Actually I made a mistake - I should have said we were given the Kenwood mixer in 1966, not 1968. I use it about every week and sometimes more often. However, I made the mistake of mixing bread dough with it in 1968, and the dough hook snapped off. Since then I have mixed bread by hand perfectly happily.
Not quite an appliance, but I bought a cheese grater from the village hardware shop in 1966 or 7, and expressed shock at the price (2/6 or something like that). The patient man said it would last me a life time, and here we are, nearly 50 years later, and he was right - it looks as good as new still. The same cannot be said of a potato peeler from the same place and time that had the nerve to disintegrate in a shower of rust a few weeks ago.
