Hi all - just a couple of old images I've posted on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/5280930665/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/5280930799/

Regards

mikey

those are beefy lights on Blackfriars!

Yep beefy indeed - they're Sugg High Pressure gas lamps

http://www.simoncornwell.com/lighting/manufact/sugg/archive/pl75-18.htm

that were in common use in London until the mid-1950s. They're on Concrete Utilities columns and brackets and it appears that the suspension gear to lower the lanterns for maintenance have been 'air-brushed' out - this pic

http://www.londontramways.net/search/tram_picsview.php?pic_id=25897

shows it better.

Mikey

Great photos, but I think the second one is more C1960 than C1950 as the second car in the photo is a Mini - looks like a Traveller?

My uncle was a lamplighter pre 1948.

As a child I remember him with his ladder up the lampost. Would it have been daily when darkness came or just say weekly for maintenance?

Stanton could be seen from my bedroom & their concrete posts came soon enough

My grandfather was once a lamplighter, though he stopped being one long before I was born, and he died when I was about six. What little I know about the work comes from what I heard from my father, though he's dead too now.

I think the actual work of lighting the lamps was done with a pole. Any work with a ladder would have been daytime maintenance.

With regards to the Watford pic - I'm happy to concur it might be closer to 1960 than 1950 - the picture reference isn't brilliant.

Another oldie for christmas!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/5290937198/