Old-fashioned wringer washing machines

Georgesgran

I can remember my Mum having a huge manual washing machine with wringer - that was hard work! Then she got a twin-tub and the spinner drain hose had to go into the kitchen sink.
I can remember when the Hoover Keymatic arrived - such luxury.

I remember it exactly like that, except it wasn’t my mum, it as me! We couldn’t afford a washing machine when we got married in the 60s but my good neighbour gave me her twin -tub when she got her new machine.
What bliss! I loved putting nappies through the mangle, and the whole thing made such a difference to me!
That friend is now in a care home near her daughter and is the ripe old age of 92. We have stayed friends all this time but I don’t see her now as I can’t travel that far. Bless her.

Mum had a Hotpoint Empress dating from the Mid 1950s, that was still used in 1970 or so, hard work compared with today but a lot better than the copper wash boiler she had before.

I think my mum got a washing machine when we moved out of our Council House with its gas, copper boiler complete with wringer on top. That was in about 1967, maybe '68.

However, I didn't get a washing machine until my daughter was born in 1978 (when I was 30). I washed things in the bath or sink and carried them down to the back yard where I had a wringer and use of a clothes line. I still had the wringer when I moved in here in 1994, having needed it on occasions in the interim when we didn't have the funds to repair or replace the washing machine.

I moved out from my parents’ house in 1977, aged 19. They didn’t get a washing machine until much later. There was a gas-fired copper with a mangle, and they got a stand-alone Spinarinse around 1967.

My mum had the twin tub until relatively late (don’t know why)
I used to handwash some things and use the spin dryer, that was the advantage over most automatics. You could choose how long to spin for and a vertical spin is more efficient.

It made me laugh when an older acquaintance a few years back was saying how “young people today want everything straight away” the everything included an automatic washer. I told her that you’d be hard pushed to find a “none”automatic one these days a bit like opting for a big box TV 📺 with only three channels😅

Yes I remember my mum's old washing machine well. When I was about 6 I was watching her thread the clothes though the mangle (whilst she listened to a play on the wireless). I was fascinated by the mangle and when she turned her back for a moment I put my hand in it! Much to my horror the mangle ground to a halt with my hand firmly stuck in it. It was so painful. I remember saying "mummy, mummy help me" with tears rolling down my cheeks. She managed to release me and I'll never forget the look of unadulterated fear on her face.

We still have one - although it's no longer in use. We have a brick-built washhouse at the bottom of our garden which still has the big boiler used to wash the clothes and the original mangle. I can remember my grandmothers and my mum using it when I was little, especially for things like sheets and blankets.

I had a Baby Burco too, shysal.
It was terrific!
Sadly no spinner though.

In the late 1950s my Mum had a single tub washer with an electric mangle attached. She was hanging some washing on the line and I thought at the age of 2 I would see how the mangle worked.
I put some paper in and switched it on and didn’t let go. My arm shot through shattered the bones and ripped the skin away.
My Mum came in screamed and ran up the road to her sister who had been a nurse during the war. Left me stuck in the mangle!
I was in and out of hospital for months, had problems setting the bones and then had numerous skin grafts - a fairly new surgeon did this and I was one of his first patients. He kept in touch for about 20 years to see how I was doing. But I have been left with a very badly scarred arm and thigh ( where the skin came from). I rarely think about it except in summer I see someone look at my arm but it doesn’t bother me.

We had a washing machine with a mangle in 1971 when we married. A year later we had saved enough for a twin tub, so much easier. We didn’t get an automatic until several years later.

Mum had a single tub washer with a mangle, but sent sheets and maybe towels to the laundry. There was an enormous probably Victorian laundry in a nearby village.
Then when I was about 10 she had a Hoover twin tub which she had for at least 30 years until we persuaded her to have an automatic.
I had an automatic when I had the DC. I àlso had a very efficient spin dryer for several years then as well.

I bought an English Electric spin dryer 2 years ago as my washing machine sometimes doesn't spin.

