Re: Bakelite Dee Gee control units
You beat me to it!
My Dad who had an electrical shop in Gatley in the Fifties wouldn't have a directly connected electric blanket and insisted on a Windak unit instead. I still have one of the transformers. As you say, it had a four position rotary switch which, if I remember, was illuminated different colours depending on the setting. This was set in a gold coloured hammered finish steel case.
They continued manufacturing them well into the Seventies - possibly longer - as he was able to get a replacement blanket. Now the controller was in an ivory plastic case and had a variac-style continuously variable control. They could safely be left on all night (so they claimed) should you so wish.
ISTR seeing an identical late model transformer in a catalogue in the Sevenites, labelled DeeGee. I wonder if the firms merged?
Of course cost triumphed over safety where blankets were concerned.
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