Archives from 1956 reveal how we thought we'd live

THEY were the futuristic gadgets which were supposed to revolutionise our lives.

Drip-dry nylon clothing, self-cleaning baths and food prepared with blasts of gamma rays should have been commonplace by now.

Instead, these innovations, held up half a century ago as visions of the future have today been branded as among the worst of the last 50 years.

Archives from the 1956 Ideal Home Exhibition have revealed how developers building the first "home of the future" came up with some bizarre ideas which they believed would enhance people's lives in the 21st century.

The worst theories related to food preservation and preparation, with the leading suggestion being that refrigerators would be scrapped because all meat, fish and dairy products would be bombarded with gamma rays, killing any germs.

At number two was the prediction that kitchen hobs would be redundant because electric saucepans would cook food on any surface.

Having a shower would take on a new meaning, with a unit that would dispense both water and hot air to wash and dry the user. Meanwhile, those enjoying a soak in a bath would no longer need to give it a scrub afterwards as all tubs would be self-cleaning with built in rinsing systems, the experts predicted.

Nylon would be the clothing material of choice, with 21st century commuters wearing drip-dry nylon clothes and sleeping on nylon sheets.

Professor David Edgerton, an expert on the history of technology and author of Shock of the Old, said the reason such ideas are now considered so dated is that they became redundant almost immediately.

He said: "It's not just that these things were wrong, it's that they were boringly wrong for a very long time."

However, he added that the sci-fi visions of the future were based on high public expectations during a period of rapid change.

"It's important to understand the 1950s and 1960s saw rates of change in rich countries that were unparalleled, and were greater than the rates of change today," he said.

"People's lives were being changed by technology very radically and the idea that the rate of change would increase in future was all the rage. And there were people trying to sell new technological ideas that were avidly received in that atmosphere."

Ian Pearson, who specialises in predicting how technology will change, said one of the problems with predicting the future was overestimating change: "The biggest difficulty is people get too easily carried away when they see someone has invented something, look at all the opportunities and imagine the most far-out possibility."

THE TOP TEN WORST PREDICTIONS

1 Gamma rays will bombard meats, fish and dairy, killing germs and doing away with refrigeration.

2 Electric saucepans will cook food on any surface, replacing hobs.

3 Electric tables will rise from the floor and can be set to dining or coffee level.

4 Roofs will be covered with aluminium foil to deflect the sun's rays.

5 Front doors will all be electric and folding.

6 Houses will consist of a series of plastic pods.

7 Showers will dispense both water and hot air to wash and dry you.

8 Baths will be self-cleaning with built-in rinsing system.

9 Nylon is the material of choice – we will all be wearing drip-dry nylon clothes and sleeping in nylon sheets.

10 Men fashions will be inspired by Superman and the space age.