Through The Wringer
Remember these old washboards? This one is called "The Albert" and was made in Scotland. It had a corrugated metal surface which you scrubbed the soapy clothes against.
Even when she got her first washing machine it was just like the one in the picture, everything still had to be put through the wringer! Thank goodness for spin dryers!
Greetings from Greenock
My Granny lived in a tenement in Greenock and used to use one of these for cleaning clothes in the weekly wash before she had a washing machine.
She also had one of these mangles or wringers! It was mounted between two sinks in the kitchenette. First of all the soapy clothes were put through. Then the sink was filled with cold water, the clothes were rinsed and put through the wringer again. No wonder she had strong arms! This wringer was made by the Acme Manufacturing Co of Glasgow.
My Granny would then put the washing into a basket and take it down three flights of stairs out to the common "backgreen" (actually concrete - easier to maintain than grass) and hang the washing out.
I remember that each family in the tenement had a specific day for hanging out the washing, or a particular piece of rope to use. Of course with Greenock weather there was much watching out for rainy showers then the washing had to be brought back upstairs again and hung on the pulley in the kitchen. Unfortunately, if the washing had got really wet because Granny had been out for her messages (shopping), then the whole wash had to go through the wringer all over again!!!
Love, Liz
Comments
Have a lovely day xxx
I vaguely remember one of my Grandma's having a wash house complete with mangle & big stone sinks AND she had a family of 9 children - gosh how hard she much have worked!!
We are certainly lucky to have washing machines!
Thank you for sharing.
June
Just off to bung a load in the machine!
have a great day : )
So lucky now to have the automatic phew!!
Thea x
Maureen
And you can play music on the washboard!
We had an old 'copper' outside in an outbuilding where you lit a wood fire underneath and boiled the clothes.....
we, it was still there, and we kids discovered it.
I do love drying clothes outside.....quite a feat sometimes in the UK!
I remember helping my mother wring out the washing, I enjoyed watching the sheets come through the rollers squashed flat. Wasing day was such a process, which seemed to take forever. We really shouldn't complain about the effort it takes to load a machine and press a button.
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