British Twintub Washing Machines 1959 - 1990

[rolls_rapide]

'Bless This House'

Series 1, Episode 9: 'Make Love, Not War' (regarding rows and arguments between husband and wife).

Trevor and Betty have a slant-front Hoover 'Keymatic'... with what appears to be the circular programme progress indicator, so it must be Model 3226.

There's a canister of 'Vim' and possibly a packet of soap powder sitting on the machine too.

 

[keymatic3203]

the 3226

has the most discreet plumbing, or could we hope the set designers to have put the tap adaptors on the sink taps I wonder.

A lovely Servis Austin, I've got the all cream model.

Mathew

 

[keymatic]

Hey Austin,
Great Servis Mk1 there, always liked to Sky Blue out of all the Servis colours here’s mine in the same blue but cream base colour option.
Cheers
Keith

 

[matchboxpaul]

Hi Austin.

Congratulations on the Mk27 supertwin in blue! What a fetching shade of blue it is too and looks in great condition.

Excellent that there is a representative of both white/blue and cream/blue in preservation.

Keith .... is your example a Mk27 as well, or might it be an earlier Mk19 example?

Still trying to discover whether Servis did both Mk19 and Mk27 Supertwins in all the colourways, or whether some colours were only available with a particular model number. So far for definite we have:

Mk19 in red
Mk27 in blue
Mk27 in green

Paul

 

[rolls_rapide]

Bless This House

Series 2, Episode 2: 'Love Me, Love My Tree'

As previously mentioned, Sid and Jean gained an Indesit automatic (for one episode only), but more to the point, Trevor and Betty lost the Hoover Keymatic, and gained an early Hoovermatic twintub.

Visible at the back of Trevor. One dial, it looks like photo 2, (courtesy Trevor Howsam Ltd (Props)).

 

[matchboxpaul]

Hi all.

Apologies for the quality of the following images - all have been taken from newspaper adverts and might be of interest:

GEC Super De Luxe (based on the Philips Top Twin de luxe)
FLATLEY Twin Tub ('coming soon' for Christmas 1960 into 61 - this is the only mention I have found of such a machine - did it ever get released onto the market?)
REGENTONE Twin Tub (a rental company version of the Frigidaire Master Twin)
COTTO De Luxe
DUOMATIC Olympic
INSTAMATIC Turbo
TALLENT Twin Tub (the Rolls machines sold after Rolls went bankrupt)
RAYJON Select-o-matic
PYE twin tub
INSTAMATIC twin tub
GEC Space Saver
GAYDAY twin tub
ROLLS Electromatic MkII (as sold in Northern Ireland)
EKARMATC (a Bylock President clone)
DUOMATIC '49 Guineas' model

Hope everyone is doing well.
Regards
Paul

 

[keymatic]

Evening Paul,

Crumbs never knee half of them even existed - “Gayday” twin tub, luv it !! The only i have is the Pye twin tub, really just a Rolls.

Cheers
Keith

 

[anthony]

found these today

while looking for something on vacuums. Thought they might be interesting to someone

 

[anthony]

there's

The liberator in there somewhere and the levitating Burco boiler [never new it could do that]

 

[rolls_rapide]

Cotto Twin Tub

It appears that the Cotto machine was an independent exclusive, exclusive to Broadmead Group of Bristol, which was owned by John James, but traded as 'Broadmead' or possibly 'Broadmead Wireless' or 'Broadmead Radio'.

Broadmead Group was later taken over by Firth Cleveland Group.

A link to a fairly in-depth flickr article on John James:



https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Broadmead_Group

 

[ozzie908]

@Rolls-rapide

Hello Do you happen to know if the spin can on a Rolls 66 is threaded on the shaft? I have tried to remove it by pulling to no avail and wondered if it may be screwed on?

Thanks for any insight you can offer

Austin

 

[rolls_rapide]

Instamatic Twin Tub

Owen Owen was another department store, which later absorbed the department store 'Lewis's' (not to be confused with John Lewis Partnership).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Owen

 

[matchboxpaul]

Hi Keith.

Did you mean that you have a PYE twin tub in your collection? If so, any pictures of it possible?

I like 'Gayday' too! lol..

Paul

 

[matchboxpaul]

Thanks Anthony for posting the catalogue pages.

Thank goodness people have saved these and many are now available to purchase. I have bought a fair number on disk myself and they have proved to a real eye opener over the years, showing many vintage machines and some of them quite obscure too.

Where else would we have seen images of the Challenge twin tubs, if digital copies of the catalogues weren't available.
Great stuff!

Paul

 

[matchboxpaul]

Thanks Rolls_Rapide, for the links to the department store histories.

Just read up on John James, via the history on the flickr link - what a generous bloke he was.

Paul

 

[matchboxpaul]

Hi Austin.

Not wanting your question to be lost in all the posts - please see Austin's enquiry, in reply #289 and repeated below ....

'Hello Do you happen to know if the spin can on a Rolls 66 is threaded on the shaft? I have tried to remove it by pulling to no avail and wondered if it may be screwed on?

Thanks for any insight you can offer

Austin'

 

[rolls_rapide]

Rolls 'Electromatic MkII'

That must have been one of the ones affected by either wobbling all over the place in a very dangerous-looking way - due to the introduction of the spinner brake, or flooding the kitchen due to the emptying pump.

 

[rolls_rapide]

'Rolls 66'

I'm afraid I have no technical knowledge of these machines, other than it being one of the first successful Rolls machines.

Surely the likes of Chestermike and company would know? I think they've collectively managed to disassemble Rolls and Duomatic machines in the past.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Gayday twin tub

They couldn't have sold many of those, not with that advertising blurb:

"Twin tub, 3kW heater. Complete with heat resisting table top. No twin tub, 3kW heater. Tangle washing action."

Hmm.

 

[ozzie908]

@matchbox Paul

Thank you for bumping my question I will have to see what I can find out elsewhere as I need to get the spin can out to repair the seal and supports.

Thanks you Austin