wrote in message
oups.com...
....
20 years ago it was not uncommon to find old rubber installations. As
often as not, removing a fitting would reveal what Richard describes,
bare L&N wires twisting around each other with only air and the
remaining lumps of broken down rubber for spacers. And that was 20
years ago.

In the early 1970s, I was taken to check the lift installation at an
Electricity Board area office, by the senior engineer in charge of the
engineering department at that office. The rules required two people to be
present, for safety. I lightly touched the woven cloth sheath of the
flexible cable that dropped down the length of the shaft and connected the
lift to the control gear and heard a sound like dry leaves rustling. The
senior engineer decided that we would not investigate that cable any
further.

Colin Bignell