Christmas is well packed away now, but one set of lights, which we don’t actually use, seemed worthy of a blog. These were lights that belonged to my late father in law. My wife remembers then in the 1960s but they may be older. They are still in their rather battered box.
These lights were made for a company called Timothy Whites and Taylors. The box says so.
This company had been formed as the result of a merger in 1935. The company was taken over by Boots in 1968 which resulted in many branch closures. In my home town, in the 1960s, the shop was just called Timothy Whites but officially the company had the ‘and Taylors’ as well. The name vanished in the 1980s.
We are pretty confident these lights are at least 50 and possibly up to 60 years old.
They were sold in the days when you got full information and instructions.
We have seen glimpses of the bulb set – here they are.
They came equipped with a bayonet fitting for plugging into a normal (for the time) light bulb socket.
Father in law was keen on things electrical and he acquired a flasher bulb for this set. The flasher bulb wiring in which a bimetal strip could make and break the circuit as it bent when it warmed up. With the circuit broken it cooled down and made the circuit again.
It looks as though the first one had to be replaced.
This had been bought at another now vanished store – Woolworth.
Mother in Law has written ordinary on the box/label to indicate that it now contained an ordinary bulb. It looks as though the flasher cost 1/8. That’s about 8½p.
Although we don’t use these lights, they do work and here they are, still in the box but alight.
And to finish, click here to see a film of the bulbs flashing away.