I wonder how my mum managed with washing when the weather wasn’t clement? I struggle enough with my modern washing machine, modern fabrics and central heating – although I don’t have the heating on in the summer! I bemoan the fact that our washing machine doesn’t have a drier but reason that it’s cheaper of course and no doubt more environmentally friendly.
I remember my mum washing and her excitement when the the first spinners came out so she could abandon the mangle, and then the further excitement of the first twin tub. I remember her running down the garden with a basket of laundry and standing putting it out on the line holding spare pegs in her mouth (seems weird now!) I remember the old wooden clothes horse, sometimes standing round the fire sometimes just in the kitchen… but what did she do when there was a long period of horrible weather? How did she manage? We lived in a flat and as the lady who owned it and lived upstairs did not use the garage, maybe mum hung the washing in there? I can’t remember her doing so, but maybe when it was wet my sister and I stayed indoors. It was a “modern” flat, built a couple of years before I was born, so it didn’t have an airer suspended from the ceiling which could be raised and lowered with a pulley. These days they are used to hang pots and pans and utensils on… I always thought any clothes drying in a kitchen would smell of cooking, but maybe nobody minded!
That’s a lovely mangle. My Mam had a similar one. The washing was boiled in a ‘copper’ and fished out with huge wooden washing tongs before being fed through the mangle
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I sort of remember the copper, but definitely remember the mangle… then there was a more modern mangle when she had an early washing machine which just washed and only drained the water away – no spinning then!!
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