We bought an old radio 30 years ago, and it still works! It’s a vaccum valve radio. It only picks up long wave signals, so I can listen to radio 4 and the shipping forecast. We have a 1960’s one too with a huge battery and a large dial to tune into different stations and a big grill on the front.

It’s amazing how these relics of a bygone era can last for decades. OK if they were on all day they might break down, but I think its marvellous. Nowadays people would gut the insides and bung in some Bluetooth speakers and headphones. But I prefer a traditional mechanism. Life needs relics to remind us of our past. It’s only around 100 years since the end of the first world war. And some people born then are still alive. Go back 20 X 100 years and you are back in bible times. We think it’s ancient, but it’s not really long ago compared with deep historic time, like the millions of years ago that the dinosaurs existed.