Washdays

Washing tubs hanging on the walls of a Regents Court backyard

Backyard Brighton

Nowadays, we take for granted the convenience which modern technology brings to our lives, especially in regard to cleanliness. 

In the first half of the 20th century, cleanliness was often an expensive and labour intensive experience.  These were the days before indoor toilets, bathrooms, washing machines and dryers.

On this page and on Saturday was bath night , The Scullery , Hard soap, cleaning the silvers and secrets of the outside toilet and Perils of the washing lines , you can explore memories of the routines employed, mostly by women, to keep clean.

You can download Washdays and its accompanying pages by clicking here (PDF format).

Wash day was a mammoth affair and was always on a Monday, come rain or shine. Mum and Gran got up at dawn, or so it seemed, lit the brick built copper with the galvanised pan. They kept it stoked with the rubbish collected from a local sweet shop. Two great wooden tubs were hauled into the yard and filled with boiling water softened with soda crystals, and with the scrubbing board and a stiff brush battle commenced. They wore aprons that had been made from empty sugar sacks scrounged from the grocer at the end of the street, and in this attire they scrubbed and rubbed everything in sight.

The 'whites' were put into the copper and boiled with a twopenny packet of Hudson's washing powder and a bar of Sunlight soap. The clothes were stirred and boiled till the place was like a steam bath. Tubs were emptied; one was then filled with clear water and the other with the blue wa­ter. This rinse was made with a penny Reckitts Blue, (a blue block of powder tied in a little muslin bag), and was swished about in the tub of water. It made the rinse that gave the clothes that 'whiter than white' look that we hear so much about these days. Starch came then in chalky lumps, mixed smooth with boiling water and then with the cold water added afterwards, it produced a bluey grey glue-like sub-stance that stiffened everything from Dad's collars to the pillow cases.

Both Mum and Gran took pride in the wash and got great pleasure in seeing the clothes pegged out on the line. They took it in turns to turn the handle of the great mangle with the wooden rollers. Why they never finished up with hernias I'll never know.
Georgina Attrell - Backyard Brighton