There’s a saying that you don’t hear that often these days - ‘they don’t make them like they used to’.

One of the reasons that folk haven’t really bothered saying this since the time when you could light up at the bar is that it has become the ultimate truism; along with water being wet and that a pint always costs that much nicer when it costs less than a fiver.

Unless you’re talking about mobile phones, there’s very little these days that’s much more cop than they were when there were only four tv channels, which, while we’re at, produced programmes of a far higher standard than much of the bilge we are forced to endure now.

There is an almost endless list of examples of things from the past that were made to a much higher standard than they are in the modern age but last week I came to the crushing realisation that I am made of far weaker stuff than my forebears.

When the boiler breaks down, we don't know how to manage. Photo: Adobe

placeholder image — When the boiler breaks down, we don't know how to manage. Photo: Adobe

It was a busted boiler that did it. On the coldest week of the year since January, which is exactly what everyone I told about my predicament pointed out - with more than a look of over-earnest concern. Despite my unusually focused attempts to get an expert out immediately - usually I’ll leave any sort of non-life threatening malfunction just in case the problem fixes itself and saves me a bob or two - we had nearly five days without heating or hot water.

The one real problem with having central heating, which millions of us are lucky to possess, is what happens when it stops working. Luckily we have fantastic neighbours, who let us use their shower, although I did have a crack at filling the bath with the contents of the equivalent of 15 kettles and an assortment of saucepans. I gave up after the first attempt.

The cold we experienced was too much for me to bear, even with a Swedish fisherman’s jumper on, but it eventually dawned on me that it wasn’t the Blitz that I was experiencing but a minor domestic inconvenience. I then thought about my grandad, a fiercely proud Lancastrian who was born during the Depression of the early 1920s. These humble beginnings never left him and two bars on the electric fire were considered to be a luxury - even at the age of 95.

He would have come over all queasy if he had known how much I spend to keep our house warm and would have urged me to put a ‘big coat on’ and stop moaning. They certainly don’t make them like him anymore.