The high country flick - Enjoying the warm heart of the family home

All smiles: The kitchen in Marsh Street, Christmas Eve 1979. Kathleen Vickers is on the left, and Jim Belshaw Snr is washing up.

I suppose that we might call it the high country flick. The girls would come into the kitchen, stand with their backs to the stove and flick up the backs of their skirts to allow the heat to penetrate.

As with so many homes, the kitchen at 202 Marsh Street was the family centre. It was neither a big nor a posh kitchen. Few were at that stage. It was, in fact, extremely poky. Later when we sold the house, the first thing the new owners did was to rip it out.

Despite its small size and sometimes crowded nature with people perched around the small kitchen table, it had a warmth. That was partly because it was warm., no small plus in a New England winter, at least as much because my mother created a welcoming space.

In it’s own way, that kitchen was a microcosm of our shared history.

The kitchen benches were low, too low for me. I had to stoop to use them. They were low because people were shorter when they were built.

People are just much taller now, an increase that has happened over many generations. When I played rugby at school I was taller and heavier than average. Now I am dwarfed by the average rugby player.

The sink had two cold water taps. One was for town supply, the second from the tank. Because town water was so hard, tank water was used to make tea or coffee or for cooking.

On the sink sat a tin with wire on the top and holes punched in the bottom. In the tin sat a bar of sunlight soap. Hot water run through the tin provided suds to wash the dishes. I don’t think we ever used commercial dish washing fluid.

The stove was the nerve centre. When we first moved into the house this was an old iron range. Then a new rayburn was installed. This gave a constant supply of hot water and was wonderful for cooking, if sometimes a bit cranky. .

The firebox was on the right. The temperature of the whole stove could be controlled by varying the intensity of the fire through a combination of fuel and dampers. The hot air ran along the top of the stove from the fuel box to the chimney on the left.

A hot plate ran the length of the stove with heat gradually diminishing towards the chimney. This allowed food to be cooked and then moved to a cooler place to set or stay warm.

The ever present kettle could be moved from the left of the stove to the hotter right where it quickly boiled. The oven was on the left with a warming oven below. This allowed food to be kept warm or plates to be warmed before serving.

I still miss that stove!

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 June 2018. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018