People are interested in teawakers for many different reasons. Some are fascinated by their history, some by their design, some by their engineering, some by their practicality and some by their eccentricity! Any one reason is as valid as the next. On this page you can meet some of us. I am not a technical boffin so I am especially grateful to website visitors like Doug, John, Mike and Pete for their help with technical matters. You can read more about these sterling fellows below. I hope that our online teawaker community will continue to be full of enthusiastic, helpful and open-minded people.

I live in Somerset, not far from Wells and Cheddar, and about 40 minutes drive from Bristol. I have well over 150 teawakers (I've stopped counting!) besides numerous kettles and clocks.

Here I am posing with an 835 in the style of an 855b box. You can see the original here.

My interest in teawakers began in 2000. I wanted to start an unusual collection and I settled on teawakers when I was in a rebellious frame of mind. (My ex husband always disliked the bulk and noise of teawakers and adamantly refused to let me have one!)

My main delight comes from uncovering the hidden history of teawakers, which is dominated by enthusiastic inventors and innovative British industry. I also love the thrill of the chase, tracking down new models to share with website visitors.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has emailed information and photographs for the website and who will do so in the future. Without your help I would never have achieved so much.

Click here to contact me.

Doug joined the ranks of the techie teasmaniacs in February 2002 and will do his best to answer any questions.

In July 2007 the Croydon Advertiser ran an article about Doug. They also created a photomontage which you can see here.

John is pictured here undertaking a delicate Goblin 860 repair with G Cramps, 6 inch spanner, 3lb lump hammer and chisel. He insists that the fireman's axe in the foreground is guaranteed insulated for 20,000 volts. Part of John's collection is illustrated below and you can see some individual examples throughout the site.

Let me introduce the 'modern' Teawaker, with this delightful description from John:

"As far as functionality is concerned one thing that attracts me to these beasts is their British oddity. Firstly they mix mains electricity and hot water in what could be a risky manner and secondly their alarm function, whilst heroic (irritating buzz and blinding light) is wasted since you have probably been awakened by the asthmatic boiling function in any case. By the way all seem to posess the same characteristic being rated on average at 650 watts and boiling two pints of water in 15 minutes from 15 degrees C ambient. That said they all perform very well and make decent cuppas despite starting with a cold pot and using water at boiling point which goes against the grain for the professional tea masher."

John writes:

Dear Fellow Sufferers,
A short while ago I thought I would like to amplify my anorak interests that include steam machinery, U boats and Land Rovers that use proper springs. Something electro-mechanical appealed but there was a team already devoted to reproducing the Bletchley Park Colossus computer so I decided that Teawakers offered a viable alternative. I never dreamt that there would be such an enthusiastic cult following for these extraordinary devices. All things considered they seem to embrace the very best in British idiosyncrasy. It is difficult to imagine a more useless device to provide the tea drinking public with the perfect end product. No pot warming. Direct infusion by boiling water under mild pressure. Both go against the purist grain for tea making. Then there is the alarm function...totally redundant given the wheezes, whistles and splutters that precede the alarm call. Finally is the dangerous association of high voltage electricity and steam which is happily ignored in most designs. Wonderful!!! I look forward to an event at, for example, the Albert Hall, that attracts the afficionados, has prizes for the most coordinated collective brew or the fastest boil by a D25A etc. etc. Meantime I trust that you have successful brews.
With best wishes,  John Teatotal Atack.

Pete joined us in November 2002. He is pictured here shocking the workforce on a shorts day at work! He writes:

"I think I am going to make this a very good hobby of mine. I have experience in mechanical and electrical work both from garage work when I was young and having a full apprenticeship at British Aerospace where I did some work on our famous Concorde."

Pete tells us of one of his first restoration adventures here:

"I have very rarely found faults with Goblin Teasmades, and once found a D25C that was nearly perfect although it has been used every day since it was purchased (probably second hand) in 1958. Anyway that’s a different story. I had some good luck when I happened upon someone selling a faulty D25. One thing I love about this unit is the operating instructions over the back of the clock section. There was a small label on the top of this particular teawaker with a number on it. Probably it had already had a visit to a repair shop (but luckily for me the repairer was not good with clocks). The lady selling it said she received it from her mum and had moved house three times with it. Now she thought there was not a lot of use keeping it.

When I got it home to my disbelief the alarm hand on the clock followed the hour hand about, and when I tried to set the alarm hand it moved the hour hand and minute hand. There was no noticeable thump at any point, so how would the element get powered? I thought at that point that things looked serious. It had me worried all the next day wanting to get it apart. As soon as I had an opportunity I removed the base cover and to my surprise I found that it's built like a Rolls Royce with an adjustment for the weight of the kettle and a huge metal tilting plate, even though from outside it looks just the same as the D25C. When I loosened the clock I thought it was far to tight to the casing unit to work on without damaging something, so I unsoldered it and set to work on it. I clearly numbered the five cables assuming that it would be several days before its return, but not so. I took off the hands to try and understand What Mr Goblin was up to. I thought I should be able to spot anything unusual in here. I removed the face carefully. Nothing untoward yet, so I moved the hands and alarm setting bits and couldn’t really decide. Clearly there was grease in here that should not be there.

