Washing day
Mother rarely gave in to the Skelping temptation, she would use the brush, the mop, the “posser” anything to hand really and which armament breached the natural safe zone one had believed in place.
I can tell you that a good swing with the mop catching you round the ear would bowl you over and give her a chance to get within reach before you got up again. her intention was to bowl you over so she could pounce on you; before you could go into flight mode
Mother swung a mop like Braveheart swung his broadsword, and with similar effect.
Mops in those days were real mops. Thick ,fourteen inch lengths of rough wool which held about half a gallon of water before wringing out and fastened on a shaft of timber one inch in diameter and six feet long. Faced with a swinging mop the only decision was flight, and quick.
The “posser” was a brass plunger about one foot in diameter at the wide bottom end held on the usual shaft and used to work washing up and down in the “dolly tub”, some women had a “Peggy stick” instead of the posser. This was a three legged stool on a shaft and used to twirl the washing around in the boiling water.
Hard work! And it developed the muscles of those using these items every week maybe twice a week. So you can see “Skelping” the kids was no effort to these muscled ladies, getting free was another thing. Mother could lift a sixteen stone bag of bait muscles onto the bench without too much effort. Not a girl to tangle with.
Washing was done with the use of white soap bricks. This was called soap but why I never understood. Unlike the Yellow Stone the White Soap was not soluble in anything, boiling water failed to melt this soap brick. The only way to use it was to grate it on a cheese grater into a tin which had holes punched through and suspend this tin in the washing tub for a while swishing it around.
This being the only use for a cheese grater during the rationing years anyway.
Every Monday was Whites Day! And no other day were whites hung out on the line.
Every Monday morning the boiling copper was lit and the soap grated , the whites gathered up usually just towels ,sheets, pillow cases and table cloths and all boiled together in the copper, possered or Peggy sticked clean ,rinsed and hung out for local inspection. The local inspection bit was done very surreptitiously by other ladies who had washing out including my Gran who was the worst critic of them all of others washing abilities
This was doubly unfair for granddad did the washing ,grandma being disabled.
True he did it under strict supervision and woe betides him if he got it wrong.
Crafty snide remarks were made like “Have you run out of soda Emma? I would have lent you some for your whites if you’d said. This really means “your whites are not as white as I would have got them. The meaning not lost on the recipient.
The washing of clothes had its own industry and methods around it.
Gypsies with little babies slung on their back would come round in the spring with bags of pegs. Not you’re little spring and plastic pegs of today, these pegs were made from the hedges around the roadside. Suitable sticks were cut and shaped as one side of a peg and then pairs were fastened together tightly with thin strips of metal cut from food tins the strips wrapped around the top end and end tucked under to hold every thing tight
These pegs would hold on through a winter gale and last from one year to the next. They cost nothing but time and skill to make and were a source of income to the travelling people. An old gypsy man taught me how to make them while having some of grannies apple pie; he could make one in seconds just using a sharp knife and pliers. When I made some many years later I left out the sharp edged tin strip and whipped the ends with cord. As a fishing lad I was used to cord. I still had some of those used pegs forty years later in my workshop. How long can a modern peg last?
“Rubbing boards” were the modern item to have, used with the “dolly tub”.
The clothes would be rubbed up and down these corrugated wash boards, dumped into the dolly tub, hauled out and rubbed again. Until the user decided enough was enough. I noticed that if you were u8nfortunare enough to be seconded to the rubbing board job the clothes got more rubbing than when the ladies did it.
The usual cry being “Have you bothered to rub those clothes? Well rub em again and do it right this time.
It was best to be absent early on Monday morning and stay absent until tea time
