Casgliadau Arlein

Pontardawe Rural District Council Electricty Department lorry with a group of workmen at a building site. It is a post-war model with clean nearly-new signwriting. Of the 14 men, at least two wear ex-army battledress, which was commonplace for outdoor manual workers in the immediate post-war period when clothing continued to be rationed but men had brought their army clothing home with them won being demobbed.

The photograph was taken at a building site – a newly completed house is in the background, so presumably they were engaged in bringing electricity to an early post-war housing development. The house has tubular steel scaffolding – this was introduced to mainstream construction in the Uk during the second world war, replacing traditional timber scaffolding.

The photograph falls into a very short time frame: sufficiently post-war that commercial lorry production had resumed for the civilian market, but prior to the Electricty Act of 13 August 1947 coming into force on 1 April 1948. The hand written annotation ‘1947’ thus seems confirmed. The trees in the background are bare of leaves so the photo must have been taken in either winter 1947/47, or winter 1947/48. Whether a local electritiy undertaking would have paid to have a new vehicle elaborately signwritten after passing of the Act and immediately prior to nationalisation muct be doubted, so a date of early 1947 rather than late 1947 seems much the more likely.