The cellar to my mam and dad’s house served as both a pantry and a workshop.  It had electric lighting of course, but also benefitted from the daylight it got from the coal grate.  (For the more privileged among you, this was where the coal got tipped in).

It wasn’t a comfortable workspace, for me at least.  The ceiling was about 6 feet high and so am I; so I’d frequently bump or scrape my head.

As a pantry it mainly housed tins as the fridge in the kitchen took over from traditional cellar storage.  This differed from my grandma and grandad’s which stored butter, cheese and milk and all the other stuff you’d routinely keep in the fridge these days as well as fruit and veg.

A rather poignant memory I have is of the tins of dog food.  Towards his end, when our Rusty was in a bad way and heading for the vet, my dad said “We’re not buying him any more tins of dogmeat”.

So that was that.  The date of his “appointment” was set by the dwindling number of tins we had left. 

The dog never went down the cellar but in any event I think it was kindest that it couldn’t count.