Nina and the Free Insulation

Nina bought a house. It wasn’t a posh house and it wasn’t a grotty house. It was a very sensible, plain, practical house built by a sensible, reliable developer called Mr. Barrett. It was in a sensible, practical Yorkshire town called Huddersfield, where lots of sensible houses were being built.

Nina moved into her sensible, practical house with one husband, two guinea pigs, three teenagers, heaps of furniture and dozens of boxes, bags and cases. Oh yes and two large, old fashioned trunks. One trunk was blue, with black studded corners and metal handles and had belonged to her father. Her father had been in the British Army and had travelled all over. The other trunk was brown, with large brass locks and leather handles and had belonged to her grandfather, who had been in the Indian Army. He had travelled even more all over.

The trunks were old fashioned, but useful. They contained all Nina’s clothes, even old ones that she never wore any more but still liked. But as Nina and her family gradually unpacked their boxes, bags and cases and distributed their heaps of furniture, they kept banging their shins on the heavy corners of the trunks. The trouble was, the sensible, practical house had been so sensibly designed that there was no spare space, or not for such big, old fashioned trunks.

Nina’s husband, who was trying to be sensible, said, “These trunks must go!” Actually what he said was a great deal ruder because he’d just fallen over the big blue trunk and spilled his tea. But Nina disagreed. She liked the trunks, they were family heirlooms and anyway they still had some of her clothes in them.

Therefore the possibility of putting the trunks into the loft was investigated. The loft space wasn't actually empty of course, being full of trusses, but there was a small boarded area, not far from the hatch. The brown trunk was slightly narrower, so that went up first. It took the strongest teenager pulling it up the ladder, from above in the loft, and the rest of the family pushing it up the ladder from underneath, to get the trunk up there. After that all the teenagers collapsed, exhausted. It required cola, chocolate cake and a promise of a trip to the cinema to see Superman Umpteen before they were prepared to try the blue trunk. But first Nina was forced to concede that it would be easier if she emptied the blue trunk, as it was even heavier than the brown trunk.

The blue trunk was still heavy, and it so nearly got stuck in the hatch that proposals were being considered to refresh the strongest teenager by making a hole in the ceiling to pass up more cake, but a compromise was reached. The teenager exerted himself once more and the trunk was successfully located on the boarded area on the loft. Nina then climbed up into the loft to put things back into the trunks, while the rest of the family went off to watch Superman Umpteen, with mega buckets of popcorn. That was the compromise.

Years later, when the teenagers were all grown up and had homes of their own, a leaflet came through Nina’s door, offering free loft insulation. Now Nina’s house had four inches of loft insulation, but the government wanted her to have more. Nina was happy to agree, it would make the house warmer in winter and cooler in summer. So men came, with rolls and rolls of insulation, which they laid carefully on top of the thin layer already there. Then they re-fitted the loft hatch so it would seal properly. So everything was much better sealed as well as insulated and Nina and her husband were toasty all winter.

The next summer Nina climbed up into the loft for the first time for years. It was very hot up there, although the house below was much cooler. She wanted to look for something that might be in one of her old trunks. Once up there, Nina remembered that she liked the trunks and she decided now that the teenagers had left home, there was room for at least one of them downstairs. So she emptied the blue trunk and dragged it across to the loft hatch. With her husband at the bottom of the ladder and Nina in the loft, they tried to lower the trunk down. It wouldn’t go.

So Nina’s husband climbed up into the hot loft and Nina climbed down the ladder. They tried it with him up there and it still wouldn’t go. They decided they needed a strong teenager, but as they no longer had one, Nina climbed up into the hot loft and emptied the contents of the brown trunk into the blue trunk. Then they tried with the brown trunk. It wouldn’t go either and that was when they realised that the loft hatch was narrower than it had been, because it had been sealed and insulated properly.

Nina flung the old clothes that she wanted down the ladder and put the rest back into the trunks. Then she and her husband climbed down the ladder and went to have a drink. Or several.

The moral of this tale could be, if you are contemplating the re-fitting of a loft hatch, for any reason, take account of what is already in the loft. Or it could be, if you have trunks in your loft, don’t let your strongest teenager leave home before he (or she) has brought them down for you. Obviously it isn't company policy to say 'don't insulate your loft'!

Personally, if it means the teenager staying at home until they are twenty-five, I’d rather leave the trunks in the loft, heirlooms or not.

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