What Goes in the Emergency Drawer Besides the Lamp

There is a certain kind of household drawer that contains four decorative lamps, a bottle of oil and nothing else, and its owner believes they are prepared. They are not. A lamp is a comfort item and a light source of last resort, not the centre of a household kit, and being honest about that is more useful than selling anyone a fifth lamp.

Buy the torch first

If you own nothing, spend your first money on a decent torch each and a battery lantern for the main room. They are brighter, they can be carried, they can be dropped, and they do not need a window open. Only after that does a lamp make sense, and then for the quality of the light rather than as the backbone of the plan.

Batteries stored properly

Keep spare cells in their packaging and outside the devices, because a torch left loaded for three years is usually a torch full of corrosion. Check the drawer when the clocks change. Rechargeable cells self-discharge, so a battery bank that has sat untouched since last winter may be flat when you need it.

Where the lamp fits

One or two, kept trimmed and filled, for the table people gather at during a long cut. Buy the consumables at the same time, since a lamp without a spare wick is one clumsy evening from being useless. Sellers such as Lamplight list flat wicks, replacement chimneys and burners as ordinary stock items, which is worth checking before you commit to a particular lamp.

Fuel, and the risk nobody mentions

Lamp oil is not a mild substance. Swallowed by a small child it can reach the lungs and cause severe harm, and the smaller the child the worse it is. Keep it sealed in the original bottle with its child-resistant cap, high up or locked, and never in a water bottle or squash bottle where it will eventually be mistaken for a drink. If any is swallowed, phone your poisons centre or emergency services at once and do not induce vomiting.

The things people forget

A manual tin opener, a pack of matches in a sealed bag, a paper list of phone numbers, and cash. Contactless payment fails with the power, and a rural shop running on a generator will still take notes.

What is not in the drawer

Petrol, methylated spirit, garden torch kerosene and citronella oil are not emergency lighting fuels and should never go in a household lamp. They have different flash points, produce fumes you should not breathe indoors, and in some cases will give you a flame you cannot control.

A drawer worth having

• One torch per person and one battery lantern per living room, tested at each clock change.
• Spare batteries in packaging, plus a charged power bank and a cable that fits your phones.
• One or two filled lamps, a spare chimney, a length of flat wick and a pair of scissors.
• Sealed lamp oil, stored elsewhere, out of reach and out of sunlight.
• Matches, a paper contact list, a manual tin opener and a small first aid kit.

What the lamp cannot do for you

It will not warm a room to any useful degree, it will not replace a working smoke alarm, and it is a poor choice for moving about a dark house. Buy it because flame light on a table is genuinely pleasant and because it works when the batteries have gone. Do not buy it under the impression that it makes you self-sufficient.