Exhibition update

VacuumLand – Vintage & Modern Vacuum Enthusiasts

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A twist in the tale...

Well, this was supposed to have been the last day of the exhibition, and right now, I would have been mentally preparing for numerous journeys to and from the gallery tomorrow to dismantle and collect 25 vacs, but plans have changed!

Following the article which appeared in The Sun last Monday, a number of other news outlets picked up on the story. Most significantly, on Thursday, an item on the exhibition was broadcast on ITN's London Tonight news programme. I also did a live interview with BBC Radio Sussex (over the phone in my kitchen!!).

In the light of all this publicity on a national level, the gallery requested to extend the exhibition for a further two weeks. Although I was looking forward to all this being over, I agreed - it seems silly to take everything down now, just as word is beginning to spread!

So it looks like I have a further two weeks to get through before I can get all my stuff back! I'm delighted the public and media have been so receptive, though!
 
Nice

I can't even get family and friends to look at my vacs here in the US. Let alone an entire town or country. LOL

I admire how you continually move forward with your message and ultimately do get the recognition and celebration for your collection that you deserve.

I predict that collecting vintage hoovers is going to be the hot new trend there. Keep it up.

Chris
 
Thanks Chris - we're now approaching the exhibition's last week (unless they suggest a further extension!), but the whole thing has been worthwhile and fun to do.

I have a couple of other media things lined up, so there's still some mileage in the show yet!
 
Congratulations, Jack, on a fine exhibition, and on all the exposure; you deserve it. Quite a bit of good fortune getting the 800, too.

Bob
 
Thank you, Bob and Kenny - I'm not quite sure how you'd be able to watch the ITN clip, I think it's gone from the website now, and in any case, it's probably set so it can't be viewed outside the UK :(

Here's an article on the exhibition extension - I think it's one of the nicest so far. Amazing how long they can string out the whole 'sucking' pun, though...

2-6-2010-18-03-17--VintageHoover.jpg
 
Jack....I had no idea you had a fear of vacuums as a toddler

So did I!

I used to run screaming into my bedroom whenever Mom took out our turquoise Eureka upright circa 1963 (Model 250 I think). This vac has a motor-head that looks like a face! The chrome headlight frame looks like it has an eyebrow, and the port to insert the attachment hose looks like a nose.....

Anyhow, Mom also tried to rid me of my fears: One day she positioned the vac in the hall outside my bedroom door, left it upright and opened the door to show me that it would not hurt me. Well, little did she know that even the Eureka advertisements at the time touted the fact that the vac "walks by itself"! So she turned it on, and it began moving towards me! All by itself! That was it for me....never trusted Mom ever again!

Not quite sure how the turnaround from "evil monster enemy" to beloved play toy happened, but withing a few years I was in love with the attachments and pretending I was cleaning with them with joy...

Any others have memories of being frightened at first by what became their "object of affection"?
 
Hi Bob - as you might expect, the journalists have simplified everything slightly! I'll elaborate.

After I was born, my mum went back to work - she had a very nice job working at Debenhams as senior buyer for the textiles department. This involved a lot of travel to places like Jerusalem and Portugal, where mill-owners would try and convince her to put in orders for their towels and linens for her department.

Meanwhile, I was left to be looked after by my dad, and during the day, by my grandma. It was while I was at my grandma's house where the fascination started.

A couple of times each week, she'd vacuum with her Hoover Senior Ranger (a cleaner made iconic by the Shake N Vac carpet powder ad!). I was suspicious of the large, loud cleaner with a headlight on the front - the slow build-up to full speed after she switched it on sounded like it would get louder and louder until it exploded! I didn't like being near it.

The thing that really scared me, though, was the noise it made when the beater-bars clattered against the raised metal strip which holds two sections of carpet together underneath doors. It was a really loud, intense and sudden noise, and it always terrified me!

This presented a problem for my grandma - she needed to get on with her daily domestic tasks, while faced with the problem of supervising a very young child who wouldn't stay in the same room as the vacuum cleaner! She didn't get annoyed, or tell me I was stupid to be afraid - she tackled the issue in the best way possible: she explained the cleaner to me.

Hoisting the Hoover onto its front, so I could see the underside, she unlatched the soleplate, and explained: 'This is the brush-roll, which beats and sweeps the carpet. This is the belt, which drives the brush-roll. This is the fan, which sucks up the dirt.'

She showed me that when the cleaner made that clattering noise: it was just the beater bars hitting the carpet-strip. Nothing scary about that!

And as a child with a questioning mind, fascinated with mechanical and electrical devices, I was transfixed. What made the fan go round? What was underneath the hood of the cleaner? Why did we plug the cleaner into the wall-socket to make it run? Why was there a light on the front?

This lead to more general questions: Why do some vacuums look different to others? Why do we use them, anyway? Why do really old cleaners look so different - why have they changed so much over the years?

And really, that’s the whole story – somewhere along the way I accumulated over 100 cleaners, and as a Design and Technology student at school and college, I learnt to assess appliance design from an appliance designer’s point of view. But at heart, I’m probably still the same fascinated toddler, filled with wonder at the magic of ‘cleaning by electricity’!

2-7-2010-06-32-55--VintageHoover.jpg
 
Lol, apologies - that last post should have been addressed to Brian! The story is the important bit - it's one I've been explaining a lot over the last three months!
 
Even though the post was addressed to the wrong person, its still a good story. :)

The only difference with me is that nobody bothered to explain or support my fascination with vacuums; they probably just tolerated it.
 
