Life before washing machines....

mardatha

It's not as cut and dried as that though Seraphina - yes hard work with less labour-savving gadgets, but people were more CONTENT. Ok maybe in part because they were too knackered to be discontented
Wee ones grew to know that you were too busy when you were doing the washing & left you alone, played away by themselves..
I grew up in the 50s and was always out, in the woods being outlaws or cowboys & injuns, or pirates, or digging for lost treasure.
Housework must have been harder yes , but people had so much more time to do it in - no rushing round childminders/supermarkets/picking kids up/dropping kids off. You stayed at home and the vans came to you, the kids walked to school and were safe because a lot less traffic on the roads, and a whole bunch walked together because nobody had a car. After school kids played outside until yelled at to come for their tea. On wet days you made a ganghut with old bedcovers or read a book by torchlight in the airing cupboard!
But I hated when I first got maried and had no washing machine. We had bikes, and the bike always came first. If it needed fixing then we lived on beans and toast until it was sorted, because he needed it to get to work

alec_eiffel

We didn't have a washing machine for the best part of a year I think it was 2 years ago. We had been given one when we moved into our house it was years old and it conked out. I actually didn't mind washing everything by hand. The bath was fine in terms of fitting everything in. the only thing that was annoying was wringing things out, there were still drips which meant everything had to either go outside or dry in the bathroom. Luckily we had a separate shower so drying things over the bath wasn't too much of a hardship.

I knew we'd either get the old machine fixed or buy a new one eventually and I just kept putting it off as it was summer. We did get it fixed and it lasted another couple of months before we had to buy a new one. If I had to do without one again I would buy a spinner or a mangle, but it wasn't too bad. But it's easy for me to say that as I have lots of time to get the laundry done and no children to worry about falling into the bath when I'm not looking.

When I was at university we had a twin tub and it was brilliant, it was probably older than most of us but still in great working order. The other lads on the house complained to the landlord though and in the end he paid for plumbing for an automatic, it wasn't as good and it didn't help with house harmony either as people were more likely to leave their washing in the machine rather than having to keep an eye on it with the twin tub.

kezlou

Well i was born in the 80's and i still remember my mother with a dolly and a big tub in the kitchen washing all our clothes. We just had to amuse ourselves out the back until she shouted us to hang the washing on the line. We didn't a twintub till about 92/3 , that was 6th hand ,when that died back in 2001 we got an automatic. My mother hated automatics, i have one now and i wouldn't do without a washing. I hate handwashing and have had to do it many times as we couldn't afford a new washing machine till May this year.

So yep we didn't have a lot of money so just amused ourselves.
People dream of Victorian life but guess what it was hard, i know darn well i couldn't live like they used to. I enjoy my kettle too much, the ease of bunging clothes in a washer and being able to leave the house while it did its thing.

The_Thrilla

Life before washing machines. You need not do it yourself. There were local women who took in washing. There were professional laundries. You could hire a servant to do it for you, if you could afford it. Later there were/are laundrettes, and don't forget the famous steamie.

Swan_2

my Granny always handwashed everything for the 5 of us in our household, so when my mum got a better job the first thing she did was buy a twin-tub


we didn't tell Granny because she kind of looked down on folk who used machines & when it was delivered she completely ignored it, so it sat in the hallway for weeks
until one day we came home from work/school to find she'd fired it up & washed just about everything in the house!

needless to say her days of handwashing were well & truly over

Barneysmom

In 'those' days people gave their children chores to do, to help round the house. Not many of us would expect a 5 or 6 year old to peg the washing out - more fool us I say - kids were much more respectful then too.

I was born in the 60's and we were seen and not heard.

My first washer in the late 70's was a twin tub and I agree they really were the best.
You could get a whole week's wash done including the bedding, in the time it takes to do one load in a modern auto. It had a central beater in the middle that drove round then back the other way to give the washing a good old bash.
Then you'd heave the washing into the spin dryer and give it a rinse with a big saucepan of water before spinning it and sending that water down the sink.
Oh joy! to get it all done and on the line by 10.00 a.m. then sit down with a brew and biscuit

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

This is bringing back memories! My mum had a twin tub & I'd forgotten those wooden tongs till someone mentioned them earlier. I'm remembering the smell of the washing & all the suds. She used soda crystals too. The washing process seemed to take forever & was hard work & you couldn't really do anything else while the washing was getting done. There wasn't much space anyway as we had to pull the twin tub out into the middle of the floor in front of the sink. I remember my Mum saying it was the best day of her life when her mil persuaded my dad to buy an automatic!
My other Gran continued to use a mangle outside for years till she got a spinner - was great fun for us kids helping out when we stayed- maybe not so much fun if we had to do it all the time!

eta: Regarding amusing the kids, when we were very young, we were stuck into the play-pen in the next room with a few toys and picture books and she came in every so often to check on us. I remember her giving us egg boxes & crayons to play with & make things from!

mummyslittleboy

kittiej wrote: »

Lol material girl - that made me chuckle

Edit

Just had a look at Amazon but the machines look a bit plasticy, but they're the type of thing.

Pull it out chuck some water in, chuck some powder in put the whites in first. Turn the temperature setting on and the timer and let it do its stuff.

I had a pair of wooden tongs then to fish the clothes out and drop into the spinner, the water from the spinner went back into the wash tub part ready for the next load to go in.

Oh what fun. I'm easily pleased lol.

I miss my old twin tub to it got the washing so much cleaner than the automatic machine does. I had my twin tub in the 90's when I first got married we didn't have the money to buy an automatic and we didn't have sky or anything then either my stepsons used to amuse themselves whilst I did the washing.

Zazen999

Ooh - memories!

Monday was washing day - and as soon as you could walk you scarpered out of the way or you'd be hanging wet clothes out all day long. Or unhanging and folding. Or ironing. Or shifting clothes from airer to airer to airing cupboard....

You never ever said 'mum, I'm bored'. Ever!

I remember my mum saying 'my cloths [as in floor cloths] are cleaner than some people's washing' and being very proud of this fact.

I remember the day she got an automatic; she was so chuffed! We saved for years to get it. My BF at the time thought it was hilarious as his mum had one for years and didn't see what the fuss was. We put a load in, turned it on and me and mum went to a cafe and celebrated with a coffee [not a latte - didn't have them at the time!]....and cake. I finished with bf shortly after as I didn't want to be with someone who didn't get it. Muppet.

kittiej

"I'm remembering the smell of the washing & all the suds".

Yes the smell was lovely, i always used Daz handwash and twin-tub powder. It was very much a case of going right around the house finding everything and anything that needed washing - chuck it all in lol (not all at once though)

The thing is when I had my TT I always dreamed of having an automatic as I never knew anything else whilst growing up - but now I'm automatic I long for my TT back

I think mine was an electrolux, someone gave it to us for free :jand it had a melamine lid that fitted on a top so it could be used as an extra worktop.

I wonder if anyone on freecycle's got one to give away :rotfl:

Edit

I was just looking at the new TT's and I'm quite tempted to save up for one they are British made you know AND you get a free pair of wooden tongs AND it's free delivery - yay.

The only down side is that they don't heat the water like the old ones but I used to put hot water in to start with anyway and just put the heater on for a little bit.