If a roaring fire is now sinful, what is left of Dickens’ Christmas?
Iused to enjoy Chris Whitty’s gawky media appearances during the pandemic – his skimpy hair, his crumpled suits. Now that we are all paying for his super-cautious approach to Covid, I’m not sure I want to hear so much from him, especially when he’s lambasting fireplaces and wood-burning stoves.
Logs aren’t like Covid, a previously unknown disease. They have been burnt cheerfully in British homes since time began, and particularly at Christmas. Yule logs used to be dragged to the hearth amid rejoicing and kept burning until the new year.
Quite apart from this tradition, we are in the middle of a cold snap and energy prices have gone through the roof. Yet the professor has chosen this moment to remind us of the polluting consequences of burning wood. Hasn’t he ever smelt wood smoke, as he walks down a winter lane? However cold the outside temperature, it warms the heart with the apparition of a crackling fire.
Of course, one has to be careful – chimneys have to be properly sealed; CO2 detectors are a good idea. But wood-burners are today highly regulated, with only the most efficient types now permitted to be sold.
Admittedly, many less efficient old ones are still in service, and since they are mostly cast iron they are unlikely to wear out any time soon. Open fires are almost criminally wasteful of heat. But I can’t say I care. As long as the wood is seasoned, dry and a hardwood like ash or chestnut, not pine, it will blaze merrily – and for me that is half the point.
On dark evenings, we need the light of the fire to lift our spirits. Charles Dickens evokes the cosiness it imparts in A Christmas Carol: “... the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful.”
That’s one of the scenes that the Spirit of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge. I wish he’d show it to Whitty.
There is a slight danger from our wood-burner: it gets ferociously hot. Pages singe when left on top of it, plastic melts. But this is no disqualification in itself; like many other things in life, you simply have to take elementary precautions, in this case not to touch or leave anything on the hot surfaces.
There are not many wood-burners in cities, although I believe they are permitted if the emissions are sufficiently low. But numerous country people will have little other source of heating this year.
Rural incomes are often low and cottages draughty; trees, on the other hand, are plentiful and if they grow on your land, the wood will be free. No need to feel guilty about burning it: the trees will grow again, absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. Wood, after all, is a renewable resource.
What I love most about wood-burners and fires is the ritual. There is always something to do. The bringing in of the logs (being watchful for spiders); the building of the fire with out of date copies of The Daily Telegraph, happily in the knowledge that you are consigning yesterday’s gloomy news to the flames; the attempts to light it, which may take several goes if you have run out of firelighters and the flue is cold.
Once lit, it has to be tended by stirring the logs with a poker or, if all else fails, holding a sheet of newspaper over the fireplace opening to increase the draw. Keeps you busy and it’s as Christmassy as sloe gin and mince pies.