Everything happened at home in the kitchen. It was our breakfast room, our dining room, our living room and of course our cooking room. Maybe it served all these purposes because we had another room just down one step from the kitchen, which we commonly called a scullery. But probably it was more a kitchen than the kitchen was, because in this room sat the fridge, the freezer, the toaster, the electric kettle and all the boxes that contained the home baked soda and wheaten bread which mum made every week. Also this is where all the cutlery was kept, along with the cooking utensils, crockery and saucepans and if you needed tomato or HP sauce, salt, pepper, sugar or jam this is where you would have found them. ON one side of the scullery were several cupboards, containing a selection of baking trays, frying pans, tins of food and all the baking powders, flours and potions that mum used on a regular basis, while the wall that was broken up by the main window, housed the sink and draining board where all the washing up was started and finished. In the middle of this scullery sat a square table and during the summer time, we always ate here in preference to the kitchen, simply, I think, for a change of scenery. Indeed the only thing that made the kitchen a kitchen was the Wellstood cooker where mum did the majority of her cooking and baking, though as you can understand, she had to ferry most of the materials from the scullery. Nevertheless, it was still the kitchen and unless we were having special visitors, even Sunday lunch was eaten at the table here and also Christmas dinner. This was the place where I was washed when a nipper, where I dressed most mornings before being sent to primary school and also where I ate breakfast beside the open fire door after it had appeared almost by magic on a hard chair perched in front of where I sat. It was also the place where most homeworks were done in the early years, where we watched television, including man landing on the moon, England winning the football World Cup and the aftermath of the JFK assassination. During my life time the television had occupied at least three different positions in the room, the stairs had been turned to attempt to create more space in one corner and the door into our official dining room had been blocked up and opened in another wall beyond the kitchen. It was the place where mum hung her washing on an indoor clothes line along one length of the ceiling nearest the window, where we played family games with rubber rings on a board or on the tile-patterned floor and where the neighbours and where dad read the paper every night. And it was the place where the neighbours and relatives sat when they called to visit, occupying part of the length of the 'couch' that had been covered on numerous occasions with fresh material. And it was the place where our two lads spent most of their tender years, at or near their grandmother's knee, as she taught them choruses, nursed them, told them Bible stories and held parties for their first birthdays, complete with a cake she would have made. It was the warmest room in the house and not just because of the heat from the old fashioned cooker!
But it was only a kitchen by name and not in the true sense of the word as we would apply it today. I guess we should have called it a multi-purpose room but traditions die hard in this part of the country and therefore its name was never even questioned. So I guess it's easier to be something we're not than we imagine. If I was a kitchen, I'd want to be doing more than just a spot of cooking and being a greeting place for neighbours and friends and if I was planning a kitchen I'd want to have all the essentials at my fingertips and not spread out over two rooms. And if I was a Christian, I'd want to be doing more than just being called one because that's what I've always been known as. But you see, I wouldn't be a Christian just because I looked like one or because I did certain things that other Christians do, for there are many folks out there who would not call themselves Christian believers and might even follow other religions or none at all and still 'look' more Christian than I would. So it's not about the name at all, but it is about what's behind the name that we bear. For Jesus Himself says 'Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.' Talking the talk and walking the walk! Maybe it's time for a little renovations!
