UNORTHODOX BED WITHOUT CLOTHES

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5297, 9 January 1947, Page 7

UNORTHODOX BED WITHOUT CLOTHES

"BRITAIN CAN MAKE IT" IT IS STREAML1NED, ELECTRIC, AND AlR CONDITIONED It was during one of those hot I and sultry nights sometimes exI perienced in England's summers I that industrial designer J. C. Ashford had his idea for the world's j latest in beds. Twice he had pushI ed off the bedclothes because he I was too hot, only to wake an hour I later shivering with cold. j Once more leaning forward to pull the bedclothes over him he j reirtarked to his wife, "If only someone would design an airI conditioned bed we should not j have to worry about bedclothes." Sleepily she replied with complete I logic: "Why not you then?" and promptly went to sleep again. But Ashford remained awake £nd thought up his idea. Afterwards crowds flocked to LondonV'Britain Can Make It" Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum to see Ashfords "Design for Sleeping." Sometimes Ashford himself mingled with the crowds near his exhibit in order to discover what people said about it. At first he expected to hear laughter. He expected an early reaction to be: "Who would sleep in a thing liko that?" Instead, at least 50 per cent. of the people who saw it during the first weeks of the exhibition remarked: "What a good idea! When can we buy it?" Let us take a look at the bed. What is in its favour? What are the drawbacks? It is streamlined and looks rather like a child's perambulator and, although it can be made in a variety of materials, the suggested medium is aluminium. It has a lid near the pillow which can be closed during the dajr in order to exclude dust in the same way that a bedspread is pulled over an ordinary bed. There is a small motor which blows air through the mattress at a temperature which can be controlled by a thermostat. , Those- are the main features. But there are additional refinements in the shape of a bedside lamp witb switch, an electric clock, and a temperature gauge. There are two. circuits — one for winter and the other for summer. The summer eireuit is entirely dependent on bed heat. During* a very hot night no air is passed through the mattress at all until the temperature of the room begins to cool in the arly hours. An automatic gaug*e then stai*ts the farm air process until the bed reaches the appropriate heat when the motor is once more cut off. The motor is silent and will not disturb the lightest. sleeper when in action.

The top shee consists only of a piece of cloth covering the body fi*om the feet to the neck. This fastens to the frame by means of a zip and button? to a plastic apron which is necessary to retain the heat. The bottom sheet and the pillows are the same as in an ordinary bed. The hot air is passed through a central inlet under the mattress and the frame is so designed as to allow the air to circulate round the'foot and sides and thus to fill the bed. That is the new bed — simple in the extreme and completely efficieiit. It possesses advantages over the orthodox bed which are important. It requires little domestic effort to "make" it, it requires little in the way of sheets and nothing in the way of blankets, a most important detail in these days of shortage. And so its sponsors claim, it is • more healthy than the ordinary bed. "Beds have been unsatisfactory things for a long time," says Ashford. "I am not starting something new. This revolution has been impending for years. Look at all the novel ways by which people have kept beds warm in winter; it started with warming pans and then someone thought of hot water bottles. Electric warmers were the next step. Then came electric blankets, electric mattresses, and electric pillows. I have only gone o-ne step further. I have suggested dispensing altogether with bedclothes and sleeping unemcum!)ered in electrically heated air." The fii'st of Ashford's arguments is tliat you can sleep better without eight or ten pounds of bedclothes on your body.

You can relax better, he says, and your movements are free. Your laundry bills will be cut down enormously and the bed can be made almost in no time. You can sleep on the verandah in summer or in front of large open windows, thereby receiving* ther full benefit of fresh air without danger of catching chills. "Bedclothes provide a fuggy heat," Ashford told me. "My idea should be a godsend to rheumafics, whose cure is hindered by orthodox-type beds. And think of its potentialities in hospitals and schools, where the domestic servant problem is always serious. And think o-f its value in ships, where space is limited. For children's cots too, it will surely be most welcome." Disadvantages are most difficult to enumerate. It may be that people will not take easily to such a fundamental departurc from normal. And the fact that any break in the supply of current might have serious consequences on a winter's night will nc-t have escaped the people of Britain and other countries during the preseiit period of fuel stringency. But it is true that the advantages af the new bed largely outweig'h the disaidvantages. As it cost, it is beLieved that the new bed will be priced no higher than £50, which, over a Long period of use, would prove cheaper than the ordinary. .type.