The Oven Shelf

How enterprising our parents used to be. Without the aid of modern technology they still managed to come up with a solution to every problem. I don't know whether this story was peculiar to our house or whether other people did the same thing. When I was growing up we lived in a two up and two down cottage. The only heat in the house came from an open fire in the living room. It was part of the old black lead grate, named so, because it was polished with black lead to clean it. The fire was in the middle of the grate with an oven on the left and a boiler on the right. Not only did the fire heat the room but it also heated the oven for cooking and the boiler for hot water. The upstairs of the house had no heat at all. There was a small fire place in one bedroom but this, for some reason, was never used. Going to bed on a real cold winter's night was not an experience to look forward to. Neither, in those days, did you have a nice warm duvet to snuggle down under. However, even on the coldest of nights I never ever got into a cold bed. About half an hour before going to bed mother would take one of the shelves out of the oven. When it had cooled down to a bearable temperature she would wrap the oven shelf in a piece of cloth and put it in the bed. By the time I went to bed, clutching a rubber hot water bottle, the oven shelf had served it's purpose and warmed the bed through. It was then removed and I climbed into a nice warm bed, with my hot water bottle for on-going heat. My third line of defence was our family cat Fluffy, a long haired grey Persian. He knew where it was going to be warm and slept in the bed with me. Between the oven shelf, the hot water bottle and Fluffy I just about managed to stay warm until morning. Sounds daft, but it worked!