Same with us! Our fridge died a couple of years back on Christmas Eve - they brought a new one out for us immediately! Can’t fault them… (That’s where we got our washing nachine from, needless to say…)
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Jim mends ours.
We once had a zanussi washer/dryer. Lasted just long enough to get out of warranty. 
OTOH our induction hob is zanussi and seems good.
After various Philips and the zanussi, we try to buy Miele because they do last a long time. 10 year warranty on motor bearings. Our last one failed at 14 years, and the present one is about 7 years old and seems to be fine.
How did I get to the age of 73 without hearing of a ‘sheila maid’; in my childhood home, it was just called the pulley. But as for wm/td storage, we had a small buanderie - but it was notoriously damp and both machines ended up rusty; we would have done better to keep them in the bathroom as the previous owners did.
Yes, that’s what I have now. I remember my great aunt and uncle had one in the early '60s along with a dolly and a posser. Wouldn’t have the dolly and posser now, but the pulley is a timeless and very useful item.
Edit: Not forgetting the mangle 
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My mum had a boiler on legs with a tap at the front to let the water out. When she finally got her first twin tub after my sister was born, the boiler was used to cook the beetroot for bottling. I remember the wooden tongs she used to pull the washing out with, bleached to death from the soap flakes they used and then run through the big mangle which we were under pain of death not to put our fingers near. Both these items were outside in the big shed, nothing indoors.
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Just like lawnmowers, people discuss different ones when in reality they allmost all come from the same factory but some have changed shelving etc. Really want to know look at the backs and see the motors are the same just like fridges so you know they come from the same manufacturers.
Our latest panasonic has a pause function and a sock door so you can add the item you dropped on the way to the washing machine 
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Yes the ecobubble had that option but I bought the slightly cheaper and smaller machine in the end just for myself.
Our Zanussi dishwasher gave up the ghost just before we moved here… it was about 30 years old so had done sterling service…
We brought MiLaw’s dishwasher with us as a temporary measure (since it was a slimline and we were used to a much bigger one…)
That machine was bought in the 80’s…
In the event, over here the slimline was all we needed and, again, it gave sterling service… we simply replaced a few of the plastic “wheel” thingies which the baskets run on… then it popped its clogs just before Christmas last year… but as we were in Covid there was no big gathering…
and nowadays, we’re not bothered by its loss…
I’m not sure if modern Zanussi stuff would last as long as these 2 machines did… I like to think they might.
We dry everything on clothes horses. But towels get hard, and my wife likes them soft, so we go to a lavanderie to dry them every now and then. If you use a drier you have to spin them at maximum revolutions first, which uses more electricity. I find 800 revs is enough otherwise.
We stayed in an Airbnb in Bayonne where the washing machine was in the bedroom cupboard.
We once stayed in a holiday home in Sardinia where the washing machine was on the balcony!
Kingfisher group owns Castorama, Brico Depot, Screwfix But no longer FNAC-Darty.
Dixons (formally DSG , which also owned Currys - so perhaps that’s what you were thinking of) merged with Carphone Warehouse, but has no connection to Kingfisher.