The Nice People No. 17

zagubov

My way home from work involves a lot of empty country roads and one route takes me past a coal merchant. I always have a twilight zone moment when I see it, as if I've blundered through a time portal like in Goodnight Sweetheart of Timeslip.
I grew up in  a house that had a coal cellar and before my time they used to deliver coal from a horse and cart.

silvercar

Only a guess, but I would think that houses that still rely on coal to heat must do so because the owners can’t afford to change. Not sure how they will cope with a forced change. 

PasturesNew

We had coal, well, smokeless anthracite I remember.  At first, having a council house, outside we had a brick-built trio of outbuildings, being a shed, a coal hole and an outside loo.  When dad bought a house and we moved, there were no such outbuildings in our 1920s semi, so dad bought a pre-fabricated concrete bunker; the lid had a sloping flap and was covered in asphalt felt, at the front/bottom there was a bit of wood you pulled up to scoop the coal out. 

My parents didn't have central heating until they retired and moved and that house happened to have it, in 1995. 

My nan, who died in 1991, always just had an open coal fire in the living room. 

SingleSue

We had two coal cellars, one mum and dad turned into a cupboard because a conservatory had been built on the side of the house prior to them buying it and that was where it was located and then the other one was their main one, pretty much as PN described her one.  I have a very dim memory of a delivery of coal arriving and the coalman mucking about pretending to cover me and my brother who had decided to play in it.

My parents got central heating installed when I was 6 so the outside prefab coal cellar became our play area for a while until mum, annoyed to her back teeth at us coming in covered in left over coal dust, had dad demolish it.

Talking about dad, he went in for a routine and minor leg operation yesterday. Things didn't go quite to plan and it was more involved than expected and he is still there today.

Pyxis

Sorry to hear about your Dad, Sue. 🙁
I had been wondering if you were ok.
I hope he is out soon.


Talking of coal........memories!
As a child, only had an open coal fire in the living room. Hot water was via geysers, initially, and then an immersion heater, which was only put on once a week for the weekly baths, The rest of the time it was boil a kettle, or have a cold strip wash.

Then we had an enclosed coal fire with a back boiler, which meant there was hot water, until someone had a deep bath and used it all up! That also fed the new-fangled central heating, though! Joy of joys! Except that there was only CH and hot water  if there was a coal fire on, so in summer, it was back to once a week, unless we could sneak the immersion on when mum was out. 😁

When I bought my house, in the mid-80s, it had gas central heating, but outside was an old outside wc, and an old coal shed, which still had coal in.
There was an open fireplace in the living room, (which is still there!), so, being on a very low income at the time, I tried having a fire, using the free coal, only to find it filled the place with smoke. I found out that it was boiler coal, and not to be used on open fires. 🙁🙁 So, I advertised it as free to whoever wanted it.
The couple who came to get it, realising that they were getting a lot of valuable coal for their boiler, and obviously realising that I was not at all well off, gave me £20 (a lot in the 80s) to buy treats for the children, which was very kind of them, as I just wanted it gone!

So there are nice, kind people in the world! 👍


Coal bunkers! 
My parents had a new coal bunker built one summer, when I was about 7, which I purloined as my den, and I ‘lived’ and played  in it all summer, and then to  my horror, they went and filled with coal! The iniquity! 😩😩😩😩 I was so upset, and demanded they build another one to be my den, but they wouldn’t.😢


Lastly, did anyone else have to sit and count the bags of coal the coalmen brought in? I always found my mind wandered and I lost count and got told off.
Coalmen then wore those ?leather hats/cape things, and heaved the bags on their shoulders.

Jazee

I started life in a house with an open fire but we soon moved on to new fangled central heating.  Nan always had an open fire and we'd twist bits of newspaper to make firefighters and play in the coal cellar.

The house opposite mine has coal delivered , though not by horse and cart, but they must have had a fire put in because all the houses in my street were built with gas central heating.

PasturesNew

We never had an open fire. I suspect after the winter of 62/63 dad investigated and bought our fire, a Rayburn, which was probably the predecessor of this more modern one (below). Ours was that red too, which was an interesting colour as it changed colour depending on how you looked at it (like petrol does). 
When we moved it came with us, there was never a back boiler on it.  Ours didn't fit snugly into the recess though, so sat proud of the fireplace.  My parents left it at their house when they sold/moved, so they had it from about 1962 to 1995.  If they'd not moved I doubt they'd have ever bothered getting central heating. 

PasturesNew

This was our coalman for about 20 years, mid 70s to when my parents moved.  Photo nicked from the Internet from a local memories group. 

We went on a "posh holiday" once, a Holimarine with proper mobile home caravans and a pool and the likes of which we'd never seen before.  We'd got to know the coalman through a Club we belonged to and he/dad used to organise occasional social events, so were on good speaking terms + dad switched to getting coal from him. 
At some point dad'd arranged for us to go to the holiday park the same week as the coalman and his family.  It was at Hopton on Sea 

zagubov

I know we've discussed this before, but they used to build prefab houses around a solid fuel heater. The house was arranged so the fireplace in the living room was under the back boiler in the airing cupboard which supplied hot water to the kitchen and bathroom which were back to back. The plumbing system was called the Heart Unit and was the simplest arrangement possible and could be assembled rapidly (even in one day, which was the point of this type of housing). 
Had relatives who lived in one and they loved it.

I wonder when did central heating become a thing?

Jazee

This thread is really bringing back memories today.  We holidayed somewhere fairly close to Hopton on a Sea and to keep the kids amused we hopped down the lan3 all the way to Hopton.  Wouldn't be able to do it now!