Posted by Robert Dilley on April 15, 2003 at 20:41:35 from 206.186.188.49 user rdilley.
In Reply to: Re: BECKFOOT layout - arrangements for eating posted by Ian E-N on April 15, 2003 at 16:01:26:
Absence of running water doesn't have to mean absence of electricity. I have mentioned before my parents' first house in the Lake District. It had running water (though no flush loo at first) but no electricity. Don't know where the water came from, but there was no pump in the house. In 1988 we rented a house on the edge of Exmoor which got water from a hydraulic ram down by the Exe. Damn nuisance, as it kept going wrong.
I created a long post yesterday about AGAs which I must have forgotten to send after checking (senility creeping up on me). The gist is that the acronym is from the Swedish company that developed them (in the UK now co-run with Rayburn). From my memory of an undergraduate course on the geography of Scandinavia 40 years ago, something like Aktienbolaget Gas Ackumulator (and my wife tells me I can't remember what she told me yesterday!) The first word seems to be the equivalent of "Co Ltd", "Inc" or "Pty" and is -- when not needed to make a pronounceable acronym -- usually abbreviated AB (as in SAAB). When AGAs first came to the UK I have no idea. Our was for cooking: there was a smaller pot-bellied stove for hot water; which meant you didn't have to fire up the huge AGA in summer to have a bath.
A further point on bathrooms. In the late 60s, when I was at my first full-time appointment, teaching at the University of Pittsburgh (today's geographical trivia: can anyone think of another US city ending in -burgh -- rather than -burg -- apart from Plattsburgh NY?) I visited one of our grad students who was a Canadian with a small farm in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. I arrived, hot and sticky, to find a note telling me to make myself at home as they had gone to do some shopping. I really, really wanted a shower, and searched the house for a bathroom (a flush toilet they had, in a room on its own). When my friends returned they explained they had no bathroom: bathing was accomplished in Lake Memphremagog, a mile or so away. (And they had electricity, by the way).
Must remember to post this one.