TM came out!

Padman;

Is that Ken harris right below the Duke?????

Yo

& Good Fortune;

Ed Valentine

Harry,

Give us a little history on that Willy Wonka type machine.

Ted, The first appearance of vacuum cleaners was in London AND you will note truck-mounted.

 The picture you asked about was a later WWII version.

 1901, an inventor named H. Cecil Booth built a formidable vacuum cleaner powered by an engine and featuring a piston pump.  Like its' forerunner, it was cart-mounted and was pulled through the streets of his native London and would power a 100 foot vac hose
 
One of Booth's customers was Queen Victoria, who would have the large machine brought to the palace to clean the floors, much to the entertainment of her guests.
 
Later, Booth's machine was given credit for ending a "Plague" in the Royal Naval barracks.  it was realised that dust and dirt harboured germs and after the vacuum cleaner had removed many cartloads of dirt from billets, the plague ended.
 
News of this 'miracle cure' quickly spread, and people throughout the industrialised world began to build vacuum cleaners.
 
One such inspired inventor was an American caretaker named Spangler, who was allergic to dust. He build a much smaller, electric version of Booth's machine.  In 1907 he had built  his version from a wooden box housing a fan motor, a broom handle and a pillow case as a dust bag.
 
It worked so well that he decided to go for an easier life and began to sell his invention door to door.  One of his satisfied customers, a Mrs Hoover was married to  amanufacturer who quickly realised the potential of the product and bought the rights to the invention.
 
The Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Company started production in 1908 and soon became a household name. The basics of the upright vacuum cleaner have altered very little to this day.