If your job involves caring for chandeliers, one of the hazards is repeatedly being reminded of the classic scene from Only Fools and Horses when the hapless Trotters smash one in spectacular fashion.
Conservators cleaning the chandeliers at the Bath Assembly Rooms have heard the jokes so often that they have imposed a “tax” on any visitor who reminds them of the moment – or admits to thinking about it.
In the 1982 episode A Touch of Glass, Del Boy and Rodney are braced to catch a chandelier only to find Grandad has released the wrong fastening, sending a different one down the hallway hurtling to the floor.
Anyone repeating Grandad’s line “One more turn Del!” or Del Boy’s “Brace yourself Rodney, brace yourself” just before disaster strikes is being encouraged to pay a voluntary donation to the chandeliers’ conservation.
“We hear it all the time so we’ve set up a tap-to-donate point where they can make a payment towards our work,” said Alana Wright, the experience and visitor manager for the assembly rooms, once frequented by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. “We have suggested that if they are even thinking about the comedy scene, they should donate something to help look after the chandeliers.”
It is intended as a “bit of fun” but has a serious side. The National Trust spends £4,000 a year to look after the assembly room chandeliers and soon they will be undergoing an expensive full conservation including rewiring.
There are 10 chandeliers in the rooms dating back 250 years. Originally they would have been used with tallow candles before they were converted to gas lighting in the Victorian era. They are now electric.
Across the trust there are more than 600 chandeliers and the visitor “tax” is to be extended to those country homes when cleaning takes place.
The largest example at the assembly rooms is in the Great Octagon Room, weighing more than 200kg (440lb) and 3 metres (10ft) tall.
During the second world war when Bath was targeted in the Nazi Baedeker raids against cities of cultural and historical significance, the chandeliers were removed and hidden in a local stone quarry.
Unlike in Only Fools and Horses, where the Trotters plan to catch the chandelier in a sheet, the trust has a winch system to lower them slowly and carefully to floor level for cleaning.