‘And for security reasons, can you tell me the month and year of your birth?’ Said the professionally pleasant voice of the British Gas employee.

‘February 1925’ I answered.

There was a pause ‘Sorry, could you repeat please?’ Said the operator, sounding confused. 

‘February 1925.’ I repeated.

‘Sorry, you just sound so young!’

‘Oh aren’t you sweet!’ I answered, in my best old lady voice.

‘That’s all sorted for you. The engineer will be there on Friday to service your boiler between 8am and 1pm.’ 

‘Thank you, dear.’ I said, still imitating my grandmother.

I hung up the phone and said: ‘Good news, the engineer is coming on Friday morning. The lady did say it wasn’t due for another 3 months.’

‘It has been a year since the last one. It will go off if it is not seen to!’ Said grandma, sounding instantly stressed.

‘Don’t worry, the engineer is coming. I confused the phone operator, she said I sounded young.’ I giggled.

‘You should have let me do it.’ 

‘Last time I let you do it, you tried to have a conversation with the automated voice, got upset and got nowhere.’

‘I don’t know why they don’t have humans answering the phone!’ She said for the hundredth time as I left the room to go back to work.

The boiler is revered in the house, purely out of the fear my grandmother has for it (‘I’m scared to death of it! I admit it.’). It is serviced every year, she never misses a date and has reminders about it in her diary. I’m never allowed near it to adjust the heating or the water pressure. When the engineers come for the Holy Boiler’s annual service, grandma treats them as if they are mystics who can understand the God of Heating. She tells me to make them tea, and nervously waits in the bathroom doorway as they go about their business, asking ‘is it OK?’ every few minutes.

Grandma is scared of most household appliances. To her, they are mysterious, make too much noise and are more trouble than they are worth.

She’s got used to the television over the years but only knows how to use the remote to turn the TV on, off, and change to the few channels she regularly watches (this rarely happens now as she can’t see well enough). I remember when I showed her the ‘mute’ button, she was initially hesitant, thinking I had broken the sound but I overheard her talking to the neighbour about it on the phone a few days later, saying I’d found a new way of turning the sound off – ‘how marvellous!’

When it comes to appliances, the oven, fridge, freezer, kettle, and toaster are accepted and used (by me mostly- she was astounded to discover that you could put a frozen slice of bread in the toaster, and it came out as toast- she may have also called the neighbour about that.) The other household appliances are a source of great anxiety for her and therefore are turned off or only used very occasionally. I’ve claimed the washing machine, and she’s had to give up telling me off for ‘altering it’ when I change the settings. I think the dryer has only been used a handful of times, only in exceptional circumstances and never by her, but she does insist on wiping it down regularly. The microwave is permanently switched off and only used by me, with grandma usually hovering in the background commenting on what buttons I am pressing that make it beep so much. I think that’s what worries her the most about these machines – the beeping.

Her real source of fear though, is the (now discarded) coffee machine. We’d bought a cheap coffee machine, one of the ones that you insert coffee capsules in, a few years ago because my sister’s boyfriend at the time was coming to stay, he was a total coffee addict (and snob) and the purchase was deemed necessary. Grandma was not so sure about yet another piece of machinery in the kitchen but complied when my parents and I all insisted and went out and bought one.

The next morning, we duly tried it before my sister and her overcaffeinated boyfriend arrived.

Grandma was eyeing the machine on the counter, sipping her ‘proper’ coffee; a mud-brown mixture of ground coffee, water and milk boiled on the stove and sieved into a coffee mug (yes, it is as disgusting as it sounds).

I re-read the instructions out loud, mainly to reassure grandma that I wasn’t going to do anything to make it explode, inserted a coffee pod into the machine, and pressed the start button.

The machine sprung into action, and started making a whirring noise as the hot water passed through the compressed coffee capsule.

‘Oh! What a din that thing is making!’ Said grandma over-dramatically covering her ears.

My parents and I looked at each other smiling, we each made ourselves a cup and made sure to tell her the coffee was delicious.

It did not work.

Within the hour of my sister and her boyfriend leaving after their weeklong stay, grandma (only in her late 80s then and still very active), got up, put the coffee machine into its carefully preserved cardboard box, took it upstairs and placed it on top of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom. It has never been used again and I’m sure grandma was secretly happy when my sister and that boyfriend broke up as it meant no reappearance of the noisy coffee machine.

I find my grandmother’s fear of common household appliances very amusing and baffling, but then I remember all the changes she has seen during her life, and that all the tech we take for granted might as well be magic to her. Though I am annoyed that her machine misgivings mean I can’t have a nice coffee at home.