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Brought up on The Gables Farm in the 1930's, Jack Hill describes how one of the necessary chores of domestic life was carried out before the war.
Washing of clothes always happened on Mondays; and the fire to the copper would be lit at breakfast time to allow time for heating up to 20 gallons of cold water, pumped into buckets and carried the twenty metres or so to another loose box, which had been taken over as the wash room.
The water burbled and slurped in the cast iron 'copper', and clothes were put in to boil for a period until they looked less grey than before. Then they were manhandled out with a pair of wooden tongs into the dolly tub, which had corrugated sides to help the buffeting process.
The dolly pegs were fixed into a round block of wood, fixed itself to a stout post with a crosspiece at the top. The motion was down into the clothes, and turn one way then the other to produce the equivalent of bashing against a stone block.
Clothes were then passed through the wooden rollers of the mangle to squeeze out dirty water, then sloshed into several tubs of clean water with stages through the mangle or a wringing with strong hands. White clothing was passed into a tub of water with blue dye added.
When deemed clean enough, a basket of clothes was carried into the stackyard or the paddock and hung on a clothes line. Sometimes the cows came a bit early and tended to be nosey and leave slobber on the clothing, making a repeat rinsing necessary. A wooden prop was always necessary to keep clothes away from the ground, and being just a rough length of tree it sometimes slipped with dire consequences.
Sometimes the clothes line would break with much dismay on all sides. The clothes were fixed by use of wooden pegs bought from a gypsy woman. They were made from willow and held together with a strip of tin. We couldn't afford the spring clips of today.
The 'copper' had no tap system so any water had to be emptied out by a metal ladle and thrown through a waste hole in the stable wall. The last cupfuls were cleared out with a damp rag. Finally the yard was washed down with the surplus water.
The path from the door at the house down to the thunder box (a primitive toilet) at the bottom end could be precarious, for joints between the blue brick paviours that had once been cemented had disappeared, and so were of earth, which when wet, tended to become loose; and so when a brick was stepped on, a jet of cold water would shoot upwards and moisten one's upper thighs. This was a very annoying and the women hated it. These bricks were referred to as 'squatty bricks', but little attempt was made to rectify the problem,
The copper was also brought into use in the autumn for boiling Christmas puddings. These were prepared over several days and allowed to stand on pancheons to get some mingling of the juices before being scoooped into pudding bowls and covered with greaseproof paper; then bound with strips of old bed sheets and tied with string with loops over the top to help lifting.
The suet used in the mix was always bought ready shredded but raisins were always unstoned, so had to be picked over, resulting in very sticky fingers. Carrots were shredded but I can't remember any other vegetable being used. Lots of candied peel, sultanas and lemons found their way in but never did we adopt the idea of small silver coins such as threepenny bits, which other folk did.
Boiling went on for a very long time, usually overnight, so the fire under the copper had to banked up with slack or fine coal dust. A batch probably totalled twenty bowls to allow for sharing out to other families like the Hollicks and Durhams. The puddings were not only used at Christmas time, but also later in the new year and spring as long as they kept sound in the cool of the dairy.
The meal at Monday lunchtime was always cold beef with boiled potatoes and a green vegetable plus some pickle. A side of bacon was kept hanging up in the storeroom over the kitchen, and a sliver or two would be cut off for bacon and egg breakfasts, but usually a boiled or poached egg was the norm with white bread with butter. The only brown bread was Hovis, which was insipid.
The eggs were free range, from hens that wandered around the farmyard picking up scraps wherever they could. As the hens grew older they suffered the fate of being cornered by John Richardson, being held under his arm and having their necks twisted.
They then had their legs tied together and were hung upside down from a nail on the wall by the kitchen window till slightly high. They were then plucked and drawn by Hollick who always remarked on the number of eggs left in the ovaries. Feathers were plunged into the muck heap to stop them being blown around.
We usually had at least one Rhode Island cockerell who lorded it over the females and was forever stopping them and climbing aboard. For balance he always grabbed their combs with his beak and so they looked bedraggled with a bare patch on their backs.
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