Posted: 16 February 2006 at 22:52
I spent this afternoon waiting around at home for a washing machine engineer to turn up; but I can relate even this most mundane of non-events to the subjects covered by this website! 
Although washing machines and air raid sirens may not appear to be related at first glance, they do have something in common - they both employ a rotating perforated drum. That of the Type 447 is shown at right.
A document of June 1945 I found in HO 186/2716 states that Gent (a manufacturer of air raid sirens) "are working on the possibility of converting sirens into washing machines."
It would seem that this noble attempt at recycling ultimately failed; perhaps a four-horsepower washing machine audible from five miles away was deemed too loud. (A case of doing your dirty washing in public???) Had it succeeded, then a legitimate advertising slogan for the product could have been: "Only a siren can get your whites as clean as a whistle!"
I draw the line at puns relating to "hanging out the washing on the Siegfried Line..."
- Pete
Categories:
Response posted by < John Locke > on 02 March 2006 at 13:41
Umm, @ a few Kw of juice to run such sirens, I would imagine that the washing machine drums would centrifugically pummel the clothing fibres to a pulp in minutes & produce some extremely interesting results, if cleaned laundry in a few minutes, than an entire 90 min cycle.
The Blogger will always get through
Blog Archive
Latest blogs
- A small Holy Grail find in TNA
- 30 January 2010
- Keyhole surgery at Cuckmere Haven
- 17 January 2010
- Concrete Evidence relaunch!
- 13 January 2010
- Ice Concrete Pillbox
- 09 January 2010
- Pillboxes at Old Lodge Warren
- 14 December 2009
- And then there were 10...
- 09 December 2009
- Catching up
- 26 November 2009
- In Remembrance
- 07 November 2009
- Yet another Downs locality
- 22 October 2009
- A new locality and trench #300!
- 20 October 2009