Water is a substance of which we are becoming very conscious. There is either too much of it - as in the recent German and Polish floods - or too little. In France this spring they got worried. At the end of April it was announced Ministerially that the shortage was considerable. And their way of putting shortage was very eye-catching: they announced that France was suffering from "un deficit pluviometrique". The Environment Minister said, just as the month of April was dying: "These last four months have been the driest since the Liberation" - i.e. 1944/45.
Since then, like most of us, they may have had enough. It's worth remembering that in the early 1960s, when the now defunct Sunday Review carried out a poll among its readers as to what the rural Irish housewife most wanted in her home, something over 60 per cent wanted simply running water. Dishwashers or other gadgets might follow, but proper running water, of drinking quality, was the basic need. The Shannon Scheme for electrification was 40 years old, but water - the result surprised many who lived in towns and cities. Retailing this to a friend, he said he wasn't at all surprised. An aunt of his lived about 20 miles outside Belfast in Co Antrim. She was widowed and the house was of reasonable size and comfort. In the summer her son and one or two of her nephews came to visit. The house in those months was lively with the noise of young people. Sometimes there would be a dozen holidaymakers there.
But summer and winter, water for drinking had to be hauled in buckets from a well a couple of hundred yards down the hill. There was therefore no flush lavatory. The dry closet was about 20 yards away across the lawn. So, in summer there was labour available. But, in winter, she was all alone; a small tank on the roof gave rainwater for the dishes. A small range in the kitchen kept her warm, and on this she cooked. If the clergyman called, she could light a fire in the sitting room. In winter the local grocer cum everything would deliver her food and her paraffin for the lamps. No electricity, of course. For a telephone, she could call to a neighbour about a hundred yards away. And the boy next door would fetch the spring water.
This, admittedly, was in the 1930s and 1940s, but it didn't seem much different in the 1950s. Nowadays, the relative who inherited goes off to the Canaries for Christmas having, of course, sold the house.