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Post by Patrick on Oct 16, 2008 12:57:04 GMT
"An East Yorkshire pensioner is living by candlelight after switching
off the mains to her flat to take a stand against sky-high fuel bills
and corporate profiteering. Anne Myall, 72, has spent more than two
weeks living without lights, hot water, and heating in her
one-bedroom flat in Pocklington.
The retired journalist has also sacrificed the use of her cooker and
television in her protest at alleged "bullying" from the energy
company Npower, reports the Pocklington Post. Myall, a widow, now listens to her battery-operated radio instead
of watching TV and uses extra blankets to keep warm. Instead of
cooking hot meals, she has salads for lunch and take-away dinners,
including plenty of fish from the chippy, and bathes in cold water.
"It's amazing how one can manage," she told the Post. "I can't believe
how well I feel for doing this." Myall claims that she has been
charged up to £750 a quarter since moving in three years ago,
despite being frugal with her electricity.
"This is really a protest against the energy company and the
government's lack of will to do anything about it. How Npower works
out how much they charge I do not know. They can please themselves
and have us over a barrel. If everybody switched their meter off for
a week just to see what it's like, it would send a message to these
companies that they're not untouchable."
Npower claimed Myall had an outstanding bill of £225, but has agreed
to clear the debt as a "goodwill gesture".
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Post by trubble on Oct 16, 2008 13:49:14 GMT
A fortnight is ok, like a holiday, but I'm pretty sure that she will die if she continues to exist on lettuce and fish'n'chips and never warms herself.  Good idea for a protest though, even a couple of days without using their supply would be substantial if enough people did it. |
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Post by Patrick on Oct 16, 2008 13:54:07 GMT
My Nan never felt the cold (rather alarmingly) Her house was usually pretty chilly in the winter! Though she'd go to bed with an electric blanket - you stayed firmly by the fire in the living room on winter days. Sensible if you think about it - Why waste heat on the rest of the house, whilst you're not using it? Though these days we tend to think it's more costly to have to heat a room up from cold than keep things at least comfortable all round.
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Post by trubble on Oct 16, 2008 13:56:18 GMT
I've been raised in that sort of 'heat is for sissies' thinking and often advocate it but I think being cold leads you towards ideas of hibernation and having comfotable heat makes you more alert.
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Post by Patrick on Oct 16, 2008 14:11:02 GMT
Actually, I have a whole Phil o'Sophy on that - That there is a world of difference in attitudes to life between those brought up without central heating and those who were. .......but I shan't bore you with it.  |
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Oct 16, 2008 14:39:57 GMT
Brought up without CH, me and mum lived in a flat from when I was about 8-16...fooking ice box, horrible and cold in the winter, I used to get icicles on the INSIDE of my (metal) window frame. As a result of this, I am a heat-hog nowadays...  AH |
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Post by trubble on Oct 16, 2008 15:29:14 GMT
Please bore me with it Patrick, even just by bullet points.. You have Alph, me and you, I take it, to prove or disprove this groundbreaking theory.  |
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Post by trubble on Oct 16, 2008 15:31:37 GMT
Brought up without CH, me and mum lived in a flat from when I was about 8-16...fooking ice box, horrible and cold in the winter, I used to get icicles on the INSIDE of my (metal) window frame. As a result of this, I am a heat-hog nowadays... AH You had a window frame?! You were lucky... tempting to go there but no Monty Python sketches will be allowed in this thread.  Icicles on the inside is quite extreme . |
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Oct 16, 2008 15:33:45 GMT
Quite flipping cold as well...bloody horrible that flat was.
AH
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Post by motorist on Oct 16, 2008 15:44:48 GMT
I have known the Winter to go down to -37 degrees Celsius here at times
Just saying ;D
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Oct 16, 2008 16:01:51 GMT
Motto... Cold outside = ok Cold inside = Tempted to douse house in petrol and set it on fire to warm up a bit. AH |
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Post by motorist on Oct 16, 2008 16:07:26 GMT
Mr Hooly, in the Winter it is not uncommon for one of these potty Finns to - just after having a Sauna - dive into the snow outside to cool down again Don't fancy that meself  |
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Post by trubble on Oct 16, 2008 16:32:07 GMT
My dad did that a couple of times, he loved it.
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Post by Patrick on Oct 16, 2008 17:34:55 GMT
My dad did that a couple of times, he loved it. So when did you take the elastic band off!  |
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Post by Patrick on Oct 16, 2008 17:37:36 GMT
Brought up without CH, me and mum lived in a flat from when I was about 8-16...fooking ice box, horrible and cold in the winter, I used to get icicles on the INSIDE of my (metal) window frame. As a result of this, I am a heat-hog nowadays... AH You had a window frame?! You were lucky... tempting to go there but no Monty Python sketches will be allowed in this thread. Icicles on the inside is quite extreme . I used to love playing with the swirls and forest like patterns on the inside of my bedroom window at Stub Crouch (the upstairs one on the picture above!) Only once I'd got dressed though! Bowl of porridge sitting in front of the real fire - marvellous!  |
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Post by Patrick on Oct 16, 2008 17:43:16 GMT
I have known the Winter to go down to -37 degrees Celsius here at times Just saying ;D I dread to think how all those Volvos and Saabs will cope now they are nothing more than Bastardised Fords and Vauxhalls! |
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Post by sesley on Oct 16, 2008 17:55:14 GMT
the cost of daily takeaways would surely work out more than if she cooked it her self and all that fat in takeaways will give her a early death of a coronary.
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Post by housesparrow on Oct 17, 2008 10:57:51 GMT
My parents, then in their 70s, lived for nearly two weeks without electricity following a power cut one very cold winter . They had no mains gas but fortunately they had an open fire and used a camping gas stove for cooking.
The funny thing is that they changed their attitude completely after that. My mother had been a great one for the morning ritual of "airing the house" (all windows open, no heating before the afternoon) but abandoned it during her chilly sojourn never to return, much to my dad's relief!
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Post by housesparrow on Oct 17, 2008 11:03:32 GMT
I remember ice on the inside of the windows, both as a child and later, while sharing a house in the country with some friends. It was made out of something very flimsy - breezeblock or some such, without any nice warm brick or timber coating, and had no central heating. None of us liked to install a heater in our rooms because we all shared the bills. I stuck it out for about a year before deciding I couldn't face another winter steeling myself to get out of bed to get to work on time!
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