In 2019 The Telegraph ran a competition to find the oldest operational Aga range cooker. Read the full article here.
In 1932, the year that both the visionary Brave New World by the celebrated author Aldous Huxley was published and the BBC's nonpareil World Service was launched, the Hett family decided to join this new globalisation by installing a state-of-the art foreign cooker in their modern home in West Sussex.
Today 80-year-old Stewart Hett still lives in that old new house that his parents' bought and still cooks on that stove.
Hundreds of readers boasted of working cookers from the forties and in particular the fifties. And while none were as ancient as the Hett family's stove each had a story to tell.
Nicky Gill from Dorset, for example, fondly remembers her Aunt Maidie warming her chest on the family's elderly 1940s AGA. ''She was a matronly figure with a booming voice and a magnificent bosom who would return from bracing winter walks and beg a few moments alone in the kitchen,'' wrote Nicky. ''If the kitchen door was ajar we could see Auntie Maidie raise her jumper, lean over the hot plates and emit a deep sigh while uttering the words 'ah, one of life's great pleasures'.''
My god what an anecdote! Had to reproduce that too!
The cooker in question though is still going! Jane got in touch recently to enquire about converting it to electric. While we can convert almost all cookers installed since 1941 I'm afraid 1932 is a step too far! Here is the cooker today in 2022!
