U3A Writing: Wash Days
"I remember my mum standing at the kitchen sink with the rubbing board and a big tablet of Fairy soap doing the weekly wash for five poeple. No wonder mum's fingernails were short!'' Sylvia Abele recalls the stern physical demands of bygone washdays.
I’ve just put a load of towels in my washing machine, and this thought crossed my mind: how difficult it must have been for housewives and mothers of many children to do the family wash in years gone by.
Only going as far back as sixty years or so, I remember my mum standing at the kitchen sink with the rubbing board and a big tablet of Fairy soap doing the weekly wash for five people. No wonder Mum’s fingernails were short!
Dad’s shirts and separate collars had to be starched too -- not the modern spray starch but Robin starch powder mixed with water. But this is how it was, and all things are relevant to the times we live in.
Then there was the ironing to do. Mum had a flatiron and heated it up on the gas stove. The clothing to be ironed was tough material
-- none of the drip-dry stuff we have these days or even dry-clean- only things. No wonder the washing took all day.
There were no spin dryers. Everything was put through the big wooden rollers and the handle was turned to squeeze the water out. If the weather was bad outside, Mum used to hang all the wet clothes on the pulley in the kitchen to dry. Dad hated to come home from work when the washing was cluttering the kitchen.
When I was about nine years old, I remember Mum taking delivery of a washing machine -- not electric but nevertheless a big step up from the rubbing board. The hot water had to be heated in a big pan on the gas stove and poured in the machine’s tub until there was enough to wash the clothes.
When the clothes were submerged into the hot, soapy water, Mum had to hold the handle of an agitator and push it round and back, over and over again, thus causing the clothes to be pummelled back and forward until she thought they would be clean. Then take them out of the washer, empty the thing, and fill it with clean water, whereby the clothes were put back in, pummelled again, then taken out and wrung out through the wringer.
The next washing machine I remember Mum having was actually an electric one with an agitator that went back and forwards without Mum having to do anything except switch an electric button on. Even the rollers replaced the old wringer and took the clothes through automatically. What luxury!
When I got married, my husband and I couldn’t afford a washing machine, so we used to put hot water and Persil in our bath and ‘tread’ the washing, (just like treading grapes). Then he used to wring the items of washing out with his strong hands, and out it went on the line in the back garden.
We did eventually get an electric washer with an agitator and power rollers. We saved up until we had enough money to buy one, and I believe my dad gave us a large white £5 note towards buying the machine. I had never owned a white fiver before. Johnny and I used to have a tin with compartments marked “Rent”, “Rates”, “Electricity”, “Gas”, “Food” etc. and one compartment marked “Sundries”, which was nearly always empty.
After a year or so of marriage, we saved up and bought a spin dryer, and I thought we were the bee’s knees then. But no. Our neighbours were going one better and getting twin tub washers, so we saved up for one of those. I really used to look forward to washdays then. My parents were getting on in years by now, but they, too, had a twin tub washing machine, and Mum used to say how wonderful it was.
Then came the washing machines that we have nowadays: bung the clothes in the machine, add soap and conditioner, press a couple of buttons and leave the whole machine to sort out what one wanted it to do. And -- hey presto -- everything ready to dry in about 45 minutes or so.
And what a pleasure it gave a mother to see a line of pure white babies’ nappies flapping in the breeze -- no disposable ones in the good old days.
I do not have a tumble dryer, but I do think that a couple of lines of clean washing, especially towels, hanging on the clothesline on a nice breezy, sunny day is one of the things that gives me a great deal of satisfaction. And I even LIKE ironing with my steam iron!
Just a little note to really finish this. What about launderettes? Just take your dirty washing there, load it in a machine and sit reading until your clothes are washed and rinsed; then transfer it all to a dryer. But do you get any satisfaction from this? I say, “No.” What do you say?
