Hygeine 1950s - 2020s

Artaylar Was it Wandsworth by any chance? In the late 60's I share a flat with a colleague - lots of space but not bathroom so we used to trot down the hill to the slipper baths regularly. As you say, lots of hot water.

Why were they called slipper baths?

Reading most of these comments, I think the 20 somethings would be amazed at how we lived. I remember the first that i lived in after leaving home had a geyser to heat the hot water. It was old and probably dangerous. It was scary to light.

For the first 7 years of my life we had an outside toilet and a po under the bed for during the night however there was a bathroom in my bedroom with a sink and bath with a geezer for hot water. I don't actually remember having a bath in there much as it was freezing but do remember sitting on my mum's knee in front of the fire being washed. When we moved we lived in a flat above the shop my parents bought where my dad put in a new bathroom - bath night was Sunday when I had my hair washed ready for school. I only had two school blouses and two pairs of grey school knickers - I was probably about ten when I started to hate not having clean ones every day so would put another pair on under them much to my mum's annoyance. She was fastidiously about housework but was of the generation that you didn't need to change clothes every day ? I soon learned how to use the twin tub washer and started to wash my own clothes!

I suppose back in the day showers were unheard of and it used too much hot water to run a bath every day so strip washes were the norm.

We are living history aren't we? Such great stories telling of such positive social changes. And what a wonderful system council housing turned out to be giving us access to hot water, indoor loos, the luxury of our own bathrooms and the ability to keep ourselves as clean as we were inclined?

I’m sure that being allocated a council house must have been pure joy. I can’t really remember, but we had lived in a tiny terraced cottage, with a row of four loos between them, and apparently it was riddled with mice.
A bland flimsy council house with indoor plumbing must have seemed like paradise.

Granny Activist, my childhood during 1930s 1940s was like yours. At home and at boarding school hair washing was once a fortnight by Matron and Headmistress presumably so they could detect nits or bugs. I went to boarding school in 1944 and baths were allocated twice a week but we had to strip wash once a day. Deodorants were unknown.
When I began work as student nurse in 1948 I owned three pairs of knickers, however baths were unlimited. The Sister Tutor demanded we had bath or strip wash every day.

Alishka

I remember sharing the Sunday bath with my sister. I had to sit at the taps end. It wasn't fair!!

I also shared the bath with my sister every Sunday night in preparation for school. As I was the youngest I too had the tap end of the bath - not fair!!!!

Hair wash and bath on a Sunday night ready for school. Don, use all the hot water we were always told. Clothes, well it was the same clothes until Wednesday or maybe Thursday then we had a complete change. We had strip washes during the week and I am sure we all shared the same flannels and towels. Unheard of these days. Dad was in the RAF and all the furniture and bedding was supplied by the RAF. Once a week was sheet change day when we would put the top sheet to the bottom and then take a bundle out to the sheet changing lorry and exchange for clean sheets and pillowcases. It was a different world then.

Was an only child so more fortunate in that I didn't have to share my things.
However, I can recall coming home from school one day to find both of my parents crying!
My father was a farm worker and we lived in a tied cottage. The farmer had sold two farms and then the new owner went round to say who would go and who would stay.
So...out of work and out of a home.
We were allocated a 3 bed 1930's built council house in the nearby village.
Moved a few weeks later by tractor and trailer (fortunately it was a dry day). Just like Tess's family moved in Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
However, the house we moved into had yet to be modernized, so had to get used to the outside privy.
Sounds very unhygienic, however, can't recall any tummy bugs during our time there.
But bath time was always once a week on Sunday, as hot water was a luxury!
Always clean socks and shoes.

I had a bath and my hair washed once a week on a Saturday night, so that I was clean for Church on Sundays. My hair was quite long and my mother used Vosene family shampoo, but no conditioner. I can still remember sitting on the floor in front of the coal fire in my clean vest and pyjamas having my hair dried. My mother would vigorously rub my hair with a towel and then comb out the tangles - I hated that and sometimes it hurt so much that I cried!

When I was about 14, I got a job in a local hairdressers as a 'Saturday girl'. They used to give us any spare sample sachets of shampoo and conditioner to take home - absolute bliss! My mother bought a Pifco hair drier - it was so heavy it had to sit in a stand on the table with a hose coming out of the nozzle into a big plastic bag that went over your head. I used to put my mother's hair in rollers and cover them with a net, then she would sit there until she was 'done'.

