Web Page 1170

 3^rd August 2013

Top Picture: Typical 1950’s home

Middle Picture: 1950’s Clothes wringer!

Bottom Picture: Omo adds brightness

What was is really like for Mum in the 1950’s?

I do not think that any of today's women would wish to go back to the 1950’s. It was not a myth women really did have one day for washing, one day for ironing etc. but why?. The washing (especially if the family was large) took a very long time. My mother did not have any kind of washing machine she had to agitate the clothes in a tub or hot water boiler with a 'gadget' made for the job. This was a wooden gadget which pushed and pulled the washing around the tub and over the years was bleached white from the constant immersion in soapy water. She then had to pull each item out of the very hot water with a pair of wooden tongs and then put them through a wooden rollered mangle which squeezed the water out and was kept in the tool shed. That was hand turned, not powered by electricity. She then had to rinse each item to remove all the soap and then put them through the mangle once again. If the weather was good she then hung them out to dry. If it was not good everything went on a clothes horse in front of the coal fire - a few at a time because a whole family wash did not fit on it. Driers did not exist then so she relied on the sun or the heat from the coal fire and lots of time drying slowly indoors.

Most people lit their coal fire first thing in the morning (some even in the Summer because it also provided the hot water).

Ironing was usually done the day after the washing - providing she had managed to get it dry. If not it had to be done when it was dry. I can remember my mother plugging her iron into the light socket which was dangerous enough but my grandmother had a fiery animal called a gas iron on a flexible lead and this looked twice as dangerous!

Cleaning was not like today. We did not have fitted carpets as my father believed in carpets being square so they could be turned and even out the wear. This meant either stained floorboards or lino, but I have spoken about this before. The fortunate would have a home made rug in front of the coal fire which would have been made from a Readdicut rug kit. As a child I remember sitting in front of the fire on the home made rug. It was the warmest spot in the house.

Lino (or as my Godmother called it Oilcloth)  would have to was wiped with a mop or a damp cloth whether it was in the kitchen, bathroom or the carpet surrounds and whatever carpets or rugs were in the house would be cleaned either with a carpet sweeper or the ‘Hoover’. We had a Ewbank carpet sweeper and my Mum had an early Hoover Vacuum cleaner.

 What did housewives do each day? Well they didn't get much rest, that's for sure. In addition to all the above she would get out her sewing machine and make children's clothes and maybe something for herself. She would get out her sewing kit, some wool, a darning needle and a darning mushroom and tackle a pile of dad's socks that had holes in the heels. That was a long slow process because, not done correctly, the socks would be very uncomfortable. She would go out shopping, some she would carry home and in another shop she would leave an order to be delivered later in the week. In addition she was also looking after the pre-school children in the house because there were no nurseries then and no government paid-for child care.

Life was much harder physically, few families had cars, we relied on buses and trains, which weren't always there when you wanted them. Remember rationing only stopped during the 50s. However, there was plenty of work and it was considered shameful to be on the dole. Girls who had children without a husband were condemned - then as now the men were not blamed! Education was streamed, you took the 11plus and were sent to a school according to your scores. Grammar, Technical, Secondary Modern all had different aims educationally. I have talked about this with others of my generation and we think that overall we had a far better life than young people today. We knew what was expected of us, and we lived up to it

Everything about life at home especially for women has been made many times better and no-one in their right mind would wish to return to any of that but the aspect which most would find interesting these days is the neighbourly attitude everyone had. Everyone looked out for one another and, because different generations of families lived closer together then there was almost always help available when it was really needed. Much of that is now lost.

Take care and keep in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com 

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

Jonathon Writes:

Your blog of today brought back memories of all the odd jobs I used to do to earn money as a teenager. A lot of the jobs I did were very physical and toughened me up.

I used to dig out septic tanks for a Caravan Site on Hayling Island owned by a neighbour in Rectory Ave, Charles Wager. It was and still is called the Odd Spot and the son Tony still manages it. I would dig the pits so deep that I had to be helped out the excavation. These would be back filled with porous rubble and formed soak aways for the serried rows of caravans. I was payed five shillings an hour which back in 1963 was good money.

In my long summer holidays at University I would work night shifts continuously for the whole long vac at the Coop Bakery at the bottom of Station Road Drayton. I was an oven hand and would spend my 8 hour shift in a very hot and humid space between the proving oven and the gas fired baking oven. The proved dough in tins had to be taken off moving trays out of the prover and placed on moving trays in the baking oven. The trays on both sides moved at the same speed and timing was everything. The hot cooked bread had to be taken out in tins of three strapped together, three in each sacking wrapped hand and banged out of the tins onto a moving belt. If you misjudged the narrow gap you got a nasty striped burn on the forearm for your pains. After my first night I was like a master sergeant. I once calculated that an oven hand lifted two tons an hour of dough, bread, and tins every hour for eight hours......no longer we lost weight.

During our breaks I would go next door to the Coop Dairy and drink a full pint of gold top milk straight from the fridge. I would drink pints every night and still lost two stone every holiday. Talk about a sweat shop.

In my Christmas holidays I would work in the Post Office parcel sorting depot next to Portsmouth and Southsea station. When the train came in hourly we would work like demented beings to clear the load and have half an hour to play bridge between trains.......magic times.

Other jobs I remember was delivering meat for Frank Vine the Farlington butcher using a bicycle with a huge basket on front. I also delivered newspapers from the shop next door to the Sunshine, now a Tesco minimart and restocked the cellar cells in an off licence in Cosham.

One final job I remember is working as a guillotine operator at Power Brakes in Paulsgrove. My job was to lift heavy steel plates off a stack using a magnetic clamp and trapping air between the sheets so they glided onto the guillotine bed. I would cut the sheets to size where they would be rolled into cylinders prior to being welded into brake tanks. I vividly remember a school boy colleague who got his fingers trapped in the rollers his job was to receive my cut plates. A foreman heard his screams and hit the emergency stop. Unfortunately I think his hands were both horribly mutilated and I don't know how the story ended.

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