I had to do a little work in the morning, so little was done apart from coffee and toast.
When Hostess invited me to stay a few nights, it was agreed that she would find fun things for us to do, a challenge she seems to have whole-heartedly accepted.
The day started with breakfast, which was normal fare of coffee and toast except that the toast was made using Hostess’ magnificent 1920s electric toaster, which she had restored and which works beautifully.
After a sumptuous home-made lunch, I was whisked to the Zeitreise Strom in Recklinghausen where we spent a good couple of hours looking at things and marvelling at how things we both remember from our childhood should now find themselves in a museum. From massive steam generators to a Motorola StarTAC (I really wanted one of those in the day but they were silly expensive) there were exhibits of every size, including a functioning game of Tetris, some (potentially) shocking metal electric cooking utensils, a Formula E Mark II Golf, and even a portable seven inch record player, or what the Jungen now call a vinyl reader.
How the staff downstairs must have laughed as we discovered that the ‘vintage’ rotary phones were connected to each other. We telephoned each other from our respective sides of the table and cautiously uttered “Hallo?” as if we’d never seen one before. There is something truly glorious in the sound of a dial being turned and then homing itself. In a sign that we are all getting older, both of us found ourselves uttering the age-revealing mantra of the nearly-dead, “Oooh, I used to have one of these.”
In fact, in the case of the toaster, she was even able to say “I have one of those.”
Of particular interest for people who like sitting on trains was a restored electric railcar with wooden seats, and controls that could be played with.
The floor has been removed and replaced with glass so you could see the workings underneath which were illuminated when you walked above them. We sat in that for a while soaking in old, then perused the posters and enamel prints of women who had seemingly dressed up to use their AEG Vampyr or who were now able to spend more time with their children now they’d started cooking using electricity.
It was a joyously fascinating couple of hours that recalled a time when electricity was a novelty. Some of the kitchen utensils in particular must have had the potential to leave people wide-eyed at the time, either through use or misuse.
The Recklinghausen-Süd substation was built between 1927 and 1928 at the expense of more than two million red bricks. Designed by the “Baubureau der Vereinigte Elektrizitätswerke Westfalen”, it housed the equipment to control and distribute 110,000 volts around the region and protect the equipment inside from the elements. As well as admirably stopping things from going fzzt-bang, its design adhered to the stipulation at the time that its construction should contribute “…in its overall effect to improving the cityscape.”
Decommissioned in the eighties, it escaped demolition and now houses Das Deutsche Elektrizitätsmuseum which every child, big or small, absolutely needs to see.
Our next point of call, the The Henrichenburg Shiplift, was closed so will be explored next time. Nonetheless, our journey home was enjoyable and we had extensive opportunities to view some of North Rhine-Westphalia’s finest traffic lights.
In the evening, I learned that I’ve forgotten how to play Backgammon but was consoled by a bottle (or two) of the local beer.
