DELIA Daws (nee Towers), of Kendal, recalls cold winter mornings in years gone by.

I never knew the luxury of waking up to a warm house with central heating until late 1991. My school days were spent in a bungalow at Helme Drive sitting around a coal fire in the back kitchen.

Some evenings we would roast a potato and top it up with butter.

Every year the chimney needed to be swept. This was done by a local chimney sweep, who would come round with his brushes and tackle.

If there was a build-up of soot, and it started dropping down into the hearth we would set the chimney on fire by burning a pair of old wellingtons.

This cleared most of the soot, gave us plenty of hot water and the ashes remaining were very good fertilisers for the garden.

On getting up in a morning, in winter the first task was to clean out the grate and light the fire.

Sometimes, when the first frosts arrived in winter, we would wake up to find the pipes were frozen up. My mother would go up into the loft with a lighted candle - she knew which pipe to hold it against.

I would wait down below in the kitchen and shout up when the cold tap started dripping.

All this changed in the early 1970s with the installation of a gas fire. No more smoke or dust from the ashes, just instant heat at the turn of a switch. Life was unbelievably easier and cleaner.