Washing, dolly tubs and mangles

[jackson 301]

mudgie, I read what you had for dinner, washdays and thought: certainly sounds a lot better than what the rest of us had, especially as it was: 'served with sour cream' - sounds like cordon bleu stuff!

[mudgie49 401]

My old mum was from French/Jewish stock,she was a cook by trade,so we had some 'forin' grub served up at times,(no snails).

During the 50s she worked in Ericsons canteen,don't know a Gordon blue.

[jackson 301]

I was wondering if you were Jewish mudgie when I read that your mum made potato latkeys - sounds delicious.

[piggy and babs 544]

ALWAYS STEW AT OUR HOUSE AND RICE PUDDING FOR AFTEROF COURSE THESE WERE ALWAYS COOKED IN AND ON THE OLD RANGE FIRE IN KITCHEN MUM WOULD DO EXTRA VEG WHENSHE MADE SUNDAY DINNER AND CALL IN THE BUTCHER FOR STEWING MEAT ON THE WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL. AND ADD TO THE VEGWHEN SHE GOR HOME ADD THREE OXOS AND PUT IT ON TO START COOKING IT WOULD COOK ALL DAY THEN SHE WOULD ADD CORNFLOUR AND DUNPLINGS BEFOR COMMING TO FETCH US FROM SCHOOL WE HAD IT WITH THICK SLICES OF CRUSTY BREAD FROM SMITHS BAKERS NEXT TO READS CYCLE SHOP .

[dgbrit 258]

I liked school dinners best food i ever tasted

[jackson 301]

Babs, sounds delicious that stew you're mum would make, especially with dumplings. My mum would make beef stew, carrots and dumplings but that would have been on a Thursday; I can smell and taste my mum's cooking even today.

I love to make beef stew with dumplings; chicken stew with dumplings is delicious too.

[mudgie49 401]

Hi Ms Jackson,I always cook traditional English meals when we have friends round to eat.The highlight is the strawberry trifle,there is nothing like it over here. My dad was from Skye,Scotland,so I am something of a 'mutt'.

[piggy and babs 544]

yes my mum was a good basic food cook but like a lot of thing i never liked the dumpling same with pasta dont like the texture of it in my mouth, but loved her pastry always made good pies and tarts sweet or savory, i have never had anyones pastry that was asnice as my mums she alwayed used a mixture of marge and lard, always made us pies when we went on a picknic on the old enamel plates so they did not break.

[Compo 10,328]

The metal tub at the back we had one in the yard at netherfield.

It had a bowed not flat bottom to ease of use.

\snip\

I have one of those dolly tubs in the big shed it is full of assorted junk at present.

[Compo 10,328]

\snip\ My dad was from Skye,Scotland,\snip\

Do you know what part of Skye he was from Mudgie?

[Compo 10,328]

'Ere Majoroak, you mention Sneinton in your interests - do you remember George's Chippy on the Dale?

[mudgie49 401]

Hi Compo,my old dad came from Stein,spent time up there as a little un'.Had plenty of kinfolk in and around Athol

[Compo 10,328]

That's further north on the Isle than I'm familiar with.

[jackson 301]

Hi Mr mudgie, what's So Special about your Strawberry Trifle then?; go on tell us your secret?

[mudgie49 401]

Mornin' Jackson,nothing secret or special,it's just that Americans don't know about trifle.

[Compo 10,328]

Ah, so it's a surprise pie! :o))

[Jill Sparrow 10,305]

My mother certainly used a dolly tub and mangle when I was a child. She would have no truck with washing machines! At some point, the iron mangle was painted orange...it had previously been blue. Mum used sunlight soap to get stubborn marks from collars and we also had a gas copper which boiled water for the washing. Mum loved it and said nothing got the washing as clean as that copper. She prided herself on the whiteness of the terry towelliing nappies her babies wore!

 

Great auntie Emily in Garden  Street also had a gas copper in the scullery. It was painted green. 

 

I remember weekdays, generally Mondays, as a child. Nothing else got done. Just washing. Blue bags for whiteness and packets of Robin starch for sheets, shirts and table linen. If it was wet weather, the whole lot would end up on the clothes horse in front of the coal fire! Happy days! 

[plantfit 7,592]

Ah the old gas copper,I remember well when I were a little kid down the Meadows every Monday was wash day and as such when all the washing was done it was my turn to go in the copper with all the soap suds for a good scrub as my granny would say as she lowered me into the water,the strong soap smell is somethiing I always think of today when that smell is in the air,one day she left the lighted gas on underneath the copper with me in it when she eventually noticed she screamed to my grandfather "Bloody hell Fred I've boiled our Roger" fortunately I survived that bathtime experience and I always had an healthy repect for that copper after that.

 

Rog

[Jill Sparrow 10,305]

Bit dangerous, Rog, putting a child in there! Ours had a semi circular lid with a Bakelite knob. I doubt you'd have got a child in it. Well recall mum removing her boiled washing with a copper stick and transferring it to the dolly tub where it was tramelled with a copper ponch. Must have burnt a good few calories, wash day!

[NewBasfordlad 3,599]

Yep I recall them very well, I think most households got rid of the original coal fired ones with a chimney and had gas without a chimney.

 

Wouldn't be allowed today considered well to dangerous all that burnt gas discharging into the kitchen atmosphere CO poisoning here we come.

[plantfit 7,592]

This thing was like a corrugated galvanised tub that you had to push a gas ring underneath,the gas ring was attached to a gas main take off spout with tap somewhere near the gas cooker,not securely fixed to a gas main with a rubber hose,hose trailing across the scullery floor,no guard around the gas ring,good old days

 

Rog

[plantfit 7,592]

Mrs P with a selection of washday appliances,the one I remember being bathed in is similar to the one on the far left but grans was fitted with legs

 

 

And the old mangle

 

 

Rog

[Jill Sparrow 10,305]

The house where I was born...and my mother before me...on Bobbers Mill Road, was built in 1921 or thereabouts. By the time I came along, the copper was gas fired but in her childhood, it had been coal fired. There were two rows of shelving which ran high up along the kitchen wall over where the copper was sited and still visible when I was little were 2 U-shaped holes in the shelves where there had originally been a pipe which, presumably, went up to a chimney where the smoke was emitted.

 

I've often thought, as NBL said, that there were no carbon monoxide detectors in the days of gas coppers. Yet, we're all still here to tell the tale!

[Jill Sparrow 10,305]

 

This is identical to the one I remember as a child, with the semi circular lid!

[loppylugs 8,429]

The house in Netherfield where I grew up had a copper in the kitchen.  It was set in bricks. And there was space for a coal fire underneath.  They had it ripped out in the fifties and me mam had a dolly tub.  My grandmother had a washing machine like the one in the middle on Rog's first picture.  I think it was called an Ada.  The machine, not me grandma, she was an Alice.