Open Writing

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, my parents used to say.

They weren’t talking just about personal hygiene, either.

There was a traditional pride about a lot of the cleaning.

Like other traditions of their generation, some of the jobs were abandoned a long time ago.

For some strange reason I gained a boyish sense of satisfaction about one or two of the Friday fettling’ neet chores.

Swilling the flags was a particular favourite of mine.

This involved using a hard-bristled yard brush and a few buckets of water to give a weekly wash to the flagstones outside our house.

No transgressing onto our neighbour’s flags, mind. What they did or did not do to their flags was their business.

When I’d finished I gazed with pride on the newly scrubbed stones and complained bitterly if any of the family set foot on them before they had dried.

Looking back, it wa something of a pointless exercise. For one thing, they didn’t stay clean for long. And for another, because our house was the last in a row of five hardly anyone saw the flags anyway.

But it was part of the fettling ritual which, weather permitting, was carried out as a prelude of pride to the weekend.

Another little chore which I enjoyed was polishing up the bits of brass inside and outside the house.

Inside, there was the collection of ornaments which sat on the mantelpiece. And once in a while, the brass stair-rods were taken up and given a good going-over with the Brasso.

Outside, even the old door handle with its sneck and the new Yale lock came in for a quick polish.

Mother of course carried out the job of scrubbing and donkey-stoning the doorstep.

Just as she insisted on taking charge of the window cleaning, both inside and out.

Doing the outside of the downstairs windows was simple enough, using a buffet and wash-leather.

But the bedroom windows were a different kettle of fish altogether.

Cleaning these was a tricky operation, with mother - like our house proud neighbours - doing a risky balancing act.

After lifting the bottom half of the sash window, she used to sit on the sill facing inwards.

Then, holding on with one hand, she would wash the outsides with the other.

It was a hazardous business at the best of times, but it became even more so on one notorious occasion when my brothers and I were on the prowl with an airgun.

We were only supposed to be feigning a shot at mother’s rear as we teased her from the safety of the garden.

But somehow or other the joke misfired when someone accidentally pulled the trigger and, judging by mother’s reaction, a pellet hit what even she admitted later was a fairly large target.

Luckily for us, those were the days when women wore such things as padded corsets and other protective garments, so no real harm was done.

But her pride was hurt, even if nothing else was. And the inevitable confiscation of the airgun followed.

It was one fettlin’ neet which mother used to chortle about in her old age every time window cleaning was mentioned.