Further testimony to the effect that the coming of electricity had on the lives & health of children in the 1930s was on display in the correspondence columns of The Times last week, prompted by the news that Chelsea Football Club have made an offer to take over the site of the Battersea power station.
Kate Kennedy wrote of the benefits of no more smelly dangerous gas, electric irons instead of flat irons, & the handsome new set of saucepans which the Electricity Board gave to any household which had electricity installed – presumably to encourage them to install electric cookers rather than just a few (unprofitable) light bulbs; mothers would not be able to cook properly on a hot plate if they had to rely on their battered old pans with thin & bumpy bottoms, & decent saucepans are expensive.
This prompted further reminiscence from Wing Commander Pinnell (retd) who still has, & uses, one of his mother’s saucepans, in this case stamped with the name of Battersea Borough Council.
It is astonishing, when you stop to think about it, how we have, within the lifetimes of many people still living, gone from no electricity, to redundant power stations, to living in fear that our dependence on the magic juice may be leading us down the path to annihilation.
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