[emeritus]

Whe my Aunt's post-war council house , originally provided with 13A D&S sockets, was rewired in the 1970's, they used surface-mounted MI cables clipped to the plaster and surface-mounted BS 1363 13A sockets.



My 1950's Odhams "Radio Television and Electrical Repairs" shows how to install a new socket using TRS cable run down the wall to the skirting board and clipped to a plaster surface using strap-type clips, wooden capping being used where appearance was important. It mentions that saddle clips (metal staples with a pad of insulation) could be used on wooden surfaces. The electrician who checked and passed the wiring I had installed in our new extension, happened to mention that he was doing a job for someone where they wanted the cable to match the existing one that was surface- fixed using strap clips but he had been unable to find any, partly down to not knowing what they were called. As it turned out, the original lighting cable in the garage which I was replacing at the same time, had been attached by strap clips, so rather than just wrenching them off, I carefully removed and straightened them and gave them to him.

PS. Odhams initially only mentions 3A and 13A fuses. 7A seems to have been added by a later revision.