First day of holiday.
Washing day.
I’ve cleaned the cottage and stripped the beds .
The duvet covers are pristine white and are drying gently on the field gate in the warm breeze we have today
Their presence signals I am home.
Monday’s were always wash days when I was a child.
The house smelled of OMO and hot water and the twin tub churned loudly in the back kitchen .
They were busy days
My grandmother was always there
Big arms bare to the elbow and her face perspiring, she would squeeze the clothes and sheets through the mangle before filling the washing lines with laundry, wooden pegs in her mouth.
Lunch was hurried leftovers from Sunday dinner.
Dark gravy to soften the dry meat.
The ironing came later.
Ironing the whites with stories a plenty to entertain us with.
I used to love wash days just because of her.
I ironed the duvet today , which was a first .
I was shamed into by a gay friend who thought I was an animal for never doing so before.
I remembered my grandmother as I did so.
Wriggling the tip of the iron in the corners, like she did.
I never think of her for the longest of times now, then bam! a memory will surface like a whale breaching a calm sea and suddenly you are surrounded with thoughts and memories and smells and feelings from fifty years ago.
I miss her still
On wash days
This is just beautiful.
ReplyDeleteFunny what you remember
DeleteI love laundry from a clothesline. Don't feel bad about the duvet -- I never iron ANYTHING.
ReplyDeleteThe best smell , fresh laundry
Delete"Precious memories, how they linger ..." went the words to an old song.
ReplyDeleteAs a quilter, I iron lots of fabric but seldom iron clothes and never sheets. We have no duvets.
How marvelous to be at the start of your holidays!
Hugs!
And how old memories can trip you up
DeleteAh, but if you so choose, memories can wrap you in a warm, cozy softness. Choose wisely, grasshopper!
DeleteHugs!
I've just had Facebook reminding me of memories that were painful to revisit
DeleteThere's something wonderful about clean clothes blowing on a clothes line that you don't get from a rotary line.
ReplyDeleteMy kids used to love the smell of ironing.
My garden is too small for a line , that’s why I use the gate
DeleteJohn, I enjoy your posts so much. This one brought back memories of the wringer washer in the porch of my childhood home. One of us 3 kids always managed to get an arm caught in the wringer at least once. Hanging clothes on the line brings me joy. And the smell of line-hung laundry. I'm reminded of a trip to Portugal where the hotel laundry was hung out on lines outside my patio. If I was wealthy enough to afford hired help or not so lazy, I would have fresh laundered and ironed sheets on my bed each day.
ReplyDeleteNice memories mona
DeleteWe're the same age and I find myself caught up in memories lately. It wonder if it's my age. Is that what happens as we age?
ReplyDeleteThe past is a far country
DeleteI too rememeber wash days-mums twin tub and her being amazed by my aunts automatic washing machine- grandmas copper and mangle at her little terraced house in a street of cobbles by the railway-my Italian godmothers very precise folding of heavy linen sheets and her irritation if I didn't hold the corners tight enough-I am slapdash myself-John I do believe you should be our Nations poet x
ReplyDeleteBollocks lol
DeleteSweet post.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember the little blue bags that was dropped into an enamel bowl of water and which the 'whites' were dunked into before that final push through the mangle. I could never work out how dunking them into really blue water made them come out so brilliantly white. ☺☺ xx
ReplyDeleteNo I don't I do remember the big wooden " forceps" my grandmother pulled the hot sheets out with
DeleteReckitts Blue...also used to colour distemper and limewash!
Deletehttp://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/638696
Deletei have two quilts drying outside right now. i wish my scene fit in with yours but it is not as poetic. willie tore his acl and his meds made him sick and he puked on me in the middle of the night. and yes, i also slipped on it.
ReplyDeleteToo.much information
Deletewillie's my dog. if willie was my husband i would have thrown him out of the house.
DeleteI know lol
DeleteWhat is this thing called an iron. I've heard many a mention of it :-) My line is currently filled with sheets and other laundry blowing in the warm sunshine. My mum was a 'Tide or Fairy Snow' kinda girl..
ReplyDeleteImnot the only solution here xx
DeleteJohn what a lovely post - remember those lovely big wooden pegs we used to buy frrom the gypsies. Oh how times have changed but really we should be pleased - so much less work on washdays these days.
ReplyDeleteI think I still have a few of my grandmother dolly pegs
DeleteI still have a few wooden pegs from the gypsies too.
