‘How times have changed! The chore of wash day Saturdays in the ’50s’

When I think about washing, there was a time when most appliances were advertised as ‘time-saving’, but what have we done with all the time we don’t use due to the speed of automation and equipment?

Washing is one chore that takes maybe five minutes. From picking up an armful of clothing, placing it in a washing machine, adding detergent, closing the lid to pushing maybe two buttons to get things underway, it’s pretty simplistic. After the washing is complete, it gets transferred to the clothesline or the drier, where it is forgotten about again. When it’s dry we either fold it or iron it. We may even complain that the washing has to be done. However, life never used to be that simple. Remember those days?

By the time I was born, my mother was already doing the washing for five people in our house. All the washing at that time was done using a glass washing board and two tubs of water, with a hand wringer mounted between the two concrete tubs. Hot water would be in one tub, while in the other was the cold rinse water. The glass washing boards were favoured among housewives at the time, according to my mother.

When it was time for Mum to get a washing machine, I cannot remember its make or model, but I do know it didn’t last long. It was an agitator washing machine, but the drive attachment for the agitator had a slot across the top. In no time at all, it had been flogged to death, so then the ‘whirlpool’ washing machine came along. I remember it having a hexagonal tapered drive to ensure everything remained tight.

By the time I was 10, wash day was usually a Saturday, but only if the weather was fine. It was my job to light the copper, a huge tub of water with a fire beneath it that would head enough water for one washing machine full.

Wash day was also the time to sterilise clothing, such as nappies, by boiling them. Needless to say, white nappies were seldom white after being boiled too often. Most families I knew in the ’50s had the copper and concrete twin tubs.

When the water was hot enough for a good hot wash, it would be carefully bailed out of the copper into the trusty Whirlpool along with a half cup of Rinso washing powder. Health and safety regulations at the time were unheard of.

The procedure was ‘whites first’. The colours were prone to run and dye all the other clothes. The cleanest water was used to wash the whites. The washing machine would be set to work for around 5 minutes. As the water was very hot, we had to use a stick to bring the clothes out unless we had a pair of washing tongs.

They’d go through the wringer into clean cold water where they would be rinsed, then again through the wringers and taken outside to hang on the line. The wringer was tough on clothes, particularly the bottom of pockets or collar tips, as water trapped inside would be squeezed out at the end with the wringer.

Depending on how dirty the clothes would be depended on how many loads of washing we could get through before emptying the water, refilling it with water newly heated in the copper and starting all over again.

For those wondering how we could get our washing done with so little water, blue was added to the rinse water. Water conservation was important as we only had one 1,000-gallon water tank for the house and one 500-gallon tank for laundry. They were both filled with rainwater, which had been collected from the roof of the house.

With 10 in our household, baths would be on a Sunday night so we’d be nice and clean for school. There was no luxury; it was not one tub of water per person and we did not bathe in private. While we were young enough to fit, there would be two of us in the tub at one time. If you’ve heard the expression ‘conserve water, shower with a friend’, well that’s exactly how it was for us as children.

The washing would be dry by Saturday afternoon and brought in for ironing. Who used a flat iron, heated on the perpetually hot coal range? Remember when it was replaced by the electric iron that had no thermostat? We’d have to plug the iron in and could only check it was at the correct temperature by licking a finger and seeing how much it sizzled when we touched it.

Mum had to be extremely careful not to leave it face down on any fabric for too long a time. A fire could certainly start (though it never happened at our place).

It wasn’t until about 1959 that Mum had the luxury of a thermostatically controlled electric iron. Steam irons were never heard of, but when pressing clothes, this was done using a wet muslin cloth placed over the fabric then the iron would be placed on it. We had a pressing iron, but my mother never ever used it. It was a flat iron and weight 10 pounds. I could not understand why.

Spare a thought for how much time has been freed up for the laundry just with the introduction of time saving appliances.

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