BEREC batteries in Nigeria were being promoted as essential companions to radios and torches by the early 1970s. One of the clearest examples appeared on page 11 of the Daily Times on Monday, 14 June 1971. The advertisement was large, direct and visually striking. At its centre stood an enlarged BEREC U2 battery, surrounded by circles that appeared to radiate outwards from the product.
The main message promised “with longer life!” Beneath the battery were three memorable lines: “Berec in radios keep us gay”, “Berec is best” and “Berec in torch-lights lead the way”.
These short slogans captured a period when portable radios and hand-held torches depended heavily on replaceable batteries. The advert linked BEREC not simply with electrical power, but with access to voices, music, news, companionship and light.
What the 1971 Advert Reveals About BEREC Batteries in Nigeria
The 1971 advertisement presented the battery as the force behind two familiar objects. A radio could carry speech, music, drama and current affairs into a home, shop, workplace or outdoor gathering. A torch provided light that could be carried wherever it was needed.
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Neither device was useful for long without a dependable source of power. BEREC’s advertisers therefore placed the battery, rather than the radio or torch, at the centre of the design. The product was enlarged until it dominated the newspaper space, turning an ordinary household item into a symbol of modern convenience.
The circles behind the battery complemented the message about radio. They resembled the waves or signals associated with broadcasting, while also creating an impression of energy spreading from the cell. The battery appeared to sit at the centre of a wider system of sound, movement and communication.
The advertisement did not rely on technical language. It offered no diagrams of internal components and no complicated explanation of battery chemistry. Instead, it used everyday experiences that newspaper readers could immediately understand: listening to a radio and finding one’s way with a torch.
That approach made the advert both accessible and memorable.
The Meaning of “Berec in Radios Keep Us Gay”
The expression “Berec in radios keep us gay” reads differently to modern audiences because the common use of the word “gay” has changed.
In the advertisement, the word was used in its older sense of cheerful, merry, lively or in high spirits. The slogan suggested that a radio powered by BEREC could keep listeners entertained and in a good mood. It connected the battery with the emotional experience of hearing music, conversation and other broadcasts.
Radio listening was rarely limited to the mechanical act of receiving a signal. A broadcast could provide company during work, create entertainment for a household or bring distant events into a local setting. The battery remained largely unseen inside the radio, but it determined whether the set continued to function.
BEREC’s slogan transformed that practical relationship into an emotional promise. The company was not merely selling stored electrical energy. It was selling continued access to whatever made the radio enjoyable.
The BEREC Name and British Ever Ready
BEREC was closely connected with the British Ever Ready electrical business. The British operation had developed from an American-founded battery enterprise and became a separate British company in the early twentieth century.
After the British and American businesses went their separate ways, territorial arrangements governed the brand names under which their products were sold. The British company used the Ever Ready name in Europe and adopted BEREC for many markets outside Europe.
This made BEREC an important international identity for British Ever Ready products. Nigerian consumers encountering the BEREC name were therefore seeing a brand created for the company’s overseas trade rather than an unrelated battery manufacturer.
The Nigerian advertisement placed the word “BEREC” prominently inside the brand’s circular trademark. The company name was far larger than the product classification, ensuring that readers remembered the brand even if they knew little about the corporate organisation behind it.
The simpler slogan, “Berec is best”, reinforced this emphasis on brand recognition. It was brief enough to be remembered and repeated, a useful quality in a market where customers might request batteries by name at shops and roadside trading points.
The U2 Battery and Portable Power
The battery displayed in the advertisement was identified as a BEREC U2. The U2 belonged to the large cylindrical battery size later commonly known as the D cell. In Britain, the same general format was also associated with the SP2 designation.
Batteries of this size were suited to equipment that required more sustained power than smaller cells could conveniently supply. Historical examples include hand torches, bicycle lamps and portable radios.
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The U2’s physical size also made it ideal for newspaper advertising. Its broad label provided enough space for the BEREC trademark and other printed information, while its recognisable cylindrical form could be enlarged without losing its identity.
The 1971 advert treated the U2 as an everyday consumer product. Readers were not being introduced to an experimental invention. They were being encouraged to associate a familiar battery format with the BEREC name and with the company’s promise of longer service.
Radio Beyond the Wall Socket
The importance of the battery-operated radio lay partly in its independence from a fixed electrical connection. A mains radio had to remain close to a suitable power point. A battery radio could be moved between rooms, carried outside, taken on a journey or used wherever mains electricity was absent.