It was at that stage that I realised there was no sign that any one has taken out the clock before (the solder was smooth and the screws looked as if they had not been moved).  Back to the problem Pete! There is a pair of contacts (as relay contacts) on the side of the clock. They stayed in the same position all the time, so clearly this was the problem, but how were they supposed to open and close? There was a really greasy cam up middle front. I sprayed it with oil and sprayed the front hand area and then realised there was a groove in the cog and a pin in the spindle, so I lined them up and gently prised the cog in the direction of pin on the spindle, then pop! The contacts closed via the fulcrum pin and fork arm, so I rotated it again and assisted the fella to enter again. A few more turns and it was popping in and out like it was supposed to.

It was great now to carefully reassemble the whole front end after a good clean. I was beginning to get a thirst up, but knew the unit would be happy to oblige with that if I was successful. The biggest hurdle is the reassembly (I’ve been there before). Carefully I put the face back together, but when I tried to turn the hands it stopped, so back apart. Something was upside down. I reassembled it again and then went back into the body checking the hands did not clash and other things. I soldered the wires for the clock, set the hands for about 10 minute’s operation of the contact before the hands lined up. Finally I filled the kettle and set the unit to work again. The clock movement seem a bit unsteady at first, but off it went, I put the ‘earl grey’ teabag in the pot (what a lovely pot the one with the grooves is) and within a few minutes there was a very gentle thud and the element was electrified. By this time it was 1.30 in the morning....not a good time for tea. But what an honour it was to get the chance to fix such a beautiful item. It clearly had not run for at least 15 years."

Click here to contact Pete.

Congratulations to Graeme and Sue who were married on November 8th 2003. Their story is one of teawaker romance.

When a woman with a D25b with a broken teapot (but complete with tray and instruction leaflet!) met a teawaker collector, love was their destiny. Was it the woman or the D25b that Graeme fell in love with? Is Sue just cynically marrying him to get her hands on a teapot? Why has Graeme still not found a replacement teapot 11 months on? Arranging weddings and moving into one house have distracted Graeme from hunting, but Sue now has a teapot for the D25b - a wedding present from Teawaker.com!

Graeme writes: "We had a wonderful day and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves - very indulgent. Not surprisingly all three speeches referred to teawakers. Mine was traditional, thanking people for coming etc and describing how we got together over Sue's broken teapot at which point the teawaker was produced along with your present and Teawaker.com received a loud cheer. Finally as Sue had no Bridesmaids I made my toast to 'little goblins everywhere'. There was also a teawaker cake (arranged by Sue).

Pictured here is the majority of Graeme and Sue's collection at the time of their wedding. There are three teawakers missing from the picture: two Goblins, the D25b spoken of above, a D26b and the Ekco Hawkins Hostess TE34 that can be seen elsewhere on the website.

Graeme is particularly proud of finding the teapot to a Pifco Tea-o-matic 1049 which he was able to identify from the website.

He also collects SodaStreams.

Alan writes:

"I just had to mail and congratulate on a wonderful website. My wife and I have just spent several days trying to find a new teawaker, and given up in frustration, so I searched the web for 'teasmade' and your site came up. What a mine of information! I only wish I could contribute something useful!

Anyway, in case you're interested, here are my experiences of the beasts... I remember as a child that my parents always had a teawaker - it must have been a D21, it was just post-war. I remember the square teapot with the 'embedded' handle, the wooden baseboard with a strange sort of 'crackled' finish, and not a lot more. My father managed to squeeze 3 cups of tea from the pot, so as a 5-10 year old I was always woken with a cup of tea. That set me up for life, and I have always had one since!

I remember buying a Russell Hobbs Chelsea from Curry's in Canterbury around 1970. The assistant couldn't work out how it worked, and I ended up by telling him (nothing has changed there!) - but it was a very good system. Unfortunately the clock died after about 15 years on that one, and I replaced it with a Swan 860 which lasted until a few days ago. The kettle element seemed to go quite frequently, and they were becoming expensive to replace, so we thought as it had had a good innings we would replace it, only to find out we couldn't. We had tried once before, and we had a Swan D01P1 for a couple of days, but we returned it to the store, because we couldn't stop the kettle tainting the water with a 'plastic' taste, and as it was not detachable, we couldn't wash it out properly - a design fault in our opinion.

Anyway, keep up the good work - as I said, a great site! Cheers, Alan.

John writes:

"My name's John and I just had the wonderful privilege of stumbling upon your website!!! I had No Idea there were others like me!!! He he he!!! I love the Goblin Teasmade for its amazing design and the fact there really is no other gadget out there like it!!! I believe that if Goblin were here to start making them again there would be a market for them. A few tv adverts and everyone would have a teawaker again!!!!

I myself used to have the latest digital goblin (without radio) but it went a bit wobbly and got a bit dangerous so back off to Argos it went. I also used to have a great Pifco teawaker (the 1152) with a top boiling kettle that flowed into the bottom pot and had a good light on it too, but unfortunatly that gave up too. I have just purchased a Goblin 860 from Ebay. Apparently it has never been used and is in its original box, so it could be then next best thing to a new teawaker! And I love the design of the 860 - I reckon it's the best looking by far.

Anyway thanks again for the site, and I was wondering if I could join your band of Teasmaniacs? It would be a privilege!!!"

Say no more John - you are welcome! Pull up a chair and have a cuppa!

Perhaps we should count Bjork as a fan, since she released the Teasmade Dub, a remix by Swag of her track 'Alarm Call'. You can visit the official Bjork website here.