Lighting a fire

We always had fires to light but never ever did that! Just built a pile of sticks maybe and afire lighter or two and a few small pieces of coal to get it started.

The purpose was to start warming the chimney so that the draft through the fire needed to get the fire going could be generated.

Whether it worked is another thing, but often belief that it will work is sufficient.

I’m surprised that any soot inside the chimney wasn’t set alight by doing this, but it obviously worked for your gran. I remember my mother and father would put a short handled shovel in front of the grate with a sheet of newspaper over it after lighting the fire in order to ”draw “it and get it going. That seemed to be pretty dangerous sometimes!