Hygeine 1950s - 2020s

How I have enjoyed reading all your precious memories. I can recall living in the first floor of a shared house in Hornsey, and we shared the bathroom with the family downstairs. A bath was had only once a week (my Dad loved Lifeboy carbolic soap, and had a wonderful head of hair to the end!), and Drene shampoo diluted in a jug. On the days between a bath, I would sit on the wooden draining board with my feet in the Belfast sink while Mum washed and dried me. To this day, I hate Belfast sinks! During my married life we lived in a cottage with only one cold water tap and an indoor w.c. We boiled water on the gas stove to wash every day, and once a week went round to my Mum's house for a bath. This lasted for a year before we had the improvements to the house carried out, but my children remember those Thursday baths with great pleasure!

OMG I was so happy to get out of Hull when I was 18 but then I suppose if you are related to half the people in the city and many in the licensing trade you had a different experience!!! Couldn't move without being asked _"Oh are you so and so's daughter, granddaughter, niece etc?"

I had some good times in Hull too Artaylar as student nurses several of us rented flats in a house on Spring Bank West. There was a lot of moving about of male clothing when our mothers visited as I remember. Hull Fair always sticks in my mind, a great experience.

We don’t, Nannagarra, unfortunately. We’re a step closer to a resolution as it seems that it’s the fuel oil that’s the problem, not the boiler. I’m now waiting on yet another chap coming out to test the fuel system itself.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed you’ll soon have a new boiler fitted, Sue.
Do you know anyone who’ll lend you their touring caravan to put on your drive in the meantime? You’d have somewhere warm, a shower and a loo, a cosy bed plus a kitchen area!

They sent the boiler engineer out asap when I said we were pensioners, Nannagarra, so I can’t fault them for that. The issue now is how quickly a new boiler can fitted. Why do these things always happen at weekends, too?

Oh, dear, Sue. If you’re over sixty you’re classed as ‘vulnerable’ (which we learned last week when we had two power cuts). Therefore you should be a priority and receive speedy treatment, either from your independent provider or with a service agreement.

I am now back living in the 1950’s. Our boiler has broken down three times in three days and despite an engineer coming out, it looks like it will be condemned.

So, no heating and no hot water for us, and it was still -4 at 2pm this afternoon! ?

We’re managing to keep warm with the open fire and a couple of fan heaters along with thermals, but keeping ourselves clean is tricker. We managed to bathe on Friday evening in a window of the water heating working but we’ve had no HW since. We’ve been having ‘bird baths’ by boiling the kettle but I can’t keep doing that, I want a proper bath! I’m not sure what we’ll do as it’s likely to be some time before a new boiler can be installed.

I might see if any local hotels are open and book just one night so we can bath and shower.

Fennel

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

Oh wow Fennel, that's just amazing.

The one we used was on the Bev Road, we rented a flat on Park Grove, just off Bev Road, one of 4 flats in the same house.

I've got very happy memories of my time living in Hull.

ps that was in the late '60s to late80s.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Hiking, not hiling.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 .

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 .

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...

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.