Deletehttp://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/638696
DeleteNope, I don't do ironing either....I do own an iron, but not sure where it is! In fairness, we don't really wear anything that needs ironing, I'm not just a slovenly woman tee hee. I'm the eldest grandchild and had a very special relationship with my grandmother, lovely memories of her which your post has brought back, thank you John.
ReplyDeleteI'm a slovenly man
Delete3 gold stars for ironing the duvet! OMG - that's a big job. My Aunt taught me how to iron. She ironed (and starched dress shirts) everything when no other relatives ironed. Air dried bed sheets are the best. You'll sleep well tonight.
ReplyDeleteI've just had a glorious lay down on the clean duvet....and breathed in
DeleteDon't you love those serendipitous moments when the sound, sight, smell or touch of someone we've loved heartily steps back into our lives, even if it is for the briefest of seconds? Magical.
ReplyDeleteAnd melancholic too
DeleteSeems like everyday is wash day for me.
ReplyDeleteYes how things have changed and made easier..
DeleteIt's easy to forget how washday really was a whole day. Ironing duvet covers - get you! Nowadays, I only iron the bare minimum, I'm a bit of a slob at heart! Omo, now there's a blast from the past. Lovely to have the rest of your holiday stretching out ahead of you. xx
ReplyDeleteAnd a clean cottage behind me
DeleteA flashback to my grandmother upgrading from a wringer washing machine to an automatic, they had to put in a larger septic tank to handle the added drain water. She is one of the heros of my childhood.
ReplyDeleteEvery gay man had a hero grandmother in my experience
DeleteHow’s that book coming along?
ReplyDeleteSlowly
DeleteThose common activities that bring back the best memories of wonderful people from our past. Wash day, unfortunately, doesn’t do that for me. But many days are wash days here. I’ve never had a schedule and we now have a small machine, so I do it more often. You have been in a cleaning frenzy lately!
ReplyDeleteLike a dirvush
DeleteDervish
Delete"Who is remembered, lives."
ReplyDeleteThey do. In you heart ❤
DeleteI went to a baby shower once where one of the games we played was seeing who could take the most wooden clothes pins off a line using only one hand. Most of the other women were too young to have even used a clothes line, much less clothes pins. I have small hands but I won because hanging out laundry and taking it in was something I'd done for years. I don't remember the final count, but it was prodigious. Lol.
ReplyDeleteAnd that was without dropping any of the clothes pins. You had to continue to hold them in your hand as you removed the others. My big claim to fame.
DeleteNo homemade peg bag on the line?
DeleteYes, I always had one, usually faded and weathered from being out in the elements. Kind of like me. :)
DeleteThey always were
DeleteDuvet covers need not be ironed...
ReplyDeleteYou seem to young to have witnessed mangle machines c. what, 1920?
No I remember an electric mangle on the top on the twin tub circa 1970
DeleteActually, in the US anyway, what you remember is the wringer, as in "don't get your tit caught in the wringer". A mangle (1950's) was a big ironing machine, about a half of sheet's width as I remember, with a great heavy hot thing that came down onto the sheet. Rather dangerous to the fingers so it was built so you had to use two hands to activate it, out of the way. Some friends had a motel when I was a child and I used to admire the mangling from a safe distance. Perhaps this explains Lizzie's confusion.
DeleteNo such thing as twin-tubs in my childhood homes, all washing done by hand, and whites finished off with those little blocks of 'blue'. My gran was quite fierce - you didn't go near her on washing day!
ReplyDeleteRachel will pop up soon and start banging on about the villagers beating sheets clean in the local river
DeleteLol
My aunts did this by the streams in the hills of Italy-and my dad collected honey from the trees (whilst melons cooled)x
DeleteWhat a fine bit of writing. Thank you for sharing the memories so sharply and well.
ReplyDeleteThank you dearheart x
DeleteMondays were washday in our house, too. Grandmother, ditto; mangle, ditto; wooden pegs, ditto; grey leftovers, ditto...
ReplyDeletebut the gravy was always good!
My mother cremated most meals
DeleteNan cooked ours!
DeleteMy gran cooked better than my mother
DeleteI buy clothes based on whether I need to iron them! I ironed a shirt for my the other day for the first time in years (he had an interview!)
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have a twin tub growing up (the 70s). My mum soaked our clothes in the bath first then spun them in the spin dryer. In Winter, clothes were dried in front of the electric bar fire. Total fire hazard!!!!
