I’ve always wanted an old stovetop kettle, but I’d never been quite game to use one. Afterall, I was raised in a modern, up-to-date house with an electric kettle and I had no concept of how to boil a kettle on the stove. Would I melt it? Burn it? Otherwise destroy it or the house?

One of my friends was brave enough to make the transition, and I would frequently visit her house and delightedly boil the kettle on her stove. There was something therapeutic about listening to it happily bubbling away on the stove. So this was how it was done! There was nothing to it, just turn the stove on, fill the kettle and pop it on!

Unfortunately by this time I was living with my (now) husband, and he was rather opposed to the idea of a stovetop kettle. “We don’t live in the 1920s!” he would declare. “We have electricity now.” And to a certain extent I understood where he was coming from. And, true, we did have a perfectly good, functioning kettle. Which we then replaced three times within two years as it failed again. And again. And again. And still I persevered with the electric kettle because my husband seemed so opposed to a stovetop one.

It didn’t stop me from buying a whistling kettle in an op shop when I found one, though.

And it didn’t stop me from finally resorting to using the stovetop whistling kettle late one night when the electric kettle failed. Again.

And since then I haven’t looked back. My husband has become reconciled to the idea of a stovetop kettle, Mr J finally understands why the nursery rhyme ends with “When I get all steamed up, hear me SHOUT” in a way he couldn’t before. And I get to be soothed by the bubbling of the kettle.

And a small part of me still gets a secret thrill when I hear the kettle whistle.

Do you use any “old fashioned” technology? Have any worries about using it?