My grandmother with 5 children washed the clothes on Monday in a copper tub with coals underneath plus mangle. And then ironed them on Tuesday. What a very hard life those women had.

I can’t remember when my DM got her first automatic, probably mid or late 60s. Before then it was one you had to pull out, plug in and fill with water. There was a built in mangle, also electrified IIRC.

My mother had one in the 1950s. By the 1970s she had graduated to a twin tub. A 'Hoovermatic' I think it was.

My mother had a Parnall with wringer. She was better off than I was. In the early seventies I had two children in terry nappies with no washing machine. I boiled the nappies in a Baby Burco, rinsed in the sink then spin dried. All other washing was scrubbed on the draining board every day. The boiler boiled over most days and took all the colour out of the Marleytiles.
Eventually I received a small legacy from my grandmother and bought an automatic washer. However, the spin was never as efficient as the old spin dryer.

I remember the the gas boiler and mangle my mum used when we were children. It must have been such hard work with a family of five.
The next step up was a twin tub but I think it was awhile before she bought an automatic.

Remember Rolls Twin tub machine? Mum got one in the late 5o’s along with Rolls freezer. It was the first cheaper machine people could hope to own. We were the envy of our street. With the freezer all the kids wanted our ice cubes.

I remember our neighbours having a wringer washing machine in the 1950s. No-one else we knew had a washing machine then. We must have had a mangle, but don't remember it. I remember a wash board.
My Mum got a Servis twin tub in the early 60s and was very happy with it. She preferred it to the automatic machines that became standard later.

we had a hand-turned mangle in the 1950's. My mother had a "woman" who was paid to come on Mondays to help her with the laundry, and I sometimes had to help with guiding the garments through the rollers, trying hard not to get fingers pinched. My dad had some pyjamas or shirts whose buttons were detachable because they would be crushed by the mangle; so every time the item was washe the buttons had to be taken out and replaced after it was dry and ironed. The buttons were double, a smaller one behind the larger one.

Back then, if you haddn't got a mangle to extract water you' d struggle to get the washing dry in winter. (No spin dryers yet)
The mangled washing was hung over a pulley rack above the kitchen range .

In the 1960's I worked in an old folks home which had no washing machine :-( . The incontinence laundry went in a copper boiler over a gas ring, and was agitated by hand with a posser. damn hard work. Then mangled.

My late grandmother had a wringer washer that she used up into the 90s, at least! I saw her use it once. She used it to wash jeans. The wringer part did not work but the rest did.

Mind you, Grandma and her family were immigrants to Canada (her husband, my late grandfather, was my only grandparent who was born in Canada) and both she and Grandpa grew up in families where there wasn't a lot of extra cash. They saved a lot of things and tried to get the maximum use out of everything.

I was gifted an old fashioned single tub washing machine in 1976. It had an electric mangle attached to it. You held the clothes with a pair of wooden tongs and flung them at the rotating rollers.
I still have the scars on my right hand when I misjudged the distance and my hand went through. The auto cut out failed and I fleetingly imagined myself being pulled through and coming out the other side flat as a piece of cardboard.
Fortunately it stopped but not before breaking several bones. I was very lucky not to have lasting injuries. The doctor at the hospital had never heard of a mangle and failed to understand exactly what I had done.

My mum washed our clothes in a boiler that was built with a fireplace under it to heat the water and had a hand wringer that dad made a stand for. She eventually had a twin tub washing machine when I was eight years old.

I can remember my Mum having a huge manual washing machine with wringer - that was hard work! Then she got a twin-tub and the spinner drain hose had to go into the kitchen sink.
I can remember when the Hoover Keymatic arrived - such luxury.

No way!
My mother was very proud of her front loading Bendix washing machine which she got in the early 50’s and it lasted her for easily 30:years!

We had a brew house in the communal yard and each neighbour had a set day for washing. My mum sent our sheets etc away to be cleaned, though, as I remember them being returned. I have absolutely no memory of how our clothes were washed. My mum never had a washing machine, even when she moved into a block of flats. I offered to buy her one but she didn’t want one.