Nov 7, 2010

Family's fridge is still going after 63 years

Six decades on, as the country enters another era of austerity, the fridge is still working as well as ever.
The English Electric appliance which George and Ivy Ashley bought in 1947 is now thought to be the oldest continuously-working fridge in the country.

It has served the family so well that, apart from the occasional replacement bulbs for the internal light, it has never needed repairs.

Over the years, three generations of Ashleys have relied on the fridge. Food fashions may have changed, but its temperature-controlled chamber has proved a constant in their lives.

The fridge's current owner, Don Ashley, 68, the son of George and Ivy, said: "The fridge is now in an outbuilding at the home because it had a noisy motor but otherwise I've no complaints."

For Mr Ashley, a retired farmer of Cockshutt, Shropshire, the fridge harks back to a forgotten era when Britain manufactured its own consumer durables, and built them to last.

Back in 1947 his mother and father would no doubt have been astonished at the thought that Japanese or German imports would soon become ubiquitous in British households.

Read more at The Telegraph

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