International adapters for mains cables

Before our first trip to France I went to a local caravan supplier to buy some adapters for our mains cable.  I had read in one of the caravanning magazines that on some French sites the polarity was reversed and had therefore worked out in my own mind what we had needed.  If we started with a French plug to international socket and then had an international plug cross-wired to an international socket, we would be able to cope with all eventualities.  I asked for the items and explained what they were for.

“Most people do it with two of these,” I was told.

The lady in the shop handed me two adapters, each with a French plug at one end and an international socket on the other.

“All you have to do is reverse polarity on one of these and you’re set up,” she told me.

I protested, but to no avail.  As we had not taken a caravan to France before and I was in a caravan shop that, presumably, knew about such things, I went along with the advice as given.  I bought the two adapters offered, and a polarity tester, and reversed the polarity in one of the adapters before setting off for France.

On all the sites where we stayed we either used French sockets with correct polarity or international sockets.  Each had been checked using our polarity tester and each had been correct.  All that is except the last.  Here, in the gentle, but persistent, rain, I was pleased to see that the sockets were of the international type.

“Well?” Barbara had shouted from the safety and dryness of the caravan’s interior.  “Can I put the kettle on yet?”

“No!  I haven’t tested it yet.”

Somewhat gingerly, knowing the effects of water upon electricity, and both upon people, I plugged in the tester.  Only one of the little lights glowed.  They were proper sockets, but cross-wired.  I retreated to the caravan to think and decided that the only way to solve the problem was to change the wires round in the plug on the mains lead.  The bits I had been sold were useless.

I went back out in the rain to retrieve the mains lead and, in the fading light, I managed to dismantle, alter and reassemble the plug fairly easily.  Then with altered plug carefully installed and wet coat hung up to dry, the kettle was finally switched on.

A few days after getting home I reinstated the altered adapter and returned to the caravan shop.  The shop was empty of staff, but a lady emerged from the adjacent office.

“I bought this about four weeks ago,” I began, “on the advice of one of your colleagues.  But I want to exchange it for a different system: the one I originally asked for.  We didn’t use it.”

I had no qualms about returning it.  We hadn’t used it.  True, I had altered the wiring inside it, twice, but I hadn’t actually used it.

“Oh, yes.  I remember you,” she said.

As she had been in the office throughout my previous visit, I must have made quite an impression.

She allowed me to cash in the adapter I had been sold and to buy the bits that I had originally wanted.  These were assembled and altered to give us a range of adapters that would cover all situations that we were likely to face in the future – just as I had originally planned.