Lifts

stickywicket

Or, as our American cousins would say – elevators. I am old enough to remember a time when they came with two ironwork doors and an operator. Now, like many other things, they're DIY (when working).

I'm reminded of lifts because today started with a visit to the orthotist in our local hospital. The disembodied voice there is wonderfully old school. He sounds like a BBC announcer from the thirties or forties with his deep bass, 'cut-glass' accent. On arrival, when he announces 'Lower ground floor', I always want to say “Jolly good show, old bean. Chocks away now.”

How about yours?

theresak

We frequently visit a lovely old hotel not far from Aviemore, which until December last year had its original Victorian lift, with the metal grill you used to pull across. I had absolutely no confidence in it, as it shuddered and gasped its way up and down. We had an e-mail from the manager at New Year advising us a new lift is being fitted - reassuring in some ways, of course, but a chunk of history going missing.

The lift in one of the car-parks in Durham is quite amusing, as if you get in at the top level - street & shops - it announces "Doors closing, going up." There are no more higher levels!

Kitty

When I was 16 (about 1,000 years ago) I started a job as an office junior for a large, local pharmaceutical firm. One of my jobs was to go to the top floor canteen and collect a double level trolley with two large urns, one filled with coffee and the other with hot milk. Plates of biscuits, sugar, cups and saucers etc. and take it down the the ground floor conference room in the rickety old lift which had a metal grille as well as doors. Thank goodness there was an attendant, because getting that trolley through those doors was difficult enough for the two of us. I'd have never have managed it alone. I was 5 foot exactly and weighed about 7 stone.

After I'd served everyone in the conference, I left. Then went back later after everyone had gone, helped myself to what was left of the coffee and biscuits, then take the trolley back up in that dreaded lift again. :roll:

dreamdaisy

Many moons ago we rented a seafront flat in Brighton, which was situated on the third (top) floor. The lift was minute, so small that we had to go separately when we arrived (me with my bags, then him with his) but it was a lovely squash when we could share it!

Our local M&S has had their lifts refitted and they are delightful: smooth, silent in transit, with a Charlotte Green 'soundalike' announcing what's what.

I love the 'phone system at my GPs. The first voice (male) would fit in very nicely with the cast of Eastenders but the female voice who announces how many callers are before my call has the classic upper-class enunciation, chilly and precise: there are three callers ahead of yew. DD

stickywicket

I think my all-time favourite (though a literary rather than a real one) was the one in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series which had vertigo and tried to persuade users that the ground floor was lovely.

applerose

I was in one a few months ago. There was just about room for 3 of us. It had one of those metal grilles to pull across. There were no walls to the actual lift, only the walls outside the lift, so we had to be careful not to touch the sides. :shock:

barbara12

All ours say is doors opening ...doors clothing... :roll: but when we visit Llandudno in North wales there is a store with one of the old lift in, it is Victorian, and I make sure I go in just to experience how life used to be ..sadly they are saying it has to be removed health and safety :roll: ..at the min they are getting round it by sending someone up or down with you...brilliant

theresak

The most terrifying lift I`ve been in was in Paris. We`d rented an apartment in the Marais, where the buildings are tall and very old. We thought we were lucky to find one that actually had a lift, as we were on the second floor. Unfortunately, it was very, very dark, and very tiny, but the alternative was up a narrow, steep and spiral staircase. I refused to go in it alone, so we used to go up and down clutched together, as it was so cramped. We also learned, just before we left for home, that it was prone to breaking down. Never again!