Burglar Alarm Britain

“Rely-a-Bell” burglar alarm, Tower Hamlets • This week’s meme is bells, and where better to start than with the grandaddy of all bell-themed UK burglar alarms, the venerable Rely-a-Bell. Although they’re really old, there are still several dotted around in crumbling corners of the UK, mainly featuring the design below – what I think of as the “standard” design, as it’s the most common – which looks as if it dates from the late 1940s to early 1950s. The typography’s very English, in a Gill Sans type of font; it makes me think of the Hitchcock film Dial M for Murder, perhaps because of the old-style telephone exchange letters such as BIS or CEN often present (sadly not visible on this). Many people enjoy spotting Rely-a-Bells and posting them to Flickr, so I’ve created a couple of galleries there that gather them all together – it’s worth taking a look, there are some great photos and comments. The gallery called Rely-a-Bell: History shows variations in design from the 1920s–1960s, plus examples of the “standard” design from England and Scotland, where Glasgow hosts a few. The gallery called Rely-a-Bell: London features alarms with the design below documented in London. This one’s from the East End, where several still survive – perhaps because, according to a Flickr comment by sarflondondunc, the firm had a factory somewhere on the Kingsland Road in Hackney. • Spotted: Three Colts Lane, Tower Hamlets, London, E2, England, 2007 • Politics: In the Labour constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow