Electrium" now, the current parent company. And although most of the models pictured here went out of production years ago, the Wylex "Standard Range" equipment is still made to the same pattern (although the plastic is a little thinner these days [Linked Image]).

Virgil (and everyone else of course):
I don't want to clutter Bill's web space with loads of JPG files, but if you're interested in seeing some more, I could scan some other ads from the journal and e-mail them to you.

Bill:
"Low cost petrol" is a very sore point with British motorists these days as our prices are now the highest in Europe! (And even the cheapest in Europe are expensive by American standards.) I was the tender age of 3 months when these ads appeared, but I believe that gas was around 4 shillings a gallon at that time.

Thanks to the 300% tax imposed (yes, three hundred percent, that's not a typo), current pump price at my local station is now 74.9 pence per liter -- That's U.S. $4.11 a gallon to you!

CT,
Yes, you're right about the switches, although there are some variations on switchgear.

Regular wall light switches and the switches on our receptacles etc. are always up=off, down=on. Main switchgear has changed over the years. The pre-war metal clad boxes with side handles were up=on. After WWII when "consumer units" appeared with "normal" main switches they changed to down=on as you see pictured here.

In the last few years, however, the main switches have started going back to up=on. I can only assume this was done because circuit-breakers have become much more common recently and it makes sense for the main switch to work the same way as the breakers. The U.S. is much more consistent to my way of thinking.

BJ,
Great link there with some interesting pics (darn, there goes the next two days' work!). I did a search on "electric" and one of the first references was for Kearney, Nebraska. Quite a coincidence as that's where I went for a job!

One last piece of trivia:
The van pictured is a product of the British outlet of General Motors. They made vehicles here under the names Vauxhall (cars) and Bedford (vans & light trucks).


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 05-07-2002).]