Michael Kelly does without . . . electricity
Of all the Giving Upexperiments that I have tried, this is the big one. Being without electricity is a whole series of experiments rolled in to one - giving up lights, heat, showers, the oven, fridge, kettle, toaster, TV, radio, house alarm, dishwasher, microwave, vacuum cleaner and, in all likelihood, sanity. Given the level of delicate negotiations which were needed to get Mrs Kelly on board for this one, it's probably appropriate that this is the last Giving Up article in the series.
On the first morning I light the solid-fuel stove in the sitting
room and then turn off the mains at the fuse
board, just so there can be no cheating. An eerie silence
falls over the house. No background noise of TV or radio. No gentle
humming from the fridge. My first task is to do some hand-washing
in the kitchen sink using water heated on the stove. It's a
complete pain and takes me the better part of an hour. The
experience of hand-washing our "smalls" will live long in the
memory.
Later that evening when darkness descends, I light about 20
candles and an old oil lantern but it still seems really dark. One
of the great things about this experiment is that it highlights
areas of peak-oil vulnerability - take our cooker for example. Some
years ago, we had a bit of a debate about buying an Aga but in the
end we opted for an electric range with a gas hob. Oh for the
comforting warmth of an Aga now. Still, at least we have the gas
hob for cooking, albeit using a match to light the gas - the
little clicker thing is powered by battery.
While struggling to make spaghetti Bolognese in the semi-darkness, I hold a candle near it to see if it's cooked and some wax drips in to the saucepan. Is it because it's so hard to prepare a meal in the dark that people used to eat dinner in the middle of the day? We ponder this question while eating our waxy meal and then retire to the sitting room, the only place that has any heat. We pull two chairs up to the stove and sit there talking. I try reading the paper but give up after 10 minutes, half blind from squinting in the dark. We play cards for a while. "It must be time for bed," I say. "It's only 7.30," replies Mrs Kelly.
The darkness is incredible. We carry the lantern with us wherever we go. I can't help thinking how electricity has helped us make an irrelevance of the seasons. We carry on with our hectic lives in the depths of winter using artificial light but the darkness must have forced our parents to slow down for the winter months. Perhaps this semi-hibernation is how nature intended it?
We head for bed and I try reading a book by candlelight,
but the candle blows out and the room is
suddenly plunged into darkness. I wake up in the middle of
the night and feel my way downstairs to put fuel on the stove.
Out the back door I see the most magnificent array of stars in the sky. We live in the countryside and they are always pretty bright but with the house blacked out they are incandescent.
The following morning the alarm goes off at 7am, but the room is pitch black and Baltic with the cold. The stove downstairs is still lit and the pot of water on top still warm. Since the electric shower won't work, washing is done at the sink with the pot of hot water and a facecloth. I am pleasantly surprised to find I feel quite clean afterwards.
I boil up some water to make tea and since we can't have toast, we have some poached eggs and white bread. I find I appreciate the daylight more than normal and try and cram in as many things as possible. I prepare a stew during the day and put it on top of the stove. The fridge is out of action but you realise that the vast majority of things in our fridges don't actually need constant chilling; beer, wine, chutney, marmalade, fruit, vegetables etc. I put butter and milk out in the porch, where it is about minus 20 degrees anyway.
The week drags on. By day I head for my office, which is
separate to the house and still powered up (well I have to work) -
it's a little island of electrification. It's warm and bright and
things beep, buzz and whirr. There is an inevitable relentlessness
about the arrival of the darkness each day. I spend half an hour
playing with the dogs in the kitchen one night, just for something
to do. Another evening I try a jigsaw but it's just too dark. The
stove is our best friend, the star performer. We conquer the art of
getting it to stay lit all night long. We sit close to it and
each other.
For our final night we invite friends and family around for storytelling. I am keen to talk to people older than myself about what life was like before electrification or when electricity shortages were commonplace. I tell our guests it will be quite rustic, a bowl-of-stew-on-your-lap sort of thing. But it morphs in to a dinner party for 10 people. Since it will be so dark, do I need to bother cleaning up beforehand? I sweep all the floors just in case, eyeing the vacuum cleaner covetously.
We have a truly magical evening. Stories are told, songs are sung. We really start to appreciate how stories and folklore would have been so much more vivid when told sitting around a fire like this. Shadows flicker behind us. It's almost eerie.
Particularly striking are the many references to how much more careful people used to be about consuming electricity. When it arrived first it was seen as an luxury rather than a utility - people were careful with it, and certainly didn't take it for granted. They turned off lights that were not in use, and switched off the mains when going to bed. Environmental concerns and increasing energy costs may force us to revisit this frugality. The general consensus at the end of the night of story-telling is that we should do it more often. The washing-up afterwards, however, is a nightmare.
The following morning I luxuriate in a long hot shower. Candles
are put away. Lights go on. Radiators heat up. The electricity
meter ramps up again. Nobody really knows what impact an oil
shortage will
have on our lives, but most experts agree that electricity
will not be as readily available as it is today. If you want to get
a sneak preview of what the future might look like, you only need
to flick the switch labelled "mains fuse". •Series
ends