There was no shortage of activity in the UK optical sector in the mid-1970s judging by this week’s Echoes of the Past.
Manufacturing setbacks, school eye examinations, NHS spectacle frames and tinted screens are among the issues of the day in a news in brief page from Optician in October 1975. The sale of private frames above and beyond NHS collections was a bone of contention for practitioners in Leicestershire. One comments: ‘Put crudely, if we all used NHS frames, opticians would go bust’.
For those sticking with the Department of Health, a look-book of NHS frames is available for just £1 including postage and packaging – not too far away from the cost of a first class stamp alone in today’s money.
Supply shortages of prescription products, meanwhile, were impacting optical practices and patients in Southampton this time forty years ago. While The Southern Evening Echo had not quite cleared up the issue it was hopeful of a resumption in supply by Christmas.
Meanwhile, the vision of school children of the 1970s was also a cause for concern. A case in the Midlands, where 27 per cent of the city’s illiterate were thought to have vision defects, saw one child with low vision rather clumsily diagnosed of being ‘clumsy’. It is therefore encouraging to see the Nursery World magazine lobbying hard for medical examinations at the very earliest point in another news piece.
Finally, an image inviting readers to spot the optical celebrity (see ‘A political comment’) ahead of the planned ADO Conference in the North West will raise a few eyebrows, even before noticing the deafeningly loud 70s inspired wallpaper behind the mystery flasher.