Life before washing machines....

mardatha

oh yes true. but if you have at some point done without - then you know yo can again.

Spendless

I don't remember twin tubs with fondness. Not that I've ever used one, but I remmber my mother having 1 in the late 1970's and she used to stand over it whilst she washed and it took her all day. I bought my DD 'My Naughty Little sister' complete book for xmas and wash day is mentioned in that and that it took place on a monday and because of washing there was no time to prepare an evening meal which is why they had bubble and squeak from the previous days roast. At least with an automatic you can put it on and go out.:D

With regards to what you did with children, kids played out at an earlier age, and were out for longer and went further afield than nowadays. Maybe not toddlers, though if they were at the bottom end of a large family they would have an older sibling to go with.

The item I have come across and thought 'wow that's good' is a mangle. There used to be one in the swimming baths when I was young and putting a swimming cossie thru it at the end had it bone dry. That is something I'd like...

seraphina

Mardatha - it's easy to look back on your childhood with rose-tinted glasses. Ask your mum if she enjoyed living without "mod cons" so much!! I do agree that we don't expect enough of kids these days - in Family Britain there's plenty of talk of four year olds being expected to lay and light the fire.

shegar

mary-op wrote: »

Gran used to light a fire under the boiler in the shed to do the washing then it all went through the mangle.

When I got married (early 60's) we had a Burco boiler and fold away mangle.............hard work but we managed with terry towling nappies -no disposables then and they worked out a lot cheaper.
Got first twin tub type washing machine in 1970......the spin dryer could be used separate........Hoover Twosome I think it was called.
Made a lot of difference but I couldn't go off and leave it even though there was a propeller sort of thing that went round. Spin drier always wanted to run round the kitchen on its own...............lol
Soon as I could afford it I got an automatic with tumble dryer.............oh bliss ! Mind you, when the dryer packed up I didn't bother to replace it..........used a lot of electricity !

Your post reminds me of the very similar ways I use to wash and boil the terry towelling nappies, my mum always told us to boil in fairy snow, boy did that smell so good , I burnt my hands no end of times on the boiling hot steam, then had to get the nappies out of the boiler and into the sink to rinse, which felt as though it took ages to get the soap out...after that out come the mangle then on the line..a few hours out on the line , then in they come to go in the airing cupboard or on a clothes horse next to the open fire,,,then you had to do the same again 2 or 3 days later..!!!!wash days were endless, now we load the machine and wait an hour ,and out it goes, done and dusted in no time ,, phew id say they were the hard days , and that was the early 70 s..

[Deleted User]

I had a Baby Burco boiler when I had my DD in 1967 before that I had a glass scrubbing board and a bar of green Fairy soap and a wooden scrubbing brush and did all the wash by hand.The day my OH bought me a 'Flatley' dryerwith wooden bars that you laid the clothes on. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We lived in two rooms and had a minute gas heater with a silver arm that heated up a bowl of water at a time.I also, until I had my Burco, had a huge black pot that I boiled the nappies in every other day.Nappies were soaked in Nappisan in a bucket under the sink overnight.When my second DD in 1969 was born we had a fabulous invention called 'Nappiliners' which were terrific as it helped errm 'hold' the more solid contents of the babies nappies.
Children played with the toys they had and knew when Mum was busy and I never had to 'amuse' them.I would take them for a walk to the shops almost daily as I only had a tiny fridge with a very small shelf which held perhaps a packet of peas and not myuch else.There was little frozen stuff about anyway apart from peas and fish fingers.I remember buying a 'Vesta beef curry ' for 2s3d. (12p)OH said it tasted awful and the packet was probably tastier. My housekeeping was £8.10s.00 per week and that paid for food and shillings in the gas & electric meter.Our rent for this tiny place was £.4s.00 per week and we shared a toilet with two other families and I would walk from South Norwood to Sydenham once a week(about 5 miles each way) with the children in the pram so we could all have a bath at my sis-in-laws.I did this all weathers until my children were 4 & 2 and we moved down to Dartford and bought our first house for £6.500.00 in 1971.
No microwave,colour t.v.,washing machines,fridge/freezers or for that matter credit cards .We had to manage on what we had coming in every week and sometimes if there was short-time working it wasn't a lot.In our house at Dartford I only had an underlay on the stairs in the three years I lived there as I couldn't afford to carpet it.The walls we decorated with woodchip and emusion as that was all we could buy at that time.We had no central heating and only one fire in the sitting room that we had on in the winter with bags of coke that I brought from the coal yard and put on the pushchair and perched the youngest on the top to walk back home with.It was tough at times but everyone was in the same boat more or less and I never felt that we were deprived or unhappy and I don't think my kids did either .They seemed to be happy enough as what you don't have you don't miss.Lots of love and cuddles in our house even if there wasn't much cash and that was more important .The kids went to bed when they were told, and had a story read to them.Lights out meant that and no arguements,usually after 'Crossroads' about 7.0'clock

