For 50 years, top writers have shared life-defining moments with FEMAIL. Here, we reveal what happened next…I wanted a home full of talking tech. But now I crave silence
- Fay Weldon longed for high-tech household appliances in the year 1999
- However she feels so differently as the modern world of technology grows
- She says she will not have these mad modern things she once wanted in house
WHAT I WROTE IN 1999
Housework can be a very lonely job, and it would be wonderful to have some companionship, particularly if all the machines could talk with the voice of Sean Connery.
I would like my household appliances to give me warning, cajolement and congratulations.
I would like my dishwasher to tell me what a good meal I had cooked and that now it was going to clean all the dishes brilliantly, because I deserved it.
If I cleaned the paintwork around the light switch, I would love to be told that it was a task well done.
I would really appreciate the shower telling me when it had finally settled down and it was safe for me to get in, rather than be blasted alternately with cold and scalding water.
Twenty years ago Fay Weldon (pictured) said that she longed for high-tech household appliances and a perfectly clean, ordered home
And it would be wonderful if the vacuum cleaner could say: ‘Fay, this bit of carpet is getting rather thin,’ or ‘Fay, you are about to suck up a valuable piece of jewellery.’ No one ever gets praised for doing housework.
My husband does a good deal of the domestic chores, but I think he would prefer it if I told him he had done something well — which I often do — rather than a machine.
I, on the other hand, would need the talking appliance, because he never praises me for loading the dishwasher.
WHAT I ACTUALLY DID
Twenty years ago, in an article titled ‘What Women Really Want’, I wrote that I longed for high-tech household appliances and a perfectly clean, ordered home to match.
I feel so differently now, even as the modern world of technology has caught up with my desires.
The last thing I want today is a fridge which tells me I’m running out of quinoa and almond milk, or a dishwasher which complains I’ve stacked it wrongly, let alone an Alexa to bully and monitor me, or a satnav which tries to make me u-turn in the middle of a crowded road — with not a ‘Thank you!’ or ‘Well done!’ between them.
I won’t have these mad modern things in the house. I’ve been proven wrong on my longing for perfect order, too.
Back then, I had recently emerged from 30 thankless years of cluttered and noisy marriage.
Since writing her article, titled ‘What Women Really Want’ (pictured), she has changed her mind and won’t have these modern things in the house
So I had thrown out all my books (except, of course, the ones I had written) as old-fashioned, dusty things. I didn’t want other people’s thoughts taking up space in my head and house.
I craved modernity, robotic advance, simplicity — and not an ornament in sight.
But then I fell in love and got married again, to a man who brought half the stock of a bookshop with him and whose habit it is to pick up charming bric-a-brac at local church fêtes: blue-and-white china, a 4in ostrich made out of a pine cone with wire legs, a real crystal ball, a model Viking boat made out of oyster shells.
All my earlier tastes gradually went out the window and I’ve come to love our messy home.
The lesson is, strive too hard for what you want and you may live to regret it.
Instead of our appliances taking care of us, they’ve become yet another demand on our time.
They sit there beeping, blinking and having to be constantly updated and rebooted and heaven forbid there should be a power cut.
Suddenly the almond milk is going sour in the fridge, the vegan roast is rotting in the freezer and everything from toaster to toothbrush is shouting for attention.
Give me the old days, when at least one had one’s thoughts for company. Give me silence!
FAY WELDON’S latest novel After The Peace is now available as an audiobook read by Julian Clary.
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