I remember wearing the same school blouse for two or three days running. My tie, skirt and blazer were brushed and sponged once a week. As for underwear, I had clean knickers every day, but my vest lasted a week and socks were changed every other day. I wore my lace-up school shoes every day.

I don't remember wearing deodorant until I went to University, a sticky roll-on called MUM I think.

We had a clean sheet every week Barmeyoldbat - the top sheet was put on the bottom and the clean one was put on top, then the blankets and eiderdown.

Until I read this thread, I had no idea how privileged we were as children in the 40s and 50s. We had a bath every night, albeit sharing the water and, as I was the oldest, I was the third to go - sometimes allowed a top-up. Mum would read in the bath and when she couldn't find her glasses, we knew where to find them. I inherited this habit, but once, doing my homework, I dropped my Latin book in the bath, which wasn't easy to explain the next day. When we had a loft conversion, the bathroom was moved upstairs and we kept a downstairs loo - unusual in the 1940s. Mum shampooed us over the sink weekly. She was a trained hairdresser and nothing if not thorough. She had all the kit, including a rather ferocious hair dryer.

P.S. I've just realised that the op was asking about the 1950's and 60's. I was talking about the late 1930's and 40's. I am very old.
Sorry...

I'm a 50's child and grew up in a house on the edge of the 'more affluent area' of the town - however, we still only had cold running water, a 'slopstone sink' in the kitchen and another similar sink in the 'washhouse' at the back of the house.

Tin bath, normally hanging on a nail in the washhouse, was filled from a freestanding electric boiler on a Saturday night - had to have a bath/hair wash before going to Sunday School.

Weeknights it was a full strip-off wash at the slopstone sink with a hands/face wash in a morning.

Soap was usually Lifebuoy or a dark red soap called 'Lifeguard' (with pic of one of the Queen's Lifeguards on the packaging).

Talcum was ALWAYS Johnson's Baby Talc - unless an aunt bought me a 'grown-up one' for Christmas.

Toothpaste came in a small metal tin, with a funny little clip on the side - very much like the one on a tin of shoe polish . 'Go round the edges - not just in the middle - or you'll wear it out unevenly!' Pardon me - wasn't I supposed to 'wear it out' .

Shampoo was a bottle of Vosene OR a 'pillow sachet' of a perfumed one called 'Dreme' from the corner shop.

My nan used 'Amami Waving Lotion' to try to keep my hair looking waved ................ but it didn't always work - because, despite her very best efforts, I was a tomboy!

I had plenty of underwear - though sometimes the elastic might snap - and would have to be mended with fresh 'knicker elastic' and secured with a safety pin . ALWAYS needed to wear a vest - even in the summer. PLUS, in the winter, there was the 'dreaded LIBERTY BODICE' !!!

In the winter, socks were knee-high, 'fold-down top' and 'fawn' - and my nan called them 'cycling socks' . When they began to lose their stretch, she would cut a piece of knicker elastic, tie it in a knot and make me wear that under the 'fold' to keep them from falling down . For some reason, she referred to these as 'gaiters'.

In the summer, they were white ankle socks - and again, always with the fold down ankle. Though, thankfully, WITHOUT the knicker elastic .

Olliebeak
I also suffered the fawn socks with elastic to hold them up, we called them garters.
There was a craze at the time for coloured socks, royal blue, bottle green, red, I think from Woolworths, but I wasn’t allowed them .

Artaylar
It was a once a week in a tin bath in the kitchen for me until we too were rehoused by the council and for the first time in my life experienced a 'bathroom'? with hot running water ?and a flush toilet.? Bliss

