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Vacuum cleans up with award as still in use at 90 years old

One minute it could be mincing meat or mixing a cake – and the next doing the vacuum cleaning or even paint spraying.

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The incredible Piccolo multi purpose machine, made by Hammelmann Werke, may be nearly 90 years old and more likely to be found in a German museum.

But it is still in regular use in the Waite household in Halesowen.

And now it has won a competition to find the oldest working electrical domestic appliance in the Black Country.

The gadget was given, still in its original wrappings, to Ivor Waite and his wife, Mary, in the 1960s by his aunt, Cicely Phipps, when she cleared out items from her London flat after the death of her husband, who bought and sold goods.

"It does everything," said Mrs Waite, now aged 61, of Iverley Road.

"It's a coffee grinder, a mincer, a food processor, a vacuum cleaner, paint sprayer – you name it, it can do it. The attachments all plug into one machine. Our son, David, still uses it to vacuum his car and I use the meat mincer and the coffee grinder."

Chapmans Electrical, in Cradley Heath, launched the quest to dig out old household gadgets to celebrate a £100,000 investment to transform its showroom in Reddal Hill Road.

The Waite family are now being offered a prize of a modern day appliance of their choice – which Mrs Waite said was likely to be a music centre.

"It's surprising what people have still got in good working order," said managing director Robert Chapman, who is now displaying some of the competition entries in his new high-tech showroom.

Among them is a bright chrome toaster, given to Stan and Norma Rose, of Roundhills Road, Halesowen, as a wedding present 59 years ago – and they still sometimes use it as they warm up to celebrate their diamond anniversary. And Norma, who celebrates her 84th birthday tomorrow, said: "We have had other toasters since but we still use this one now and again – they made things to last in those days."

Also on display in the new showroom is a 1930s Electrolux vacuum cleaner entered by nine-year-old Harry Burrows, of Lapal, Halesowen, who collects sweepers.

A £25 voucher given to him as a runner-up in the competition has now been spent – on an order for a brand new Miele vacuum cleaner to add to his collection.

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