The Chimney Sweep

I recently read of an unfortunate man who died from carbon monoxide poisoning because the chimney sweep had failed to clear a bird's nest which was blocking the chimney. That wouldn't have happened when I was a little girl. The arrival of the sweep was very exciting. Not, I hasten to add, for the housewife who had to take down curtains and pictures and cover everything up. No vacuum cleaner because we had no electricity.
The sweep brought his paraphenalia of rods, brushes, sacks etc. on a small handcart. He would set a frame covered with a cloth with a hole in the middle against the fireplace and push up his rods with a brush on the first one screwing on the other rods as he pushed them up the chimney. It was my job to run outside and make sure the brush could be seen poking out of the chimnet pot. When I came breathlessly in and said "Yes" he would put a sack at the hole in the cloth to catch the soot and, one by one, unscrew the rods and lastly the brush. When he had gone the curtains had to be washed and ironed and put back, the skirting board and picture rail washed and everything tidied up. The room smelt of soot for some time afterwards. Quite hard work for my mother. It was as well to behave yourself on the day the sweep came as tempers were short.
Not everyone could afford sixpence for the sweep. Sixpence would buy a breast of lamb and some vegetables for a family dinner. Some scrag end of lamb and some carrots and dumplings perhaps. Hence there was plenty of scope for "do-it-yourself" jobs. One I well remember. Picture a small block of 15 flats. On the flat roof 5 rows of 3 chimney pots. A lady's two young grandsons offered to sweep her chimney They went up on to the flat roof with a house brick and a long length of rope. Tying the brick to the rope they let it down the chimney and as it went down, thump, thump, thump against the inside of the chimney it knocked the soot down. Granny would be prepared , having cleared the room, taken down the curtains etc. with a sack ready to receive the soot. All was going well. There was just one snag. The boys had chosen the wrong chimney! The soot descended, somewhat unexpectedly, into the sitting room of the flat next door to Granny!