Jack,I knew you had a fear of vacuums as a toddler

I had read that some time ago, Brian &Jack.I too had the same fear,I think it was more the noise or that the (in my case) little elephant with the long nose was going to eat me.We had canisters,the GE swivel tops at grams and aunts. When we (mom/dad/me)moved into our house, Dad took me to the store,right to the vacuums and made me feel the suction to show I wouldn't get "sucked up". Then he sat me on it and rolled it around then turned it on, when I wasn't scared of it anymore I to wanted to know how it worked. So at the age of 5 I took my aunts Hoover Convertible(Senior) apart. She was out of town but my cousin was there and she panicked thinking it would never work.I put it bac together but I just couldnt stretch the belt back on. Her husband did it and she made him plug it in to see if it worked. I was always taking something apart lol. As soon as I could get hold of a screw driver that was it for anything, toys appliances,phones etc...
My moms side of the family is/was machinicly incline and tought me alot. My aunt was an electrician whom I would call if I needed wiring assistance.
Anyway its funny to think that one of our fears became a passion.
~K
 
I'm still scared...

Even to this day, there's still some of them that scare me..

As a kid, the older upright models, in particular, like the Hoover 370 were scary.

I used to sometimes put the machine in a different room to where I got somebody else to plug it in, in case it blew up!
 
Hey no problem Jack....lovely story.....

and such a cute photo of you as a young vac-fan.....

When I finally converted my fear into fascination, I remember that all I wanted was one those toy Suzy Home-maker vacuums as a birthday gift - but I was terrified to ask for one. My father had already shamed me about this severely at a very young age when he found me pretending I was cleaning with the attachments of our old brown GE Airflo.....I used to have to hide my collection of vacuum cleaner advertisements that I was collecting in secret...so sad. :(

Eurekaprince Brian
 
I remember as a very young child at nursery being petrified of a Nilco 575 cleaner. The staff would start cleaning up and chase me round with it going "hoover, hoover" I would run off crying into the toilets. It was very noisy and scared me!

Then at about 6 yrs old I was found in my bedroom taking my mums relatively new Electrolux apart... this was the one with the buckle clip that held the bag lig on. I had it in pieces all over the floor and there was grease all over the carpet.

I couldnt get it back together my dad had to do it. This fascination moved onto other electrical appliances with moving parts, such as VCR's washing machines.

I would often sabotage them or block them up just to see my dad take it apart and repair it so I could "investigate" the innards!
 
I had one like that!

I had one of those in for repair but there was an open circuit fault on the motor unit.

I priced up the motor for the customer but it was over £100 at the time, which he didn't want to pay, so he gave me the machine..then, one day, I had to make some more room and it got thrown out..

Stephen
 
Great exhibition Jack

Hi Jack.
I popped into the Lightbox last weekend to catch your exhibition. Excellent! Our taste's in Hoovers are almost identical. It looks like my collection with a few exceptions!
Very nice.
The best thing for me was the 925. It's the first time I have seen a 925, although I do have a 925 hood.
Nice to see you have found a model 800 with brass badge AND manual. Please can you scan it. I'd love to see it.
Soon I will be in a position to put up pics of my 800s.

Best wishes, Jonathan
 
Did you vacuum out the car first?

Even your transport layout and arrangement are static ART!

With a few cross-ways padded span boards there's room for a few more layers, Jack...
Looks like a Dream Thrift Trip. LOL

Dave
 
Jack I am so glad that your treasures are going to be back home safe and sound. You have to be very proud of how well the show went!

Terry
 
A lesson in order and neatness!

I have to admire the way that you carefully lay out those Hoovers Jack!

As for the back of my own car, oh dear..

When I went to Graeme's in Newcastle at the end of 2008 I managed to get 23 vacuums in the back of my Cavalier! ..but I do have to be careful not to scratch the badges or cause any other damage when I attempt to pile in so much..

Stephen
 
Jonathan – why didn’t you tell me you were thinking of coming - I would have been happy to have met you at the gallery and given you a tour!

Only about a quarter of my entire collection was on display, but as you will have seen, there wouldn’t have been room for anything else without making it look too cluttered. I would have loved to have had all the pre-war models lined up in sequence, so people could follow the evolution from one model to the next, but I had to be ruthless!

Did you have a chance to look round the rest of the gallery?

Dave and Stephen - thanks! I wouldn't contemplate transporting my vacs any other way! I'm happy to report everything survived the exhibition - and travel at both ends - unscathed; nothing scratched, scuffed, torn or missing!

It took all morning to get everything dismantled and driven home, then most of the afternoon to get it put back where it should be. I was exhausted by the end of it, but it's good to feel it's all over now, and everything's safely tucked away where it belongs.

Pete – oh, I manage...the yoga helps!

Terry – thank you, I guess I am proud of everything. I’m delighted the public embraced the unconventional subject matter so enthusiastically! Getting to meet so many people and talking to them about their memories and experiences was probably the best thing about the whole show. No time to grow complacent, though - on to the next project!
 
Chelsea Lately

There's a show on E! Entertainment that comedienne Chelsea Handler hosts, out of Los Angeles. One of her male guests toward the end this morning mentioned the Vacuum Cleaner Museum in England, "It sucks"! was his hysterically funny (not) take on it. The reason I bring this up is simply because they mentioned the museum. Maybe somebody could help dig up a clip. The show is mostly quite funny, except when they rip on Susan Boyle.
 

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