Former Gas Board showrooms on the junction of Darlington Street & Waterloo Road, Wolverhampton
In the early 1960s, many families in Britain where ousting their old coal fires for the cleaner and more efficient gas fires of the time, many of which were being offered through Gas Board showrooms like this one. www.flickr.com/photos/8050359@N07/11633751034/
Fed up of cleaning out the hearth every morning, my parents purchased a 'New World' Sunbeam gas fire from these very showrooms. It was bought to replace the coal fire in our front room.
The sad part was that my father removed the rather nice 1930s wood-surround mantelpiece from around the fireplace, replacing it with a typical 1960s tiled affair; something he reinstated many years later.
It was all very exciting when the fitter from the Gas Board arrived to pipe in the new fire, and wow, instant heat! For my parents, no more lumping buckets of coal into the front room and getting down on bended knees to light bits of newspaper and kindling jammed between the coals to get a fire going. The old coal fire was only normally lit during the daytime or late afternoon, so it was lovely on Winter mornings to have a room that was warm. I would make the most of it, sitting in front of the fire to eat my breakfast before school.
Even so, we still had coal delivered because the coal fire in the living room wasn’t converted over to gas until a couple of years later. On that occasion, Dad bought a second hand gas fire, but this one had ‘coal fire’ effect lighting, which was a bit glam then! The main body of the fire was in a bland hammered-grey finish, so being a toolmaker, Dad made a polished stainless steel top for it, which actually looked factory fitted when in place, turning the mundane gas fire into something quite posh looking. When we were switched over to Natural Gas around 1970ish, the gas fitter who came around to convert our gas fires from town-gas to natural gas sat cross-legged on the floor for ages going through his handbook trying to find the model of our gas fire with a Stainless Steel top. …He honestly didn’t realise that it was a homemade affair.
Photo: 10.10.10
Former Gas Board showrooms on the junction of Darlington Street & Waterloo Road, Wolverhampton
In the early 1960s, many families in Britain where ousting their old coal fires for the cleaner and more efficient gas fires of the time, many of which were being offered through Gas Board showrooms like this one. www.flickr.com/photos/8050359@N07/11633751034/
Fed up of cleaning out the hearth every morning, my parents purchased a 'New World' Sunbeam gas fire from these very showrooms. It was bought to replace the coal fire in our front room.
The sad part was that my father removed the rather nice 1930s wood-surround mantelpiece from around the fireplace, replacing it with a typical 1960s tiled affair; something he reinstated many years later.
It was all very exciting when the fitter from the Gas Board arrived to pipe in the new fire, and wow, instant heat! For my parents, no more lumping buckets of coal into the front room and getting down on bended knees to light bits of newspaper and kindling jammed between the coals to get a fire going. The old coal fire was only normally lit during the daytime or late afternoon, so it was lovely on Winter mornings to have a room that was warm. I would make the most of it, sitting in front of the fire to eat my breakfast before school.
Even so, we still had coal delivered because the coal fire in the living room wasn’t converted over to gas until a couple of years later. On that occasion, Dad bought a second hand gas fire, but this one had ‘coal fire’ effect lighting, which was a bit glam then! The main body of the fire was in a bland hammered-grey finish, so being a toolmaker, Dad made a polished stainless steel top for it, which actually looked factory fitted when in place, turning the mundane gas fire into something quite posh looking. When we were switched over to Natural Gas around 1970ish, the gas fitter who came around to convert our gas fires from town-gas to natural gas sat cross-legged on the floor for ages going through his handbook trying to find the model of our gas fire with a Stainless Steel top. …He honestly didn’t realise that it was a homemade affair.
Photo: 10.10.10