Heating

Oh! How lovely to be warm.   We have been waiting weeks for this weather.  I seemed to have spent a lot of my early life trying to get warm.  When I was little the only heating in our flat was a coal fire in the living room.  your front got really hot but your back was freezing.  The loo which was outside was so cold that you delayed going there until the very last muinute.  Did it make us hardy?  I don't know
In 1948 we moved into a very large old house in West Dulwich.  The lease was owned by Dulwich College.  It had been damaged in the bombing and had a very leaky roof which necessitated variou receptacles being strategically placed to catch the drips.  When we moved in Don said he had never seen so many chamber pots in one place!  The heating was very much hit and miss.  There was a coal fire in the front sitting room, a gas fire in the dining room,  a coke boiler in the kitchen which was supposed to heat the water but often was no more tan tepid.  In the hall was a Valor oil stove whose top was cut out in a flower decoration and cast a pretty pattern on the ceiling.  This latter was inclined to be a bit smelly.  Upstairs my mother's room had a small electric fire, in the other three bedrooms and a walk-in linen cupboard  ,  nothing.. We did, however, have two inside toilets.  There was a long flight of stairs to the landing which then divided,five steps up to the front bedrooms and three to the back.  When my friend came she said  "How grand! You have got wings".
Despite its drawbacks we had a lovely seven years there  We had a lovely girl dental student as our lodger to help with expenses and our son was born there. So we had fond memories of our time there.