Is it worth buying a compost tumbler?

Mine is in a shady corner, hidden behind a hedge.
I never turn the compost. Sometimes I stir the top layer a bit when I put new stuff in.
I think a lot depends what you put in. Mine is mainly kitchen waste - fruit skins, vegetable peelings and so on. I’m careful about what garden waste I put in - I don’t put twigs or hard stems in, and I bag up leaves separately and only put them in when they’re already quite rotted, because they do take a long time to compost.
I put worms in too and get great satisfaction from taking the lid off and seeing a seething mass of little red bodies making my compost for me

I had one exactly like that when we lived in London jane, but the contents never really seemed to break down properly despite using an accelerator and turning it regularly etc. It was in a shady corner, maybe that’s why? My northern garden gets much more sun however the places it would be least intrusive are shady and my previous experience puts me off having another one. My dad always did it successfully, it feels like something that should be easy to do!

That’s like the one that was in the shrubbery.

This is the one I have . It's a Blackwall Compost Converter and we got ours through Northumberland County Council, but you can get them elsewhere. I think ours cost about £30
It seems to make the compost quite quickly with very little effort.

I’ve seen these and I don’t know if they would generate enough heat to rot the compost down. You could only put a certain amount of material in there or you surely wouldn’t be able to turn it. Even with a good accelerator you still need some heat to build up. I suppose they must be tried and tested. Last year we cleared a large area of shrubbery in our garden and found a plastic compost bin full of garden waste. It predated us and we had lived here six years, and still some of the material was in an unrotted state. I assumed because it hadn’t had the sun on it.

I came across them on a website the other day (this one: www.henchman.co.uk/products/compost-tumbler-range.html) so I've started reading about them... They're not exactly cheap on other websites like Argos either so I need to do more research I think

I did have one a long time ago, I found it very heavy to turn. It may be that things have improved mechanically but to be honest I would say don’t bother. One of those handy gadgets that isn’t much better than the old fashioned way!

Possibly, I don't know anyone who has one. Perhaps buy one and let us know. Also there are those fast composting bins but they are expensive. I wondered about a solar panel heater going in to the compost to heat it up. But don't know enough to experiment with that.

I don’t find making compost requires a lot of effort.
I have a couple of compost caddies in the kitchen and when they are full I simply go to the bottom of the garden and and empty them into one of my compost bins.
They are the sort that you put the vegetable material in the top, and when you want some compost you open the little door at the bottom and scoop the compost out.
It’s just occurred to me that perhaps that’s what you mean by a compost tumbler
But if it’s not, what is it?