Christina Hollis: Writing History—Wet Washing and Drying Days

It's been raining cats and dogs here in Gloucestershire for days. While the downpour setting has swung backwards and forwards from "car wash" to "drizzle" it has at least been mild. The winds, though blustery, have been nothing compared to the terrible hurricanes and typhoons suffered in other parts of the world. I love letting the washing dry on a line strung across the kitchen garden, but there's been none of that this week.

My first few weeks back at university have been busy. I've been deciding on modules for this semester and the next, along with my ideas for my dissertation. One of the reasons I signed up for this course in Creative and Critical Writing  was because I found researching Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol fascinating. I wanted to find out more. Where better to do that than in a university? It  has zillions of books, and a huge archive.

I'm working on the effect technology had on women's lives during the twentieth century—specifically, the way it made household chores easier.

Find out more at
mybook.to/BristolWomen

Until mid-December 1930, the wives of miners in the Forest of Dean didn't have one wash-day a week. They had at least five days of hauling water, and heating it on the stove in order to scrub their husband's work clothes. Men came home filthy at the end of their shift at the pit. After stripping off his boots and dirty clothes outside the back door, a man would soak in a tin bath in front of the fire in order to get clean.

Meanwhile, his wife had the mammoth task of getting his clothes clean and dry as fast as possible. That wasn't easy at a time when Forest villages had no electricity supply. There wasn't much money about in those days, so when it came to clothes the general rule was "one on, one in the wash". During the summer, drying clothes outside on a washing line was easy—until it rained. Then, and during the winter, it was a case of living with steaming wet washing draped over clothes horses and fireguards all around the house.

On Saturday, 20th December 1930, Christmas came early for some of those Forest of Dean wives. After months of anticipation, Cannop Colliery opened some state-of-the-art pit head baths. 

Instead of walking home filthy, men stripped off their wet clothes as soon as they reached the surface. They showered in comfort, then dressed in everyday clothes for their walk home. They left their sodden workwear to dry overnight in the bathhouse's specially-designed heated cabinets. From that day on, the women's drudgery of doing laundry after every shift down the mine became a memory. Washday became a task done once a week, usually on a Monday.

Not to be thrown out with the bath water...

In the days before my family bought a washing machine, that was the routine in our rural Somerset home, too.  It was an all-day job. Water was heated in an electric boiler.  Shirt and blouse collars and cuffs were scrubbed before being worked up and down in soapy water. 

Then the washing was rinsed, hauled out of the water, wrung, then put through the mangle (mind those fingers!) 

Even as a tiny child I was involved in every stage. I used to love blowing soap bubbles between my cupped hands. I wasn't so keen on getting wet cuffs, though. Gran would roll up my sleeves but somehow they either slid down again, or the water would run up my arms!

The best things about washing day before automation was the sound and sight of fresh washing cracking and dancing in March winds, or the fragrance of Fairy Snow and Sunlight soap on a hot June morning.

Do you have any memories of wash-day?

Christina Hollis's first non-fiction book, Struggle and Suffrage in Bristol is published by Pen and Sword Books. You can find out more about that here, catch up with her at https://christinahollisbooks.online, on Twitter, Facebook, and see a full list of her published books at christinahollis.com