My grandma had a set of aluminium pans that she got in the 1930s, before the Second World War.
During World War II there was a drive to collect all the scrap iron (that's why you can still see where the iron railings used to be outside many British houses) and more to the point aluminium pots and pans to make Spitfires.
Grandma was most put out by this, she was prepared to sacrifice as much iron-work for the war effort as Mister Churchill could get his hands on, but war or no war she wasn't going to let anyone get their hands on her set of aluminium pans and they were hidden away (probably on grandad's allotment) for the duration.
After the war the pans came out again and grandma used them through the 1940s, 50s and 60s, right into the early 1970s when she left Yorkshire and came to live in Glossop with my aunty.
The set of pans got distributed amongst various members of the family in Yorkshire and as a teenager I would often see on of these aluminium pans withtheir Bakelite handles in the kitchen of one aunty or another.
Grandma kept one pan, a small saucepan that she intended to use when she moved in with my aunty, but somewhere along the way it got passed on to my mother.
Well, the pan that had survived the war and and something like 70 years since grandma got it has finally died. The ravages of the gas stove has finally burned through the bakelite handle and the pan is of no further use... 
They just don't make things to last anymore!
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