One of Simon Cornwell's latest updates has quite possibly solved a thirty-year mystery for me!
In the 1970s, the B roads around Frinton on Sea, Walton On The Naze and the surrounding villages (Kirby Cross, Lower Kirby, Kirby Le Soken) all used to be lit with the same group B side-entry mercury lanterns on concrete 'hockey stick' columns. The energy crisis of the 1970s
saw every single one replaced with an impression B Thorn Beta 5 by the end of that decade. I was about five years old at the time (clearly years before I bought my first camera!) so I only had an image in my head to remember them by.
In the 1990s I then saw - rather by chance - an installation of Thorn Beta Threes in Chelmsford and realised they were almost identical to the lights I had last seen aged five in the 1970s. Although I had no idea what they were, I concluded that these were the lights I remember, grabbed a photo of them, and thought nothing more of it.
Fast forward another decade and when the internet and UKASTLE came along, it meant I thought I could conclusively identify the lantern as the Beta Three, thanks to the many fabulous enthusiasts' web sites that exist, but you could imagine my disappointment when I further discovered the Beta Three never had a mercury option!
Fast forward again to Monday, and Simon's update for the Phosco P149 lantern was of great interest to me. Compare
Tim Luckett's photo of a Thorn Beta Three to
the picture in Simon's update for the Phosco P149. I think they are so similar that I now believe the Phosco P149 is the lantern I remember. Furthermore, if Frinton's prom is lit with P109s, almost every street inside Frinton's (now removed) famous crossing gates is lit with P111s, the less posh area outside the gates has P178s and the nearby parishes got P100s on pole brackets, then it makes sense the P149 would have been my mystery lantern.