Dear LPG, 

You know that you have nothing better to think about when you start looking up obscure things on the internet, and I think that my sense of things to check has come to the trivia stage recently.  To put it in a nutshell…I think that I have arrived.

Now that we are all free to do a bit more of that again after what seems like ages, have you ever noticed how many times we get it wrong.  How many times have you found yourself at the entrance to a shop or some other building wondering what to do about getting past the entrance door? Getting through a shop door usually provokes a momentary dilemma, and when it comes to shopping, if the door is closed it is often made of glass allowing our minds to continue focussing on what we are planning to purchase. 

But do you push instead of pull even if the four-letter instruction is right there for all to see?  We take them for granted really but they do us a great service.  The interior ones in our houses afford us a privacy that we all take for granted these days.  Many of us would never imagine getting up in the morning and going to the loo with the door open?  

I decided to find out a bit more about the obstacle which is so readily pushed aside (or pulled) for our convenience. 

Did you know that the first ever door was found in an Egyptian tomb and was constructed over 4000 years ago, and have you ever wondered why we have less of a ‘push or pull’ problem when it comes to entering someone’s front door? 

I don’t know why I found myself looking for the answers but for those who are vaguely interested it is all about fire.  When it comes to our front doors, in the event of one, the fire brigade can break down a door that opens inwards and get on with saving people more quickly, while in public places, an advancing crowd trying to escape a public building would have to wait longer if they all had to step back to open a door that swung towards them before being able to escape.  

I personally think that there is something special about the doors that swing both ways because they stop so many people from feeling quite as stupid.  You can’t get those wrong, and we haven’t even mentioned, the cupboard doors, the sliding doors, the top and front-loading fridge and washing machine doors, the revolving doors, the Dutch doors where the top door swings independently of the bottom. Then there are the folding doors and the trap doors (I hope that there are no readers that have come across an open one of those by accident) … 

Enough I hear you say.  It is quite sad when you start researching the swinging habits of a door on the internet, but we should spare a thought for this commodity which has most probably been around nearly as long as the wheel (or at least we should take time to thank the Egyptian inventor who devised the first one.) 

The next time we manage to escape to a quiet room for some alone time, or when we take the wrong action as we approach one, I hope my message gives you a little food for thought …

PM, Bermondsey 

PM found us some information…

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