Ladders, how they used to be

[rolf]

Found this pile of ladders on the roof of a house yesterday.

Excuse the artifacts in the picture, it was taken with the phone.

[Chocky]

Cool. You should have taken them home and renovated them

[ladylouise62]

Renovate? They look perfectly sound to me

[Chocky]

Lol. in places Just a bit of tape here and there and some blue tack might help

[Catherine]

Gosh! They don't make them like that nowadays, do they?

I know you're not meant to leave ladders lying around, but I guess any burglar trying these would get his come-uppance very quickly - if he managed to lift them!

(Takes me back, Rolf. Before the days of alluminium ladders, indeed even before the lightweight wooden variety, I remember trying to help my father lift one like that so he could get up the old wireless mast to fix the signal wire. That was in the 50s - about the time of the coronation. I'll never forget the weight of that ladder, and the iron strenghthening ties under some of the rungs must have contributed to that!)

[rolf]

Yes, I remember my Dad doing aerials with two section wooden ladders and a wooden roof ladder, must have been very heavy.

[Catherine]

The wire came from the back of the wireless in the kitchen, ran out of the window, up the side of the house, then high across to the mast. If we didn't attach the line to the very top of the mast (which also served as a flagpole for that coronation!), we didn't get good wireless reception at all! In bad weather, it sometimes came down - therefore that heavy ladder was used again!

No such thing as satellite broadcasts in these days! The wireless had valves which often needed replaced too....

(To give you a laugh, I've just resurrected this pic - it is of my sister and me in 1953 playing at coronations. Behind us is the brick barn where a Barn Owl stayed, getting in and out through an air vent at the back, and if you look at its chimney, I've indicated the radio mast and where the wire went... what a memory!)

[Chocky]

come-uppance ?
I think an Burglar using those ladders would get a swift come- downance

[Catherine]

Oh, very clever, Beryl!