bubbs

I remember my pap using a twin tub well into the late 80's possibly early 90's, he was a shop manager and my uncl who lived with him was a sales man, so they both had clean shirts everyday, the smell on a sunday morning was bliss in his kitchen, he would wash and dry the shirts then take them to mum to iron lol, which she did ( we only lived 1 bungalow away) she also had 4 kids under 5 at one point, but ever since she was married cooked from scratch for us all pap and uncle included!!! and on sunday, bank hols and christmas we always had dinner at paps, but mum always went down there to cook it, now i think about it i still dont understand it as she would go down put the meat in, go back home do all the veg, take them down paps, get the yorkshire ready in this blue mixing bowl she always used then left that to rest then later on go back to put veg on lol then at about 12.45 yorkshire went in for dinner at 1.15 prompt!!!

Cookie_monster_7

I am loving reading this thread. Very glad to have a washing machine though! I've done 3 loads this morning because the weather is nice here for a change so I can get it all out on the line :j

What toys and games did children used to play with when they were stuck in on rainy days?

Swan_2

I think I must have been a strange child one of my favourite games was treasure hunting in Egyptian tombs

we used to get all my Granny's brass ornaments & put them under the sideboard, then we'd line up all the dining chairs to make a tunnel that we had to 'discover', break into, then crawl through to reach all the shiny goodies


before anyone asks, we never actually made a mummy for the tomb :A

lilac_lady

When I got married I had a spin dryer but no washing machine. I used to soak the clothes the night before then scrub them before rinsing and putting into the spinner.
They came out nearly dry but took a lot of ironing.

Sometimes I "cheated" and took my sheets and towels to the laundrette that was in the same street. Looking back, I should have "cheated" a lot more than I did!

ciderwithrosie_2

I was born in '64, and I've got 2 older brothers. I always remember my mum busy in the kitchen, either cooking or doing washing, she had a boiler and a mangle but then we had a twin tub in the 70's - as she worked, Saturday was wash day and the kitchen would be full of dirty clothes, sheets and towels sorted into piles, it looked like a laundrette.

Always liked helping when she used the mincer - it clamped to the table and bits of roast and leftover veg were passed through it, to make rissoles or shepherd's pie.

She did used to find time to play with us (although we never would have dared say we were bored) and in the summer holidays which seemed to last for months she would organise a special project - one year we built a model landscape with papier mache and chicken wire on a big board, we painted it to have roads, a beach and hills and mum made some little houses and shops out of old match boxes - we loved it and played with it for years. One time she rigged up a hosepipe on a stand with a watering can rose on the end and put it over the paddling pool, she stood at the tap in the kitchen turning it on and off as we tried to dodge it spraying us whilst shrieking with laughter. She was quite inventive my mum.

Older kids would be told to take the younger ones out with them to play or big girls would knock on your door to take the baby out in the pram and nobody thought this was dodgy. We would go and play in the woods and build dens, collect conkers, build a guy and beg for pennies for fireworks, go on bike rides, go to the playground (complete with concrete under the equipment and one of those dangerous witches hat roundabouts), play french cricket, skipping, hounds and hares, 40/40 home, dressing up or play with dollies (everyone had a nan or auntie that knitted outfits for your dolly) go down the station train spotting as we were on a line to London, run to the corner shop for mum/granny/neighbours. Funny but I can't ever remember it raining but we would have played inside with board games, cards, fuzzy felt, cars and plastic soldiers, I used to like reading comics and cutting out those paper dress up dollies and painting pictures.

Ahhh, happy days.