we had an Aga. That most middle-class of status symbols, commonly spotted in farmhouse kitchens, cut adrift from its moorings and marooned in a neighbourhood where the must-have domestic accoutrement was a three-piece suite.A relic from the 1960s, lovingly installed by the previous long-term occupant of our semi, our Aga had no flat-coat retrievers warming in front of it.
Indeed it was something of a family pet itself, possessed of an insatiable appetite for coal and prone to frequent fiery belches.
A daily scene at home involved my brother and I arguing about who had to go down to the cellar with a scuttle to fetch its dinner.
Family trips away always ended in the ritual relighting of the Aga, a ceremony in which my parents would genuflect in front of its cream cast-iron, and pray for the restoration of hot water and central heating.And then came the day, a few years after I’d left home and learnt how to switch on an electric hob, when mum announced it was to be dismantled.
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