Anyone remember wash houses?

Not dose but do we?

I remember the slipper bath. In the early 60's I was a bed sit girl in a big Victorian house that had only one bathroom and it wasn't fit to use. The bath was rusty.
I had to get the bus to get there and all the baths were in wooden cubicles. An attendant filled the huge bath with water and had a kind of spanner to turn the taps on and off. We didn't have control of the taps. And there were huge thick white bath towels. By the time I had finished it had taken up the whole evening. I went every week- a bath was a weekly thing then.

And my mum had a copper boiler in the corner of the scullery. She lit the fire under it each Monday and the house was full of steam. You had to be careful with the mangle as many a button was snapped in half going through the rollers. Then you had to sit and sew them all on again. No wonder women stayed home, it was a full time job, wasn't it?
How different today! We don't know we're born, dose?

Yes, I can recall going to the wash house with my granny, or the washie, as it was known in Scotland.

I was very young but I really used to like it.

No one had any secrets though and a womans reputation was made or broken on how long it had been since she last was seen going to the washie. If she was going to get a place in heaven was also decided upon by her trips to the washie. It kind of went along the lines of 'oh eh saw that pair Mary Kelly on the wye back fae the washie the day. Yeh shid hiv seen the sez oh the load in her pram that she wiz hivin tae push up the hill. Somebody needs tae gie her man an operation, dirty bugger that he is, yehd think he'd be past it at 'is age, 12 bairns ahready and anither ane on the wye.' Eh she'll gae tae heaven right enough cos she's sharely dain her hell on earth.

Well, you live and learn... I had no idea they existed, maybe because my family was so rural. One of my grandmas always had a washing machine, the other was a farming family and had a big washhouse with a couple of mangles of different sizes. One was huge and she and my mother would put the winter quilts through it that were stuffed with chicken feathers. It was also the room for making new quilts for all the family when the old quilts needed replacing, and where the feathers were stored until needed, after they had been cooked in the oven in the washhouse to sterilise them. Even after the quilts were finished the room always had a few tiny feathers floating about all year.

I loved that building, it also housed the well for drawing the water for the coppers. I got into big trouble for tipping a packet of washing powder down the well to see if it would froth up, only getting into even more trouble when I tipped another pack down the outside loo for the same reason.

There were ceiling airers in there for winter drying, that had to be hauled up and let down as needed. If I was around, it was my job to hang up all the underwear and our dolly clothes. I realise now that my mother making us wash my dolly clothes was her way of preparing us for what was to come.

With the arrival of our third sister, in the late 50s, came a washing machine. It was such an event, and in those days salesmen were viewed as such experts, that my mother held a cocktail party for him and his wife on the day of the arrival of the machine!

In the early fifties we moved into a flat on a brand new council estate in Hackney that had a purpose built wash house with large sinks and commercial size washing machines. My mother's allocated slot was Tuesday morning. There were five of us and she had to take a huge bag of laundry (including bed linen) over to the wash house. She loathed having to spend time there. It was hard work and there was a lot of rivalry between the women.
Upstairs the was house was a hall that was used for film shows on a Wednesday evening . They used to show Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin!

That's right! The age of skiffle

Didn't Lonnie Donegan used to play one...?

I remember seeing the old corrugated wash boards for sale in the ironmongers

I saw that! And thought the same.

Have you seen the 'From our Forums' headings? I hope GNHQ isn't implying that those of us who remember wash houses are scrubbers....

I used to go to the wash-house with my nanna it is one of my first memories of her,she ran a bording house for Irish navvies and she was forever changing the sheets and towels,all the ladies knew each other and kept up to date with all the local gossip,I would sit on top of the washing for the ride home holding on to her wash board and her red carbolic soap.mr.glamma went to work at the factory who made the soap in the science lab and according to him they still produce it now.

When I was a student in London in the 50s there was a public washhouse and bathhouse at the end of our road near the Angel,Islington.Never did look inside but remember seeing women pushing a pramload of washing in.

My mum in Lancs had a dolly tub,mangle and wooden dolly until we got our first 'washing machine' an Acme ,gas heated ,hand operated paddle and rubber rolled mangle

I don't remember wash houses but in 1971 the house in Colchester where my husband and I rented a room had no hot water in the bathroom so we used to go to the public baths. Going out into the cold night air after a hot bath was not very pleasurable. The experience has certainly meant that I really appreciate the luxury of a warm bathroom and hot water.

i remember very clearly going to the local washouse at 6.30am waiting in a queue to booki my stall while my husband just off night shift looked after the 2 kids i trundled my washi ng down in an old pram, the play the steamie is very much what it was really like as i think it was set in my local wash house in Glasgow, yhank goodness these days are long gone,

There was no wash house near us but my nan used a dolly tub - zinc - and a wooden three legged dolly which I've still got. I used to love helping with the mangle and folding sheets. My mum used to send things to the laundry and all her towels were rock hard!

I am sure there wasn't a public wash house in our small Scottish town. My Granny's house had a wash house behind the scullery, with a copper, a big sink and a mangle. Bikes were also stored there. We had a big sink and a mangle until my parents bought a washing machine with a manual mangle. To her dying day, my mum refused to give up her twin tub and after she died, the first thing my dad bought was a small automatic.

I remember dolly blue bags, and also biscuit coloured ones for biscuit coloured net curtains.

We lost ours when they pulled that bit of our house down. Had to do the washing in the kitchen after that. And the mangle was outside.

I would so like to go back.

No! Just a "copper" in the kitchen at my Grans. It needed the gas lit under it. She did have a large mangle.

I could never understand why they put blue stuff in the water to make things whiter. And got away with it!

...and how about "dolly blue bags?"

Like jings, I've things to do. Be back soon.

I have never heard of a wash house. I was brought up in the countryside in Scotland and my mother, although she worked full time, did all of the washing by hand. Only the cotton bedsheets were sent to be laundered and they were delivered.

Oh yes! Can you still get it? Wonder what carbolic actually is.

I've got to get on with some jobs! #donenothing

...and carbolic soap, too.

I can almost smell the steam in the wash house...