42 - Jeremy's Dad's House

42. Jeremy's Dad's House Perhaps unsurprisingly, several unusual / rare installations existed within the boundary of Jeremy's dad's house, with the most visible being a 15 ft (4·572 m) Revo 'Moseley' cast iron column in the front garden, which supports a swan neck bracket and a restored two-way ESLA Bi-Multi lantern, for 100 W GLS (incandescent tungsten filament) lamps. A little further along the driveway, mounted on the garage, is an ELECO HW-747, running a 26 Watt SOX-E (low pressure sodium - economy) lamp, although the HW-747 was designed to run much older low pressure sodium lamp types - namely, the 45 - 60 Watt SO/H / SOI/H types, before these were superseded by the SOX lamp in the 1960s. There is also, at the other end of the garage, a much newer Philips MI 26 that, although designed for running a 35 Watt SOX lamp, Jeremy converted it to take an 18 Watt SOX-E lamp instead - Philips did produce such an option but only by special request.

The ESLA is covered first; Jeremy provided the following information to give some historical background to the lantern:

"My Dad has had this ESLA lantern in storage since 1983 and always intended to get it put up on a column. It came from Cambridge Street in Spondon, where it was opposite my Gran's House (No. 41) where my Dad grew up. The glass in the lantern is all original except the few pieces in front of and behind the bulb, immediately adjacent to the bulb holder which had disappeared altogether. We decided to keep the original glass as some of this (to the right of the bulb) was smashed by my Dad - as a boy of 8/9 years old; with his catapult. The bulbs in the street lamps were great targets for boys with catapults back then (early to mid-1940s); as were nearby insulators and wires on the pylons."

"My Dad (and his friend Roy) grew up 'under' this street lamp and had known it all their lives. The broken glass was retained as it is part of the lamp's, and my Dad's, history and childhood."

"Originally there were only three street lamps on each 'leg' of Cambridge Street - one in the middle and one at each end (this was generally the rule-of-thumb for street lighting in Derby on all streets). On Cambridge Street, these consisted of ESLAs and a couple of 'Bow' Fittings, as they were known (Revo 'Spondon' Post-Top or 'Crown'-type lanterns)."

"Around 1950/1955 additional lamps were added in the form of Wardle Murrays on slim (Stanton 10F) concrete columns, all running the same, standard for Derby, large 'Derby 100' 100 Watt lamps."

"The ESLA was mounted on an identical Revo 'Moseley' column and identical bracket to the one it is now (the original bracket had corroded right-through and wasn't serviceable) and the original column stayed in service until 2003 and we didn't manage to get it. However, we went to some trouble to get identical ones to the originals. The elbow/finial above the lantern is the original one."

"The lamp post was one of the originals from when Cambridge Street was built, which dates the ESLA lantern to about 1929/1930."

"The base compartment is obviously not completely original as it houses a 13 A socket outlet for mowing / hedge trimming etc, but my Dad was not too concerned about this and he needed the socket outlet for obvious practical reasons (previously several extension leads had to be strung together due to the length of the drive)."

"In 1983 all of the tungsten lanterns were removed from Cambridge Street and replaced with Beta 5s (and brackets where necessary). My Gran managed to get the ESLA, and its rusted-through bracket, from the workmen in exchange for rock cakes and tea! It's been in 'storage' ever since and my Dad has always been promising that one day, we'll get it up and lit.

Also I should point out that almost all of the work has been done by my Dad himself - including the painting and digging the trench and holes and laying the cable. His friend and 'handyman', Ernie, assisted with the digging and erecting the column, and his friend Roy provided a brand new oak backboard, identical to the original Revo one."

This version sees the lamp control gear, installed remotely, as is the Royce Thompson P42 two-part photocell detector.

The gear is located just behind the lantern; the wiring being an absolute work of art. 'Sooty' is a cat, by the way - he used to sleep on the previous ballast as it reached a comfortable temperature when on!

The MI 26 is attached to a more conventional wall bracket. It was after seeing this example that I asked Jeremy whether he would be able to produce such a lantern for me, which he did, subsequently.

Very sadly, Jack Skertchly died on the 20th May 2026, aged 93 years. The obituary can be read here.