Tin bath and outside loo here until we moved to our "posh" house when I was 4 in 1960. That house was just a normal 60's 3 bed semi but was posh to us at that time with it's single proper inside bathroom. In any event we still only had a bath once a week on a Friday night right up until I left home to live in at the nurses home when I was 16 and a cadet nurse at our local hospital. I luxuriated in my twice daily baths thereafter! Anyway, back to childhood baths - if we were lucky we were given some matey [ blue powder] in a tupperware cup which we were then allowed to mix to a paste with water. We then "painted" pictures with this gunk on the side of the bath before washing it off with the bath water. I'm not sure exactly what this performance added to our cleanliness but I'm guessing it kept us 3 sisters out of mother's way and safely amused for a short time whilst at the same time saving my mother the chore of cleaning the grim grey ring from the bath once we'd finished. We only owned 3 pairs of knickers each and had a clean pair issued twice a week. Clean vest and pyjamas once a week. Ditto one of our bed sheets [top to bottom] and pillowcase. Our blankets and candlwick bedspreads got washed once every year or two in the summer to facilitate drying I guess. Clean socks and highly polished shoes daily - these were on display so it was important that we looked immaculate even if we weren't underneath. As far as I remember we just washed our face and hands in the mornings and face, hands, teeth and knees in the evenings. I have no clue why we didn't have to clean our teeth in the mornings - it wouldn't surprise me if it was to save on toothpaste. Hair washes were done in the kitchen sink with a jug on a Saturday morning so that it had all day to dry. When small you would be laid on a towel on the draining board but once bigger you would stand at the sink whilst mother did her worst with the vosene. No conditioner in those days and we could all sit on our hair. Mother was brutal with the comb too so hairwash day was dreaded as obviously our hair was so tangly post washing. I think I was about 7 when my mother marched me to the hairdressers for a basin cut after one particularly traumatic Saturday.

For some reason, she referred to these as 'gaiters'.

We called them garters too - I loathed them although I liked the socks which were usually round my ankles (along with the garters which always seemed too tight.

Henetha you must be around my age.
I have no memories at all about getting washed, bathed, hair washed, changing underclothes etc.
What I do remember is having nits a few times. Mum used to put paraffin on my hair and wrap it in a towel. Hated it.
We lived in a modern upstairs flat and I think we did have a bathroom.
In those days water was heated in a back boiler behind the coal fire.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202101/medium-388419-gaiters.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202101/medium-189579-waterproof-gaiters.jpg

Olliebeak's nana called them gaiters, not garters. Her grandpa was probably in the army, and her nana remembered the gaiters he was issued with to keep the mud off his boots and trouserlegs. You can still buy more modern versions of them , which are very useful hiling in rough country or walking the dog in muddy woods.

Hiking, not hiling.

I had gaiters when I was very young; they were cloth and fastened under the shoe with elastic.

The gaiters in the picture look like what the military used to call puttees. I have a blue pair which I bought to wear over my walking boots to keep them from taking in water.

Dinahmo

Artaylar Was it Wandsworth by any chance? In the late 60's I share a flat with a colleague - lots of space but not bathroom so we used to trot down the hill to the slipper baths regularly. As you say, lots of hot water.

Why were they called slipper baths?

It was in Hull Dinahmo.

One of our flatmates, a guy, used to come to the slipper baths with us but spent his time there playing on the fruit machines while we were having a bath......and he used to wonder why he couldnt get a girlfriend.

Check out the link below on the origins of slipper baths - primarily to do with the shape of bath, though became common parlance for the public baths that were introduced as public health measures in Victorian times. The slipper baths we used in Hull were all in separate cublicles so there was perfect privacy. We got clean towels for the all in cost of 20p too.
nethouseprices.com/news/show/2643/elegant-bathing-everything-you-need-to-know-about-slipper-baths

beverly10

Artaylar
It was a once a week in a tin bath in the kitchen for me until we too were rehoused by the council and for the first time in my life experienced a 'bathroom'? with hot running water ?and a flush toilet.? Bliss

Oh I know Beverly10, it was an absolute life changer.

That said, I remember at the time my brother and I were far more impressed that our move to the council flat came with our very first colour telly, courtesy of mum and dad renting it from Redefusion.

This was in 1968 so I guess we were somewhat at the tail end of being housed with basic amenities. Though in a job I had with home improvements in the 90's and 00's I was still coming across older home owners living in housing with no inside loo or bathroom. The most ancient of which property where the outside loo was of the tipple over type drainage system. The loo looked like a pedal bin and whenever I went to visit the couple who lived there, I always had the urge to go for pee pee, so I ended up with quite intimate knowledge of this ancient device.

Artaylar - I remember the slipper bathss in Hull. There were 2 - one on Hessle Road and one on Beverley road.