crickey,
seing all these takes me back to my childhood. my older brother got interested and used to scrounge or buy old sets an repair them, moving on into Tv's on the same bases.
his 'workshop' was an old mangle in the scullery (you don't hear those words much now
).
like most bath night was oj Sunday ready for school, one particular night i'd just had my bath in the tin tub, and went to see what he was up to, as i opened the door there was a blinding flash and all th lights went out, a beautiful violet/blue spark floated towards the ceiling like an orb from the back of his current project.
a sedimentary family scene, but then all hell broke out, my brother rushed for the cellar door and descended the stairs at speed, followed closely by my father who for some never understood reason slammed closed the cellar door behind him with a crash.
next i heard was a sequence of bomp's as the tin bath (which was stored on a nail on the cellar door) descended down the stairs behind him - followed by a very loud 'SOD IT' shouted by my mid mannered father. only 4 years ols i was shocked as he would never swear usually, but apparently the bath having been dislodged slalomed down into the darkness and scored a direct hit on the back of his legs, cellar door being closed meant both my brother and he were now in total darkness and kept crashing into the tin bath.
the cause of te panic was out house electric was fed from the street lights - as many were at the time, so my brothers experiments kept blowing fuses, so my father had fitted a screw instead of a fuse, this meant the company fuse being taking out along with the whole street.
the urgency was to replace the fuse in case the electric company checked our house and he was fined - poetic justice was served me thinks lol!
regs
alan