Getting a bit nippy out isn't it? Time to switch the heating on and raise the temperature in your home to sub-tropical levels? Sissys! It's nearly winter, it's supposed to be cold. What's the matter with you? All this keeping warm nonsense has gone too far. There's nothing wrong with a bit of suffering, and it toughens you up. I fear we're now breeding a generation of little wimps who can't bear to be even the slightest bit chilly and who claim they're 'freezing' if the temperature drops below fifteen degrees. What nonsense!
It's not healthy, in my opinion, all this hermetically sealing ourselves inside our houses, with double glazing and whatnot, and turning up all those radiators so that every vestige of moisture is leeched from our shrivelling bodies. It's not natural.
In my day you never expected to be warm between October and May. You took your blue-lipped, huddled state to be the norm, and got on with it. Back then our homes were not designed for comfort, Quite the opposite, in fact. Every care was taken to inflict as much hardship as possible. Why else cover bedroom floors with that instrument of torture known as linoleum? Cold, hard and slippy underfoot it was the perfect incentive to send us scurrying into the only slightly better territory of our beds. A lumpy, flock-filled mattress covered by a couple of scratchy blankets, and a few old coats for good measure, seemed like bliss compared to a flooring that could strike frostbite into a child's tiny toes. However, we did have the joy of the hot water bottle that instantly set off the sublime chilblain itch. Whatever happened to chilblains? You never hear of them anymore. Kids nowadays don't know what they're missing. The ecstasy of scratching your chilblains to the point of drawing blood is hard to describe to your modern spoiled brat. We made our own fun, back then.
Does anybody now wake to the fascinating sight of their own breath, billowing above them in a plume of moisture, like a thin ectoplasm? And all that breathing, in our overcrowded homes, resulted in a Niagara of condensation that poured down our windows and dripped into puddles on the floor, turning that linoleum into a deathtrap as your slippers found no purchase and you skidded into the wardrobe.
However, if the outside temperature fell below freezing then the problem was solved as our already glacial interiors became even colder and the liquid froze hard on the glass. Even in my own home, the one I raised my children in, we experienced the same thing, lacking as we did that hellish invention known as central heating. And having to survive on a low income meant we couldn't afford to heat every room. I remember trying to explain this phenomenon to my Mexican son-in-law.
Me: So when it got really cold ice formed on the inside of the children's bedroom windows.
Son-in-Law: (Disbelievingly) The inside?!
Me: Yes, the inside.
Son-in-Law: Nooooo!
Me: Yes.
At this point my daughter joined in.
Daughter: I liked it. The ice made beautiful patterns on the glass.
Son-in-Law: On the inside?!
Daughter: Yes.
Son-in-Law: Nooooo!
Daughter: I used to scratch a hole with my fingernail to look through.
Son-in-Law: On the inside?!
Daughter: Yes.
Son-in-Law: Nooooo!
It's done them no harm. They've all grown up knowing the value of a good vest and the pointlessness of complaining.
And then there was the romance of the coal fire, that heated a small radius of two feet in it's immediate vicinity and no further so that, in order gain any benefit, you had to sit so close to it that we all had mottled shins from the scorching. It also meant that Tom, the coalman, came every two weeks and gave me a grimy toffee, so what was not to love? Give me an unsightly shin any day, rather than the aforementioned central heating. Just because you've got it doesn't mean you've got to turn it full up. I loathe stepping into somebody's otherwise delightful home only to be greeted by a wave of heat like a blast furnace. I hate it. It doesn't make me warm and cosy. It renders me overheated and uncomfortable. If you feel a bit cool then put on an extra cardie, don't just reach for the heating dial. Apart from being a spineless pillock you're also doing untold damage to the environment. So think on.
Hot water's another indulgence now taken for granted. We stood in our Siberian bathrooms in front of a basin of tepid water, dabbing at the bits we could bear to expose with a damp flannel. But, generally speaking, children hate getting washed so that was fine, and the bone shaking chattering of our teeth counted as exercise.
As for draughts, our ill-fitting doors and windows created constant movement in our homes, shifting curtains about and whistling round our ankles, dislodging the fluff from under the couch and sending it skittering across the carpet like tumbleweed. Indeed, the gaps round our kitchen door were such that, if the wind was in the right direction, it whipped your hair back as you ate your cornflakes. But it was very refreshing.
I like a bit of comfort as much as the next cantankerous old woman, but I genuinely have some very happy memories of what would now be considered a deprived childhood, but didn't feel a bit like that at the time. And yes, I think that many (not all, of course) modern children are frequently pampered to a ludicrous extent, and probably miss out as a result. Yes, our bedrooms were habitually perishing but, if I was ill, I was indulged with the rare event of a fire in the bedroom grate. There can be few things more comforting to a sick child than lying snug in bed, in a room illuminated by the warm glow of the coals. You don't get that from a radiator.
And here's the paradox. In overheating our homes, offices, shops, etc., we are almost certainly doing terrible, irreversible harm to our delicate atmosphere. So, when the next Ice Age hits, don't come crying to me. I'll be perfectly happy in my cave, fashioning a vest from a bit of goat skin and enjoying not having to wash.
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