In article ,
"David Lee" writes:
Clive Mitchell wrote...
Subsequently my mum foolishly gave me a battery and torch lamp to play
with and it all went wrong from there.

I wonder how I managed to survive! My grandparents had a drawer full of
mains plugs and sockets that they used to give me to play with as a toddler.
That was fine but, sometime between the ages of 5 and 10, I gleefully
discovered a similar stash in my father's workshop but together with lamps
and cable!

Snap!
My grandfather had a box full of mains lampholders, bulbs, cables,
plugs, etc, and I played with these, connecting them up in series
and parallel whenever we visited them, and observed effects of
different wattage bulbs in series, etc. I would guess this was when
I was between 7 and 10 years old (he died when I was 10). I don't
ever recall giving myself an electric shock in the process.

BTW does anyone happen to know what the Sheffield supply voltage was back in
the 1950s - I remember a van coming down the street and engineers converting
all our appliances to work on 240V AC but for the life of me I can't
remember what it was before that.

I have a book with the voltage of all UK towns listed (and much of
the former Empire too). I can look it up this evening if no one
else knows. BTW, Reading was 200VAC 50Hz. My dad still has his old
B&D drill which was converted from 200V to 240V, and the rating
plate over-stamped.

--
Andrew Gabriel