I was just out of university and my new bride and I had moved to South Australia for my first full-time job. We lived from one payday to the next, with essentially no accumulated savings—hardly an unusual situation for newly-weds in the 1960s.
On mid-winter nights the uninsulated rental house was icy; we lusted after an electric blanket, but such items weren’t cheap then. Ever resourceful, I deemed my electrical engineering degree qualified me to make my own electric blanket. So I did.
Some suitably resistive iron wire from an army disposal store, a transformer salvaged from an old valve radio, a repurposed switch, an old blanket with some zig-zag stitching to attach the bare wire, and the job was done. Actually, it was a bit more complex, but let’s move on.
It sort-of worked. On maximum setting it got warm. Forget about the other two settings that turned out to be barely warm and totally useless. We enjoyed the warmth through the first winter and dined out on the tale of our DIY electric blanket.
Then Wendy’s parents came over from Victoria for a short visit. The electric blanket wasn’t the only DIY project I had embarked on, and I sensed that some of the home innovations I proudly showed our visitors didn’t get top marks. They felt their recently acquired son-in-law was more confident in his DIY activity than was warranted. Meanwhile, the ever-reliable electric blanket continued to deliver good service. Until it didn’t.
One night we were woken in the small hours by a strange crackling sound. ‘Must be something outside’, was my sleepy response to my wife’s question. Then smoke began to waft from beside the bed. The electric blanket had somehow short-circuited, the crackling was from sparks and the banket was now smouldering, threatening to incinerate us. Time for action: we sprang from our slumber, stripped the smoking device from the bed and I made a quick exit to dump it in the yard.
Unfortunately, or maybe not, I had to dash past the half-open door of the room where the in-laws slept. My after-midnight exit was spotted and next morning I faced questions as to what I was doing sprinting down the corridor at 2 AM, carrying something that left an acrid trail of smoke. Father-in-law was less than impressed with my explanation. Had I put his beloved daughter at mortal risk with my ill-considered electrical designs? Enough is enough, he decided. Later that day we received an unexpected present of a brand-new ‘Linda’ electric blanket.
Whenever we recount this sequence of events to new friends, I always counter the laughter by noting that, all things considered, it was a most successful project. My DIY credentials with the in-laws didn’t suffer terminally and the project delivered us a much-appreciated ‘real’ electric blanket.
Burnside Writers Group 