List,
The Startomatic was designed in a bygone age, long before product liability was invented, and before lawyers realised that they could get mega-rich, feeding on inbred human stupidity.
But seriously, the SOM was designed for a specific purpose. It was for the electrification of farms and other remote properties in the UK (and elsewhere), in the 1950s before the electricity grid reached a lot of the smaller isolated communities.
At that time, you aspired to a 60W electric bulb in each room, a 2kW electric kettle and perhaps a 600W toaster in the kitchen. The only other appliance might have been a 200W wireless (vacuum tube) and a 300W TV in the living room. Motorised appliances would have been limited to a 750W vacuum cleaner.
Life was so much simpler then. These houses would have relied on coal and wood burned in open fires for heating, or possibly a oil fired range in the kitchen.
The SOM would be bolted down firmly in an outhouse as part of a permanent installation. There would be fixed wiring going to the house, with the SOM control box mounted on the shed wall.
There would be no question of trailing power leads, 1500W buzz saws, or the whole host of electric power tools that we take for granted these days.
I read recently that the auto-start function was not the problem, it was the auto-stop, as recalled in an anectdote by a retired Lister Service Engineer.
A farmer's wife wanting to have an amourous evening asked her husband to turn off the bedroom light. He did so, but the SOM kept chugging away. She said "I'm not doing anything until you've turned that racket off". So he was forced to get dressed and go to the shed to shut it down. When he got back, she was asleep!
Ken