Thank you Imi, that was brilliant!
The thingy is a sewing machine, it’s a 1960s USA Singer, called the 500a, it was part of Singers effort to get in on the space race/atomic styling. It’s actually a 401 in crazy styling.
I have no idea what it’s doing in the UK... I’ve never seen another here, it came in a cabinet, with all the accessories and manual and a giant current converter!
Arrow spotted it on Gumtree, and it made me love vintage machines.
Here’s another pic with its accessory case.