From ALISON WILLIAMSON
Regarding ‘Made by myth’ (Letters, 27 February): I should like to defend
the common sense of the ‘naive old lady’ whose intentions of warming her
pet clearly went rather too far.
The use of the faint overnight warmth of an old-fashioned oven heated
by an adjoining wood or coal fire is well known – at least to an older
generation and to many farmers’ wives. Many a back country kitchen has resuscitated
lambs and piglets or other farm newborns from hypothermic beginnings, especially
snowstorms or floods. In the case of lambs, the result is a kitchen full
of hungry infants underfoot, while the farmer is likely to bring more in
the next day or two, to the distraction of the cook . . .
Midwives in urban and country places have also had to be resourceful.
In Auckland, New Zealand, my family tells of a great-aunt who was placed
in the oven – which still stands in the kitchen of a Historic Places Trust
house – while her mother was given initial care. And this was in the late
19th century.
Alison Williamson London
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