Haven't seen one of these in ages! Really well made battens! It amuses me that Thorn think their new idea of putting two plastic things on the ceiling first and then screwing the batten to it is a totally new idea and makes installation so much quicker but things like this already existed!

The Speedpak was a very well built and solid batten. It amuses me what you say about Thorn - they used to make the Clipper. The MKI Clipper was also very solid and how they think anything like what you said is an improvement on that, they are living on another planet!!

Are speedpacks still available?

Interestingly that school where I recently repaired the 45 HF fittings in had what used to be the GEC Vantage S fittings, they were put in in 1997 and were made by siemens, the thing is that inside the hospital/school fitting was the bottom half of one of these battens with the exact turn buckles but different lamp holders! Looked a bit like a 90s thorn PP with the lamp holders set to out board!

I remember these being sold in the RS catalogue in the early 90s, and they were being installed in the college in Bootle as part of a refurb (where I was a student 1990-94), replacing 1960s 'courteney Pope' style fittings. I think there was a double fitting in the range also which had a nice prismatic diffuser that sat flush to the ceiling and covered the entire fitting. The singles were installed in toilets anc corridors, the doubles in classrooms and labs. I may be wrong on the double being GEC speedpacks as they were all hidden by the diffusers.