A fridge is hardly the most exciting appliance in the world, unless you are one of those lucky people who have just bought a huge stainless steel double beauty. A fridge/freezer is one of the modern necessities which has to take up valuable space in the kitchen. However we have come a long way from the days when my father dug a neat concreted hole beside the back door of our London home. This was filled with water and the milk bottles left there to prevent the contents curdling in the summer.

My father was a brilliant man whose potential was lost through lack of education. He should have been an engineer, so versatile and skilled was he from mechanics to drawing to beautiful carpentry. He even piloted a plane when these were little more than petrol powered matchsticks.... not to mention building his own wirelesses in the early days of radio. It was not surprising, therefore, that any advice he gave was taken as gospel, and his quiet, dry humour let him drop in the occasional silliness so that he could watch our reactions when things went wrong. So when I moved my huge old gas-powered fridge (town gas at that) to my present home over 30 years ago, he told me that before we connected it we must turn it upside down and wait a while. It could well have been good advice, but I shall never know and it did work afterwards for many years.

Over time fridges have become neater and more efficient, not to mention electric. With the purchase of my new kitchen and the capital used, appliances should have to be the last I buy and care taken in choosing them. Since that kitchen, delivered in June is still waiting to be fitted, I decided to buy the washing machine and fridge/freezer now, so that at least I am not left with more clutter as I wait for the excellent and very busy local fitter to arrive.

The first disappointment was that the nice wide fridge/freezer I had my eye on would not fit into the space left in my old kitchen. I woul
d have to re-select or wait several months. So I dived back into Comet's website, only to find that the choice was limited because of width and also height. I finally found one which was spacious enough for me but only 54.5cms wide and 169.2cms high. This is the Beko CGA 966 in white (my choice) or silver at £249 + £11.95 delivery. When it arrived within a few days I just managed to squeeze it into the gap left by my old fridge/freezer, and am very pleased indeed with it.

I don't appear to have lost much space with the loss of a few centimetres. The capacity is 5.7cu ft for the fridge and 4.4cu ft the freezer, although I realise that you ice cream buffs would want double this size to feed your habit. I particularly like the 4 sturdy glass shelves with wide white plastic front edges. One sits above the 2 large salad crispers with their frosted glass fronts decorated with a white veggie motif. The other 3 are adjustable over 7 slots in the wall of the fridge.

The door space is well thought out with 3 deep trays adjustable with 6 choices of position. This was vital as I needed to place them all on one side of the door in order to accommodate the length of my drinks chiller on one of the glass shelves. A removable egg tray takes 8 eggs and there are two deep dairy boxes with flip up lids. Bottles are kept secure with a tightly flexible length of plastic strip which naturally adjusts and holds them still. A very nice touch, this last.

The fridge has automatic defrost and is A class powered for running economy. I appreciate the fact that edges are rounded and grooves at a minimum, so that cleaning is simple. The temperature control is a knob placed on the rim of the fridge front and controls both fridge and freezer. I keep a small thermometer inside the fridge and the temperature control is working well. I have found very little adjustment has been needed should the weather change drastically outside.
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r>The freezer has an icemaker tray immediately below the top - which was a nice surprise, a fast freezer with a pull down flap and 2 pull out drawers. One of these drawers has less depth than the other , but is capacious enough for me. The fast freezer and top drawer are surprisingly deep and roomy. Beko tells us that the CGA 966 will freeze 5 kilos of food in 24 hours. I can't verify this as I use it mainly for already frozen food but I have noticed that the odd item I have needed to freeze, has done so very quickly.

I have since learnt that Beko, which I hadn't heard of before, is a respected name. The appliance is not only functional, but does look attractive, both inside and out.

If there is a disadvantage it is that, although very quiet when running, every now and again the Beko lets out a small "groan". This is mentioned in the instruction manual and I am so used to it that it is not noticeable. However, since my computer is within a few yards of it, I had a few worrying moments in the quiet of the early hours when a sad sound came to my ears from a corner of the kitchen. Was there a ghost keeping me company? No, it was just my new Beko shrugging it's shoulders and reminding me that it was there. For this reason I have removed a star, but only for accuracy. It really doesn't bother me now. This has to be better than the constant loud hum heard on other fridge/freezers.

At present Comet are offering a £30 reduction if you will agree to have your old fridge deactivated (look for the big red "A" on the top right of the appliance list on their website). I should give a warning here, though, that disposal of fridges can be a near impossibility in some areas. This is because the CFC's have to be eliminated before destruction and the recycling plants are overloaded. Even some councils are not taking them away at present. Since my old one was working well, I was abl
e to give it to a young friend. If it had been deactivated, this could have been a different story.

Nowdays it is important that the fridge/freezer is transported and carried upright. Please don't turn it upside down and wait a bit. :-)


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