Chimney sweep

In the fifties and, to a lesser extent, the sixties, the chimney sweep was a regular visitor to most houses; a few men would use their own set of brushes to create their own sooty mess in their house, but most would use a chimney sweep. It was always exciting to be asked to go outside to check that the brush had appeared out of the top of a chimney. In the early fifties, the sweep used to use sheets and brushes to minimise the soot and grime; by the late fifties, some sweeps had a vacuum cleaner arrangement which coupled to a shaped sheet taped around the fireplace opening and with a hole to allow the additional lengths of bamboo to be added to the ever lengthening brush; I heard one sweep, his equipment plugged into our sockets, answer a challenge to his increased charge by saying that electricity cost had risen – but I do not remember how he was answered.