For Vashti, Nikkers, and Others

[johnwr]

Wash day kit. Useful items for playing skiffle or washday blues.

[Hidden]

I remember my gran using these when I was a girl. Is that a very small mangle bottom left? She would let me ponch the washing in the tub, but her ponch didn't have such a long handle as the one in the picture.

[redted]

I remember my Mum using these in the outside wash house,the old dolly the ponch,the wash board. We had a copper in the wash house which had to be lit to get hot water,we moved into a new house when I was Eight,with all mod cons,it must have been heaven for my Mum,bless her.

[knitter]

Thanks for the washday pictures....I'll stick to my washer thanks....Monday's are a lot easier now.

I think the mini mangle is for pleating frills.

My gran's mangle was a hefty piece of work which lived in the backyard

[Hidden]

Omg! Don't think I would have ever washed my clothes with equipment like that.... x

[johnwr in reply to Hidden]

If you had lived before washing machines became affordable, you would have had to, or pay a laundry!

Other weekly jobs (in some parts of the country) were stoning the front doorstep, polish the front door knob, letterbox, and house number, clean below the boot scraper, sweep the pavement. Those housewives were proud!!!

[knitter in reply to johnwr]

Yes and the neighbours would comment on the state of your doorstep and bit of pavement as well as checking your washing was white and pegged out early. Ironing on a Tuesday with a heated flat iron or an electric one plugged into the light bulb(don't try that at home now).

[Hidden in reply to johnwr]

Blimey no wonder people died younger those days. Probably worn out from hard work! x

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Or electrocuted...lol

[Nikkers in reply to johnwr]

You left out blacking the b***** range EVERY morning. I'm not surprised we're still around, we're made of strong stuff- had to be in those days!

[Azure_Sky]

I saw a skiffle group at Butlins in 1957, can't remember the name of the group. A couple of singers called Russ Hamilton and Ronnie Carroll were there. So was a singer called Jaqueline Mackenzie and a comic called Jimmy Wheeler.

[Hidden]

That's the gadget! The wooden yoke with little legs...remember Granny using one of those...she had a proper sort of a washouse with a boiler in it...and a duckboard to stand on...

[Dragonmum]

Funny thing - I was thinking about this just an hour ago when I took one load out of the dryer and threw another into the washing machine! I have, in fact, used all those things apart from the "dolly" - I take it the dust-bin looking thing is a boiler? Ours was a big copper one and we stuck by the old mantra "boil, bleach and blue"; wash-day was exactly that, an entire day from early morning. I was very young let me add in haste, but I well remember the Reckitts blue-bags and Robin starch - no detergents, just a bar of soap and washing soda. Laundry was always the measure of a good housewife back in "the good old days" - thank God for progress!

[bayleyray-uk]

I know both my nans did their washing with equipment above, what I sometimes have problem as that and steamed puddings, Christmas or savoury puds would be cooked in the copper. As one of my granddads was a tanner (softening animal hides) I hate to think of the state of his clothes when the copper was used to boil his work clothes. Our nans and granddads were very hardy folk.

Sue