Modern vacuum cleaners MOST DEFINITELY won't last that long, Sen.

My parents’ vacuum cleaner, of the same early post-war generation, lasted into the early 80s and finally died of hose problems. It was a Swedish Electrolux, all metal, with a cloth bag that one emptied onto a sheet of newspaper — no expensive disposables for us! My own first vacuum was another Electrolux, only slightly younger, that I bought at a charity shop circa 1985; it was still going strong in 1998 when I gave it to my brother because Edmund and I had bought a house with a central vac system.

The central vac lasted only about five years, and by then the original Electrolux company had folded and sold its name to another outfit that makes its vacuum cleaners out of plastic. Guess what? They don’t last 30 years.

Do I take this personally? Probably.