This mobility changed how people could receive broadcasts. Information and entertainment were no longer tied entirely to one place. A shopkeeper could keep a radio nearby during the working day. A family could move a set to a more convenient room. Listeners could gather around a radio outdoors or carry one to a location without an electrical socket.
The battery made this flexibility possible. Its power was temporary and had to be replaced, but it turned the radio into a genuinely portable communication device.
The BEREC advertisement understood that relationship. Its wording did not explain radio technology because it did not need to. It focused on continuity: the longer the battery worked, the longer the radio could remain part of daily activity.
Torchlight, Movement and Practical Safety
The advertisement’s second named use was the torch. The phrase “Berec in torch-lights lead the way” associated the battery with movement through darkness.
A torch could be used inside a poorly lit building, during an interruption to electrical supply, on an evening journey or in an outdoor setting. Unlike a fixed lamp, it directed light wherever the user pointed it. The battery gave that light its mobility.
The slogan “lead the way” was especially effective because it described both the literal beam of a torch and the brand’s attempt to present itself as a leader in portable power.
By placing radios and torches together, BEREC covered two major consumer needs. One device connected the user with sound and information. The other made movement and practical activity easier after dark. Both depended on stored energy that could be carried in the hand.
Nigeria’s Importance to the BEREC Business
The 1971 newspaper advertisement shows that BEREC was actively cultivating Nigerian consumers. During the 1970s, Nigeria became commercially important to the British company.
By 1977, the large British Ever Ready factory at Tanfield Lea in County Durham was sending almost half of its output to Nigeria. The scale of this trade contributed to a Queen’s Award for Export and a record annual profit for the factory.
The dependence also created vulnerability. When a Nigerian import licence was cancelled, the loss of the market contributed to more than 500 redundancies at Tanfield Lea.
This episode demonstrates that Nigeria was not a minor destination for occasional BEREC shipments. By the later 1970s, Nigerian demand was closely connected with production and employment at one of the company’s major British factories.
The 1971 advertisement belongs to the earlier stage of that relationship. It records the deliberate construction of a consumer identity around BEREC several years before disruption of the import trade exposed Nigeria’s importance to the wider company.
Advertising Everyday Modernity
The BEREC advert belongs to the history of everyday objects. Political changes and major national events often dominate accounts of the past, but advertisements preserve another kind of history. They show what companies believed consumers wanted, what language they used to attract buyers and how ordinary products were connected with larger social aspirations.
BEREC associated its battery with convenience, movement, enjoyment and dependable access to useful technology. The radio represented communication and entertainment. The torch represented practical illumination. The battery stood behind both.
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The advertisement also reveals the confidence of commercial language in the period. “With longer life!” and “Berec is best” were not cautious expressions. They were short, forceful statements designed to make the brand familiar and desirable.
For readers of the Daily Times, the battery was presented as a small purchase with consequences that extended far beyond its size. It could help determine whether a radio continued speaking or a torch continued shining.
Conclusion
The 1971 BEREC advertisement offers a valuable window into the history of portable power and consumer culture in Nigeria. Published in the Daily Times, it promoted the BEREC U2 through two technologies closely connected with everyday life: the radio and the torch.
Its slogans linked battery power with happiness, communication, mobility and light. Its bold design placed an ordinary dry cell at the centre of a wider story about how people listened, moved and remained connected.
By 1977, the Nigerian market had become central to production at British Ever Ready’s Tanfield Lea factory. The commercial relationship connected Nigerian demand with British manufacturing, export performance and employment.
The battery in the advertisement was replaceable and easily overlooked, but its historical role was significant. It supplied the portable energy that kept voices on the air and placed light in people’s hands.
Author’s Note
The history of BEREC batteries in Nigeria shows how an ordinary consumer object can illuminate a much larger period of social and technological change. The 1971 advertisement reminds us that radio communication and portable lighting depended not only on broadcasting stations and electrical devices, but also on the small, replaceable cells that kept them working. Through advertisements such as this, we can better understand how international companies presented modern technology to Nigerian consumers and how portable power became part of everyday life.
References
Daily Times, Monday, 14 June 1971, page 11. National Library of Nigeria newspaper collection.
David Bowen, “Assault and Battery: The Fall of the Ever Ready Empire”, The Independent, 27 June 1993.
Science Museum Group Collection, “Ever Ready No. U.2 Battery”, object number Y2012.15.20.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “Gay”, including the historical meanings “merry”, “bright” and “lively”.
