Give your wooden wares some loving care

Avid watchers of period dramas like Downton Abbey will inevitably see a young scullery maid scrubbing a vast kitchen table on which all food is prepared. 

Likely, the surface would have been used throughout the day almost like a giant chopping board, and at night scrubbed at length with a bristle brush, hot water and carbolic soap to clean it of any developing bacteria so a dose of the trots didn’t break out among those upstairs.

Bear this in mind - to an extent - if you’re buying into the new trend for wooden tablewares.