'An Aga is for life, not just for Christmas' by Mrs P. Bellards, Burton

We both grew up in households where the Aga was a way of life, a member of the family, one might say.

We later bought an Aga with a house around it!  Our 'new' friend is, in fact, over 50 years.  We were happy to exchange the labours of solid fuel and wrapped potato peelings for the easier, if unsightly, oil tank.  Some years later, with the newly available gas conversion, our fiend took on yet another lease of life.

Our Aga has served us faithfully ever since.  Married to a vet, my bottom oven, more unusually, serves as an incubator from time to time, to revive chilled patients - leaving the door open, of course!  The kitchen continued to be the hub of family life and still hosts many a heart-to-heart in her reassuring embrace; the forgotton sports kit could be dried in time for next day's school; the bread would prove so beautifully and the yoghurt set overnight.  Regrets?  If only my poor exhausted Mother had known the liberating trick of putting the enormous turkey in the bottom oven on Christmas Eve!

But would I want a new one?  Surely, an Aga is for life, not just for Christmas?