I haven't ironed clothes for 2 years
DeleteTwas on a Monday morning
ReplyDeleteWhen I beheld my darling
He looked so neat and charming
In every high degree
He looked so neat and charming oh
A doing of his washing oh
Dashing away with a smoothing iron
He stole my heart away.
Dashing away with the smoothing iron
DeleteDashing away with the smoothing iron
Dashing away with the smoothing iron
She stole my heart away.
I’m in the US. I remember my mother using a mangle in the 1940s, but I’m surprised you didn’t have an automatic washer in the 60s. Was post war England still that behind in the 60s?
ReplyDeleteI am talking around 1969,70
DeleteI don't remember a front loader until the mid 1970s the twin tub top.loader was my first memory
I had to look up twin tub, says one side spins out the water. No need to mangle..??? The fully automatic washer was designed in 1937. But old ways linger on I suppose, as you do not seem to have a dryer or off topic, a microwave.
Delete:)
ReplyDeleteHow did you wash a duvet?
ReplyDeleteDuvet cover
DeleteYou can also wash a duvet. I washed goose down pillows a while ago - came up a treat
DeleteI am well aware that one can wash a duvet. I have never had a machine big enough to take one though, nor known anyone else who had one. That was why I was puzzled and asked John the question.
DeleteI note you have now amended the wording to say duvet cover.
DeleteLaundromats w large machines will wash duvets and pillows. My mom washed the goose down pillows every Fall, but she did have a dryer to get them dry and fluffy.
DeleteWhen I write I often leave whole words out.
DeleteDoes anyone else do that
I have my duvets washed by the laundry in prestatyn 20 quid a pop
DeleteI tried to wash one once in a washing machine and broke it
DeleteMy last 2 have been large especially to cater for them x
DeleteYes, we have to take duvets to the laundrette who have a special machine big enough for them. I did not mean to start all this. It was just a question for you John.
DeleteNo duvetgate has been interesting lol
DeleteI wish I had never asked.
DeleteLol …
DeleteLove means never to say your sorry
Love means never HAVING to say you are sorry!
DeleteI grew up on a farm in the 60s and 70s and washing day was indeed on a Monday (Tuesday was mending and ironing), we always had cold meat for lunch on the Monday after the Sunday roast as my mother was too busy to cook again the following day. I distinctly remember my father buying a 'twin tub' and my mother's friends all cooing with delight about what a wonderful machine it was - and it most certainly was.
ReplyDeleteWe have a shared collective of memories
Delete
ReplyDeleteI had no washing machine for two years when we got our first house in 1987. Then I got a secondhand twin tub and ruined 7 of his shirts in one go. Served him right. I do like a man who hangs out a good washing :)
Like most people I hate ironing
DeleteI love ironing... I find it very relaxing and if I am having a bad week I get the iron out and it calms me. I think it is something to do with the pace of it as I am a bit of a speedy person with everything else.
DeleteAnd I also remember washing days, but in my case it was Mum, and me turning the mangle and she pulling the sheets through.
Jo in Auckland
The smell of "ironing damp" good cotton sheets being ironed....
ReplyDeleteI love a scented candle called white linen
DeleteOur washer was single tub with a wringer,a hose emptied soapy water into the kitchen sink,then the tub was filled with rinse water.Clothes, sheets and towels were hung outside with wooden pins.
ReplyDeleteAs a preschool age girl more than once I climbed into a hanging sheet to cool off in summer- much to my mother's dismay! We had an electric ironing machine with rollers for the sheets,and metal "shapers" for men's dress trousers,too.We ironed bedding, curtains and everything we wore except socks.There's too seldom anything that fresh and crisp in my home today.Mary
Electric ironing machine
DeleteHow wonderful
Does anyone remember these?
Deletehttp://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/638696
Yes I do-Mondays during my school holidays I recall my poor mum using the implement and dragging enormous monsters of steaming white sheets from the twin tub washer part and then having to wrestle and shove them into the smaller spinning part-she looked exhausted and disheveled x
DeleteGod, yes. I can smell the washing as it was pulled out of the tub with those wooden tongs, and the steam. So evocative.
DeleteYou have brought back many memories with your post, from my childhood. My Nan used to live with us and Monday was washing day and left overs from Sunday roast. My Mum was so excited to get a twin tub, no more mangle. I remember the wooden laundry tongues. My sister and I used to play tents with the wooden cloths horses. I actually enjoy ironing.
ReplyDeleteI’ve tapped into a vein
DeleteWonderful post! So many similar memories. The blue stuff was called Dolly Blue in my times and was put on wasp stings. Remember being fascinated by the blue marks left on arms or legs!
