Reading these posts brought to mind the wonderful Bakelite Museum, formerly located near the station at Williton, Somerset. Terry & I stumbled on this by accident when visiting the West Somerset Railway.

The collection of one man, Patrick Cook, the museum was a seriously overcrowded treasure trove of things-you'd-forgotten-ever-existed, things you never considered might be made of Bakelite, and Bakelite in myriad bold colours, not just brown. Patrick was a delightful, friendly guide and we spent hours there, lost in nostalgia.

The museum closed a couple of years ago and the hope was to move into bigger, more centrally located and accessible premises. There is no clue on their website as to when or if this might happen but, like everyone else, Patrick and his helpers have had their lives and activity put on hold for the past year. For anyone interested, there are some pictures at www.bakelitemuseum.net

The museum at Williton was our second foray into an exhibition of early 20th century plastics. Sometime in the late 1990s, we visited the Philips Museum at Eindhoven when it was still based in part of the industrial complex on the outside,irts of town. Among the other electrical/broadcasting ephemera was a section covering Philite, Philips' own version of Bakelite, developed while the Bakelite patent was still current. After the patent on Bakelite expired, they continued to manufacture and use Philite because it was more economical to do so and the product had proved just as durable as Bakelite. Sadly, when we visited the enlarged and much slicker Philips Museum in its new home in 2015, there was no trace of the Philite collection, merely a few older exhibits with what were clearly Philite plugs or radios with Philite cabinetry but I can recall no mention anywhere of the product.

I believe there is or was also a Bakelite museum in Berlin but on my only visit to that city, I had no time to seek it out.