A lesson in keeping it simple

The Henry vac in the picture belongs to our builder.

It would be fair to say that it's in a right state. That being said, he's had them for 40 years and has taken it on hundreds of jobs with him, and it's never let him down.

Over the last five years or so, we've had three vacs in our house. All of them looked great, and they undoubtedly won design awards. They employed clever proprietary technologies and came in boxes that you feel bad about throwing away because they're that nice. None of these vacs worked for long and have been consigned to the tip.

On the back of our builder's glowing recommendation, we bought a Henry. They're brilliant, easy to use, and highly effective at what you want from a vac: getting rid of dog hair, dust, and all the other debris that finds its way into your house.

As an aside, they're also a design classic.

Unpacking our new Henry, two things on the box stood out for me.

1. Henrys have been made in the United Kingdom since 1969. Seeing a business showing faith in the UK and its workforce is refreshing.

2. A line on the box states, "We've made over 10 million Henrys, and most are still in use today". I've no idea how they got that claim past their legal team, but hats off to them.

Sometimes, you have to look beyond the new and shiny features that solve problems that barely exist—these can often come at the expense of the product's primary purpose.

Start by getting the basics right, doing one thing well and keeping it simple.

Just like Henry.