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The Hazards of Electricity
You may have read in the press that many local events like our Village Green Party (VGP) have been cancelled by their organisers as a result of the flood of regulations pouring out of Brussels and Whitehall. This may be only a British problem, however: we have a house in France, and the jollifications there on Bastille Night and at the various village fetes (of which there are many) seem to continue unabated. The VGP is classed as public entertainment (we hope you enjoyed it) and therefore, apart from the problem of insurance, it needs an ENTERTAINMENT LICENCE. This is issued by the South Bucks District Council, and whilst attempting to obtain it this year, our Chairman was told she had to provide a test certificate for the cable and sockets used to provide electricity for the band's equipment, and for the lights. In previous years these have been generously provided by Mr Bob Hanbury, and consisted of a huge (3 feet in diameter) rotating reel containing the wire, with a double socket on the end, and a very large yellow floodlight, which looked as if it could have done duty as a searchlight in the last war. Mr Hanbury confirmed (not surprisingly) that he did not have a certificate of electrical safety for these. We therefore rang around various contractors (some of whom would have been very expensive) to see if we could obtain one. We eventually found one who would come out to inspect the lights for a reasonable fee (£30).
The inspecting electrician, who turned out to be a very large black gentleman, who took one look at our venerable equipment and pursed his lips. He explained that in order to be deemed worthy of the certificate, each individual part of the equipment had to have a resistance on the earth wire of less than 1 ohm. He then found that the 30 metres of cable or so on the reel had a resistance of around 3 ohms. I said I did not see how a cable of that length could have such a low figure. He responded, 'Well, if it were split into smaller lengths, and each bit was less than 1 ohm, that would be all right.' There was a pause, after which he realised the illogicality of that statement and said well, maybe cable was different, but certainly the light had to be less than 1 ohm. He applied one probe to the side of the light (where the paint had come off), and one to the plug but found it well over the minimum figure.
At this stage, I realised we were going to have to find an alternative, so I thanked him and paid him his fee. He then produced a wad of yellow stickers with 'FAILED' in big red letters, and asked me if I would like him to stick these on the lights and the cable. I said I did not think Mr Hanbury would like that...
We hired lights and cable from an approved company for the party, and will use some of the surplus from the proceeds of the evening to buy some of our own.
John Hanford