Apparently at Halton, some of the back boilers had been drilled, some hadn't and some were just plain broke and risked gassing the occupants, allegedly. The bit of paper on which it had all been written down, if it ever existed, had been lost, so the solution was a blanket ban on all fires. I have to admit, in the depths of winter, I chanced it and got away with it without killing us. I even managed to set the chimney on fire, so I could not have been the first. The Stn fire brigade were very good about it and put it out without bubbling me to the powers that be.
The heating boiler in the kitchen was fuelled by anthracite beans. The sequence was, open the hopper, pour in the beans, make a pot of tea, pick up the dustpan and brush and sit in the lounge enjoying the tea. After around 10 minutes, there would be an explosion and a clang from the kitchen. This would be your cue to finish the tea, go into the kitchen, shut the hopper lid again and clean coal dust of all the surfaces and the floor. It seems the warmth of the boiler caused the anthracite to degas and then the fire caused an explosion which blew all the dust out of the hopper. A neighbour happened to be looking at our quarter one evening when it happened and said about 3 feet of blue flame came out of the chimney at the time. It was a common trait to most of the boilers in the patch.
The other side-effect of turning the heating on was it woke all the fleas in the house. The first we knew was spotting one crawling across our firstborn, who was just a few weeks old at the time. Mum was not a happy bunny.