I started chemistry with a boxed set in 1962. In those days they contained serious amounts of chemicals, but I very soon ran out of most of them. Two discoveries turned what might have been a typical discarded christmas present into a lifelong career and hobby.
The first was 60 Stoke Newington High Street in north London, the home of Albert N. Beck, Chemist (or his son; my information comes from a historical listing of the shops present on the high street in 1921). I would set out from our home in London SW6 on the #73 bus route (top deck) and it would take about an hour to arrive. On entering the shop, I ventured down a set of stairs into the basement to replenish the chemicals with sensible stocks, and purchase the odd glassware, filter paper, etc. And then venture back across London carrying the proceeds of many weeks, possibly months worth of hoarded pocket-money (apart that is from 1 shilling every two weeks which I reserved for football at Craven Cottage). At some stage, health and safety legislated against 12-year-old boys (and certainly also girls) purchasing chemicals in this manner! However, I can assure you all that I never came to any harm with anything I purchased at A. N. Beck and Sons. Apart that is from giving my parents a good fright.
The second was coming across this book by A. J. Mee. I had thought it was well and truly lost; imagine my delight when I recently found it at home, complete with chemical stains, and dated as from a reprint in 1959.
The pages of this book list 289 experiments, and I assiduously recorded a tick against all the ones I actually did. This is a typical page (click to expand).
Lost unfortunately is the laboratory book where I recorded my results, but one or two samples still exist!
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What a wonderful memory Henry. I was just boring my wife with a story of long bus journeys to A N Beck to stock up with test tubes and concentrated sulphuric acid for my experiments in grandma's garden shed in the early 60's. She was doubtful a 12 year old could do that over the counter so I googled AN Beck Chemists. Lo and behold, your blog telling almost the identical story!
Sadly I failed to be inspired to the same extent as you, Henry, going on to be an economist, then corporate treasurer, then headhunter. Thank you for taking a more useful path.
I will add a further fond memory as a 12 year old of travelling across London by bus carrying odoriferous objects. One of my friends at the time had a father who was a greengrocer. On one occasion, he provided both of us with a very large sack of expired vegetables (might in fact have been cabbages, which have a lovely "aroma" when no longer "fresh"), and off we went on our own on the first London bus of the day to Regent's Park Zoo, arriving around 06.00. We were allowed in via a side door by the keepers (without paying), and had the place largely to ourselves. I cannot remember the animals we were allowed to feed the cabbages to, but it might have been giraffes and elephants? Then back home, well before the zoo opened to paying customers.
I was however clearly more smitten by chemicals than by animals. And, like the purchase of chemicals, I doubt 12 year olds are allowed into London Zoo at 06.00 to feed the animals any more.
Reading all the posts which started with that of Henry Rzepa. I purchased much equipment from Beck which came by post.This would have been in the late fifties. My lab was the kitchen in my parents flat in Sutton, Surrey. I now live in the south of Spain. In Sutton there was a chemist who also sold apparatus and chemicals. I would go in with my list. He would say that Shurmer, you are having arsenic, or cyanide or any these dangerous ácidas!! Happy days indeed over 55 years on ...
It seems to me that one of the principal learning benefits of home chemistry in the 1950s and 1960s was not only the excitement but the engagement and management of risk. I have to say that I am not aware of any serious incidents nor even fatalities from those days
Indeed so, "risk management" (the term is a recent one) was engrained in childhood in those days. Another phrase might be "street wise", since most children spent much of their non-school time on the streets, in my case some also in tree houses on the banks of the river Thames and in our cases, the rest of it in our "laboratory".
I certainly had several fires at home, none serious, and it taught one to remain calm and deal with them, since no-one else would.
My chemistry set, augmented by supplies from A and N Beck, was what led me to science. I'm a mathematician now (that's what happens to scientists whose experiments don't work) but really I'm a closet chemist.
I include here maps of the area of the shop; the nearest station is Stoke Newington and as I recollect it is down the high street (A10) from there.
Note also Abney Park, one of London's historic cemeteries. It is wonderfully overgrown, with an abandoned chapel at its centre, and many famous victorians buried there.
Likewise, I remember going to AN Beck, in my case by buses from Upton Park, first with my dad and then on a couple of occasions on my own. I was 12-14 (1958-60).
I remember it, there was a down stairs as I recall, and retorts I think they were call, I use to buy sulfur there :)
As a teenager in the north of England during the mid-1960s, I used to order chemicals and equipment from Beck's which were always reasonably priced and promptly delivered. They had a way of making clever substitutions when they didn't have quite what you had ordered, rather like supermarkets do today with their online shopping services.
I also went to a local chemist in the town where I lived, who would supply me with practically anything, including concentrated acids, potassium chlorate (for making fireworks!) and quantities of mercury which I wanted for some electrochemistry experiments.
The expertise I gained in handling these materials and, as has been noted here, the 'risk management' learnt along the way were invaluable when I started teaching Chemistry (which I'm still doing after 42 years).