Gypsy Creams
Ewbank aren’t daft!
Woman's Realm / 18th March 1967
The humble carpet sweeper! I think my nan had one of these, but I’m not sure if it was a precursor to her vacuum cleaner, or in addition to it. Carpet sweepers pre-date vacuum cleaners, but there’s always been a small market for them, especially in the catering and hospitality industries, due to their ease of use and the fact that they’re a lot quieter than vacuum cleaners. You’ll be no doubt pleased to know that Ewbank are still going, and have been revitalised in recent years, diversifying into steam cleaners and cleaners to deal with allergies to such things as dust mites. There’s also an environmental argument in favour of them, given that the simpler models don’t use electricity. If I had carpets downstairs, I’d be tempted…
Tags: Ewbank, household, retail
Kif on 25 April 2011 @ 3pm
We had a Ewbank and a Hoover in the fifties. It’s only as an adult, in retrospect, years later that I grasped they have subtly different functions. I first came across Ewbanks in Gran’s house which only had electric light, not power. Irons were plugged into lights with sheer abandon. So I thought of Ewbanks as “hoovers for houses without electricity”. But when we got one my mother used the two options subtly and differently. Two tools for cleaning, each with a speciality. Also, the Ewbank didn’t scare the dog like the Hoover did. It was messier emptying it though – picking fluff off the rollers…
:-)