Health and safety

I think the first time I ever had barbecued food was when we went to live in Hong Kong in the seventies, the phenomenon not then being the staple activity that it is in South London, these days. 

There are lots of positive things about barbecuing as far as I'm concerned. There's the cumulative memory of all those occasions of standing around in the sun with a cold beer while the food cooks, for example, and, of course, the fact that I love the taste of food that's been cooked that way. But, after a day at work, sometimes the best thing about a barbecue is how easy it is.

I had a couple of doubts about having the pit up on the deck but the legs never get hot and no coals ever jump out, so I'm pretty sure it's safe. And, thinking about it, in the heyday of the Harling Bank barbecue (before I moved out), we'd sometimes have four or five pits on the go.