Life belts An excellent and cheap life belt, for persons proceeding to sea, bathing in dangerous places, or learning to swim, may be thus made: take a yard and three-quarters of strong jean, double, and divide into nine compartments. Let there be a space of two inches after each third compartment. Fill the compartments with very fine cuttings of cork, which may be made by cutting up old corks, or (better still) purchased at the corkcutters’. Work eyelet holes at the bottom of each compartment, to let the water drain out. Attach a neckband and waist strings of stout bootweb and sew them on strongly.

Invaluable advice from Grandmother’s Household Hints, As Good Today As Yesterday by Helen Lyon Adamson (1963). I bought this yesterday in a charity shop, and find myself ready not only to make my own life belt but to remove sweat-stains from hatbands, use hay in my kitchen, deal quickly and effectively with fainting, hysterics, apparent death from drunkenness, and nails growing into the flesh, make baked custard cabbage and stewed watercress, understand the significance of clouds, inflict sure death on insect pests, and iron bobbinet laces.