Wash day and other Memories

In the laundry room at Shugborough I saw lots of things that reminded me of both Mum's wash days and my Grandma's too.  I'm remembering back to the 1950s but at Grandma's house you would think you'd stepped back even further.

I was born in 1950 and we lived in the middle row of a long terrace of houses just across from The Granby Halls in Leicester.  Neither the street nor the hall exist anymore.  The houses were demolished to create car parking for the nearby hospital.  I remember that our house had a pale wood front door with a gold knob in the centre.  The door opened onto a hallway with doors going off to front room and living room, the staircase was in between and at the bottom of the passage was the kitchen and scullery.  The back door led to the outside WC and a walled back garden.  In the kitchen was a wooden draining board and a square ceramic sink in which I remember being given a bath and being dried sitting on the draining board.  In the scullery was a tin bath hanging on the wall and a copper with a lid which provided warm water.  I can't remember whether there was a washing machine here, but there was a small electric boiler and a tub and what my Mum called a posher.  We left that house when I was six years old and moved to a small village in Derbyshire and I remember the posher came with us.

Grandma's house was like stepping back in time even in the early 50s as she wouldn't have electricity in the house.  She thought it was unsafe and didn't trust it.  One of my memories is of being lifted up to light the small white gauze gas mantles, which hung over the kitchen table,  with a coloured spill from a jar on the mantelpiece.  The mantelpiece was over a black leaded range.  This had a fire at one side and hob and ovens on the other.  The fire was lit all year round to provide both heat and hot water.  Grandma would do all her cooking on the range and all the food was prepared on a large kitchen table which was scrubbed almost white.  Here she would knead bread and put it to rise covered in clean tea towels in front of the range.

I remember too that she would warm flat irons in front of the range, having two warming whilst using a third one.  She would cover half of the kitchen table with an old sheet and blanket on which to do the ironing, holding the hot iron handle with a square of old towel.  At other times the table would be covered with a maroon coloured chenille table cloth with bobbles hanging on the edges.  I used to love these and remember sitting under the table playing with them and also with buttons and ribbons from the drawers of grandma's treadle sewing machine.

Grandma was born in 1884 and was 32 years of age when my Mum was born and my Mum was 34 when I was born so you can see that there could easily have been another generation between us all and understand why grandma's home, thoughts and ideas seemed to come from so far back in time.  Grandma had Parkinson's disease and died in 1962, by that time electricity had been introduced to the house and a proper kitchen had been fitted in the old scullery where she had worked with a copper and mangle on wash days.  Hanging the sheets and towels on the line outside in the back garden where she and grandad kept hens for eggs and grew hollyhocks and gladioli up against the wall.

As I walked around the laundry room at Shugborough all these memories flooded back to me, plus memories of when Grandma nursed me through  Scarlet Fever, I slept on a mattress on the floor of her bedroom often waking hot and wrapped up and entangled in sheets.  She had what seemed to be a huge bed with an iron bed frame in her room, a washstand with flowery bowl and jug, and a pink lustre ware Pierrot figure and bowl on her dressing table which contained a soft powder puff and delicate smelling powder.  I remember the cockerel waking me up each morning.

Wash days in the village we moved to when I was a child were always Mondays.  I remember my Mum used to be amused by the competition amongst all the women around as to who could get their washing out on the line first.  Our next door neighbour and the lady who lived in a house across the bottom of our gardens used to vie with each other, my Mum deliberately waited until later to put her first load of washing out on the line saying that she wasn't going to join in with the competition.

Tuesdays were usually ironing day and Wednesdays cleaning windows and upstairs rooms. How things have changed now.  I remember when we got our first refrigerator.  I'd have been about ten years old. Before that we used to keep butter and cooked meats in a meat safe which stood on a stone shelf in the pantry under the stairs.  Milk was kept in a bucket of cold water.  Money was left in a tobacco tin on the back step every Friday for the milkman with a note as to what milk was needed through the week.  My dad's friend, a grocer in the nearby small town, would bring an order every week on a Wednesday evening and stop for a chat and a cup of tea before he went on his way.

Mum was thrilled when she got her first twin tub washing machine after years of using one with a mangle.  The posser had finally had its day.

 Now we couldn't manage without automatic washing machines.  I wonder what the future will hold as technology changes yet again?  

I'm taking a short break now.  I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend.