h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Grandson skyped this morning to enquire about conditions in the house I grew up in, so, with his father's connivance, I answered the questions relating them to the cottage my mother and I were evacuated to.
No gas, electricity or running water in rural Cornwall. His attempt to draw a picture of its kitchen was a combined stretch of three imaginations.
I have only one real memory: my father came home on leave when I was 2 and I remember the rough material of his uniform but I have several false memories formed from tales told by him and my mother: I know, for example that there were 13 brass knobs on the kitchen range to be polished and that the irons were heated on the stove rather than filled with coals.