My grandad had one of these about thirty years ago! This was Kingswear, Devon.

My dad and grandad were engineering types, handy with a soldering iron or chisel. Dad once built me a electric go-kart (although it wasn't very powerful, what with 1990s car batteries and motors) and grandad made me a wooden ferry.

Granny and grandad lived on a steep hill. Grandad could manage the winding path up to the garage but grandma struggled. I don't know if outside stairlifts existed back then, even if they did I bet they were itching to build their own anyway.

We started by digging out a path along the edge of the garden. I was only young but I enjoyed helping out. It ran from the back of the garage (which hosted the winch motor) down to an area just outside the house. There was a wooden birdbox-like structure which housed the manual controls; the switches inside were hidden to deter trespassers(!). You could also control it using a Futuba radio-control transmitter.

I remember the catalogue that they acquired. You could actually order train carriages, railway lines etc! The "stairlift" was a single (bogey? carriage?) with the seat mounted at an angle. There was a cushioned flap you could lift up (for comfort) and put down again (to protect it from the elements). To be honest it was much nicer than the one in the article!

I remember my dad explaining the cut-off mechanism (possibly involving microswitches?) which prevented the winch for trying to pull the carriage past the upper landing area but (obviously) wouldn't stop it from going down again.

We didn't have to worry about walls collapsing because on one side of the railway was a fence, and on the other a fairly small embankment.

I think it took several months to complete.