ReplyDeleteI need to google this
Delete103 comments. It's like old times.
ReplyDeleteI’ve missed those heady days
DeleteUsually started with sexually ambiguous blog title or a fight with tom
DeleteDidn't twin tub washing achiness have a spinner?
ReplyDeleteOne tub for washing and one for spinning.
So a mangle wasn't needed.
Who knows
DeleteWhen I was married in 1968 I had a funny little machine that was a single tub (like the washing side of a twin tub) with an electric wringer attached. After my first child was born I upgraded to a Hoover Twin Tub washing machine. Hope this answers the question. Karen in Queensland
DeleteThis is a beautiful post and an excellent piece of writing from the heart. Memories such as these are the diamonds of our past holding the light and love of a special person alive forever in our hearts.
ReplyDeleteThank u
DeleteYou have indeed tapped into a vein ;). So many memories brought to mind and am so thankful I don't have revisit some of those washing techniques.
ReplyDeleteMy British grandmother lived next door most of my childhood, she had an old glass bottle of water with a rubber and metal stopper with tiny holes, which was used for damping down just about everything before being rolled up then piled up ready to iron.
ReplyDeleteI remember my Mum had one of those too.
DeleteJo in Auckland.
After reading all of these wonderful comments and conversations, I suddenly remembered helping my mother carry a frozen bed sheet from the clothes line into the house. It was similar to carrying a large pane of glass. I suppose we put it in the bath tub to thaw but I don't remember that part!
ReplyDeleteHugs!
Frozen clothes….I’ve done the same with towels here
DeleteDo you know in Houston, many. neighborhoods have rules against drying clothing outside. It's been so may years since I"ve experienced that. But at the farm, we can let the undies flags wave. Of course we have no washing machine there now (and septic tank not big enough to handle washing machine loads of water). But when we remodel out there and get a proper laundry room, I'm totally sectioning off an area of the yard just for outside drying.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great memory of your Grandmother to share.
We don't iron either. Our comforter (duvet) hasn't been ironed. And I take our shirts to be laundered (no starch). Yeah, we probably lose some gay points for that but hey, we don't like ironing.
P.S. Used to have a coworker who would get up at 4am most days and if she didn't have anything else to do, she would iron...everything. Sheets, pillowcases, clothes, dish towels, bathroom towels, napkins, tablecloths. If it was fabric, she ironed it.
A law not to dry clothes lol how bizarre
DeleteIllegal here also to hang out laundry. And if you so much as hang a beach towel on the fence, you get an immediate call and a letter.
DeleteHow odd
DeleteMonday was also wash day in my home in North Dakota. When the snow got too deep to reach the clotheslines in the back yard, the sheets were hung on a jury-rigged rope in an unheated room just off the kitchen. On cold days they'd get stiff as a board. Fortunately those days are gone forever.
ReplyDeleteChildren of today can’t get their heads around times that there was no central heating
DeleteThis is a beautiful post, John. There's therapy in a great washing day :)
ReplyDeleteThank u
DeleteBeautifully written ! Oh what memories , my grandmother was my hero, she could do everything!
ReplyDeleteGrandparents were always hero’s
DeleteOr they should always be
Monday memories of wash day well written John, yes it was wash day at our house as well for the longest time a wash tub and mangle so when we got the double tub it was a real treat. We would fold the sheets together and my mum would put them under the cushions of our chesterfield and they would look as if they were ironed. How times have changed most of us probably don't own an apron these days as we can just toss our laundry in the machine.
ReplyDeleteLol how things have changed
DeleteI don't have any personal memories of washday as spent time abroad, but have loved reading your memories and also your readers too.
ReplyDeleteGrandparents had all passed away by the time I came along. Now its our turn to provide memories to our grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteWe bought my mother her first automatic washing machine when she was 78; she only used it on Mondays!
Well-written and evocative John.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I wonder why the "Omo" brand name no longer exists.
I suspect , as you do, that it’s link with “ homo” that scuppered it
DeleteJilly Cooper wrote in her book 'Class' from the 80s(?) that adulterous working class women would place a box of OMO onto the window sill signalling 'Old man out'; that made me laugh.
DeleteOh this so lovely and well written too. Ever thought of giving poetry a shot? I think you would be good at it.
ReplyDeleteRallentanda
My gran had a twin tub and that was in the early 80s. I only ever iron school shirts thats it.
ReplyDelete