Monday was Wash-day

With four children under 5 years old, there were always nappies – terry-towelling nappies soaking in buckets, being laundered, hanging on the washing line, and being ironed.  How did she keep up with it? Wash day was only once a week, on Mondays, and pretty laborious. Everyone did their laundry on Mondays; it was time-consuming, and there was no need to cook on Mondays because there would be leftovers from Sunday’s roast, so that opened up time to finish the washing.

We had a twin-tub washing machine (we still had the same one when we moved to Priory Road when I was 14!) which was wheeled out from under the counter.  The lid of the washing tub was removed and the tub was filled with water by running a hose from the kitchen sink. Then I think the soap powder was added, and the machine turned on to heat the water. 

When it was steaming, the laundry was dropped in, and another switch started the agitator to swirl the dirty things around. Meanwhile, mum would fill the sink with clean water. After some time, she would turn off the agitator, and transfer each piece of clothing from the machine to the rinsing water, using a pair of long wooden tongs.  Did she spin the soapy clothes first? Or hand wring?

After rinsing, the laundry went into the second tub to spin the water out. Each basket of clean laundry was then carried outside and hung on the washing line to dry.  This was often my job when I was a little older. Our washing line was raised and lowered by turning a handle mounted on the garden wall.  The wall was two storeys high, up to the guttering level on the house, and built from red brick. It was very old and quite blackened and mossy in places, and sagged alarmingly in the middle, so I often felt afraid that the tension of the washing line would pull the wall down into the garden.  It never did.

That washing machine must have been emptied and refilled several times every Monday.  In the winter, drying was finished off on wooden clothes horses in front of the fire.  Mum ironed everything.  The ironing board was made of wood; I think she may have still had the same one when she died! Every so often dad would re-cover it with a new layer of foam and a clean piece from an old sheet, held together with a neat row of tacks on the underside; this was a job that I did a couple of times later on.  Ironed clothes and linens went upstairs into the airing cupboard – shelves built into the cupboard around the boiler which meant that clean clothes were always fresh and warm.

In Newman’s Road, we had a “pantry” under the stairs: a cool dark cupboard in the kitchen, lined with shelves to store cans and jars of food, as well as mixing bowls, a flour bin, and other kitchen essentials.  Once I was asked to get a mixing bowl from there, a large stoneware bowl, and I needed both arms to carry it. Out of the pantry and into the daylight, I saw there was a very large spider in the bowl.  Afraid as I was of spiders, I was much more terrified of dropping and breaking the bowl, so I kept it in my arms until mum noticed my predicament and took it from me!

The kitchen was really crumbling; the wall that backed onto the alley between Newman’s Road and Girling Street was painted in a horrible utilitarian mustard colour. For years that paint was blistered and peeling, and mum was complaining about it.  We always had enough to eat, and clean clothes to wear, but it must have been a struggle as there was rarely any money for anything extra like redecorating. 

The kitchen had a window that looked out into the conservatory and from there onto the garden, and two doors, one from the living room (always open) and one to the hall, known as the “middle door”, and usually closed.  The sink was in front of the window, a big deep white sink that was pitted with age – I always used to think the pits and scars were germs! 

Probably because it was so cold upstairs, we were all bathed in the sink sometimes, an operation that I think dad was involved in.  We’d be undressed to our pants and lined up on the draining board, legs dangling, then given a wash in the sink and passed to dad, who was waiting with towels for each of us in turn.

When I was tiny there was a gas cooker in the kitchen, with a pilot light inside it, and blue flames towards the back of the oven when it was lit.  Next to that was some kind of counter or cupboard which was used as a work surface.  On the other wall there was a dresser with open shelves.  There was a fluorescent strip light in the middle of the ceiling – Michael lifted me high up one time and my head shattered the fluorescent tube! I wasn’t hurt, and I don’t remember the consequences – worse for him than for me I imagine!