What a palava!

Like many people these days, we try to be economical with our use of electricity and gas, not just for environmental reasons, but also to be economical. So we haven’t had our central heating on, and it’s only in the last couple of days we have had our gas fire on. It’s one of those that has a grate and artificial coals. We don’t know what they are made of, they are light weight, almost cindery.  All we do is turn a knob and flames erupt and heat is emitted.

When I was a child there was no central heating, we had a coal fire, real coal, and a paraffin heater in the hall. when I was about ten or eleven, the old lady who owned our flat, dear Aunty Gladys, had radiators put in and oh how lovely to have warmth in the bedrooms! The fire in the sitting room was in a small grate, a fender in front of it, a browny pink tile surround and a mantelpiece above. There was a brass coal scuttle and a set of fire irons – tong  poker, a small long handled shovel and a long handled brush. The fire irons and scuttle were on the tiled hearth, I can’t remember a surround around it, so maybe there wasn’t one. There was also a fireguard which went round it, not because of us children, but to stop any cinders falling out, or a sudden spark which might land on the floor.

We couldn’t just turn on the fire when we were chilly, it was a bit of a process, starting with scrunched up newspaper and a lattice of firewood. The newspaper was lit, and once the wood caught, small pieces of coal were added, and when they too began to burn, more were carefully and strategically placed. Sometimes the coal was damp – it was kept in a bunker outside, delivered by the coalmen who brought it in sacks from their coal lorry, balanced on their shoulders with a piece of leather to protect them. The coalmen didn’t have uniforms or overalls, they just wore old clothes. Back to the fire – it was a right performance to make a fire, a skilled performance, and sometimes it took ages – damp coal or kindling, the wind in the wrong direction, sometimes for no understandable reason!

Then of course when the fire had died, the grate had to be cleaned, the ashes rootled out and taken out  – in our case it went on the garden path as a sort of hardcore, but sometimes in the dustbins pr ashbins, so called because that’s where the ashes went. The ashbins were collected by the ashmen – I suppose it’s a regional thing, dustbins, ashbins!

So when we put the fire on with a click of a switch, I can’t help but remember the palaver to get warm when I was young.