Posted by Bruce A Clarke on August 15, 2000 at 07:32:33 from 203.149.33.253:
In Reply to: Re: Picts and Martyrs - oddities index posted by Ed Kiser on August 10, 2000 at 20:14:24:
More PM Comments:
12. Electric light. The children had dry cell flashlights (Torches). Beckfoot would have had electric light as there were poles already fom the village to the house for the telephone. The electricity may have been a home generator but is most likely to have been supplied from a local generator such as a water powered Peltan Wheel generator however, the power may have been turned off after a certain time at night to conserve water. In the 30's, lights in houses were mainly a central light in each room and a switch near the door. Power points were very rare and there may have been only one or two in the entire house, this would explain the use of candles in the bedrooms as it would not have been convenient to get out of bed to turn on the light as bed lamps were not common. .
19. Water would have been piped from up in the hills to tanks or pumped from the lake to holding ceiling cisterns or to tanks higher than the house - water would flow to the Bathroom and WC in the house and the kitchen. Maybe there was an electric pump
29. Guddling (OED, Kuddle / (Old French "guidel" - catch fish alongside the shore)) trout is illegal in the UK where people have "river rights" meaning that only those people with the "rights" are allowed to catch fish in that stretch of the waterway and by Guddling, poachers could to claim them as coming from elsewhere as they were not fishing, as fishing requires a rod and line or a net. It is all to do with property rights.
30. Nicest houses: This is a traditional European / UK concept that houses have a spirit (aura) and that nice houses have had good people living in them for ages.
33. Bucket - to move fast - "that car is bucketing along"
34. Hen & Chicken - nautical term from way back meaning a big rock (hen) and little ones (chickens) around it. (There are rocks just inside Sydney Heads called the Sow and Pigs. The concept is the same.
35. We had "Rabbitos" who came around the suburbs of Sydney in the late 40's and early 50's with a horse and cart selling shinned, cleaned rabbits but these were always sold with the skin on their paws otherwise you could be sold the neighbour's cat!