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The hostess trolley - a favourite with 1970s housewives - was a lumbering pantechnicon used to keep food more-or-less warm in Pyrex dishes.

But then the ambulance arrived, a pantechnicon of rescue, lumbering into view like one of those cranky Red Cross vehicles from my 50s childhood.

"I'm delighted to announce that I have unloaded the metaphorical pantechnicon and signed the tenancy agreement to take up residency in the belfry of the Book Trust," its caption reads.

These and other removals did not necessitate the use of a pantechnicon; a four-wheeler sufficed on each occasion.

Finally they had been stowed away in the far end of the pantechnicon.