It only takes an innocent change in conduit and/ or trunking and the circuit protective conductor situation can also change. I will come round to this again towards the end of this column but I wanted to achieve two things with this article.

Firstly I wanted to remember the anniversary of our industry's loss of a great lady. Dr Gina Barney was lost to us on 6th July 2023. This article is dedicated to her and her devotion to our industry. The reason I chose this subject matter for such an article is the fact that Gina steadfastly refused to use the post nominals FIET and held onto the FIEE instead. As a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers she did not believe in the Institution becoming wider rather than deeper in its subject matter.

Secondly, I wanted to transmit the importance of standards. Again, without Gina many of our standards would have not progressed at the speed they did and for that we owe her so much.

So let's have a look at some electrical history.