Dyson’s gadgets can make housework fun!
MAY 2, 1947
ANYONE who can make a spot of vacuuming and dusting enjoyable must be special.
So it has proved for Sir James Dyson, who turns 70 this week, and who can safely look back on his work and say he has changed our everyday lives.
Born in Cromer, Norfolk, James says he learned about determination from his longdistance running at school, and when added to his later studies in art, furniture and engineering, he turned himself into a formidable inventor and businessman.
One of his earliest inventions, a wheelbarrow using a ball instead of wheels, got him a starring role on the classic TV gadget-andgizmo show Tomorrow’s World.
If only they had known what he’d come up with in the years ahead, they’d have turned the entire show over to him.
Irritated at the way his ordinary vacuum cleaner lost suction power the more dirt it picked up, his mind turned to the cyclone method used in sawmills to collect wood chips and shavings.
Supported by his wife’s salary as an art teacher, he spent a good five years bashing out one prototype after another.
Finally arriving at the perfect machine, he found no one would back it because they didn’t want to affect traditional replacement dust bag sales.
This led to Dyson selling it via catalogues, with a launch in Japan.
Still struggling to get major manufacturers on board, he set up his own place in Wiltshire, proving he’s not a bloke to be easily swept under the carpet, pardon the pun.
After a decade of fine-tuning the original idea, Dyson was finally able to launch his amazing gadget, with the slogan “Say goodbye to the bag”.
The £100-million market in disposable bags – and that was in the UK alone – was now seriously
under threat and, for every person who loved his idea, there was another with their nose severely out of joint!
The Dyson Dual Cyclone became the fastest-selling UK-made vacuum cleaner ever.
In recent years, Dyson has also become the market leader in places such as the United States.
He didn’t, however, stop at cool space-age machines that collect dirt and dust off your floor.
Today, you can go in to the loo of fancy pubs and use the amazing Dyson taps, which spray water in the middle and drying air at the ends.
You can enjoy the Dyson Supersonic hairdryer to get your locks perfect in seconds, or keep your face cool in the summer with a Dyson fan.
In fact, you might say there are Dyson fans everywhere these days.
Apart from those replacement bag people that is . . .
His mind turned to the cyclone methods used in sawmills