My Nan used to have a mangle...

Yep, it really was a was 'day' back then. Did you use the airing cupboard? our clothes spent a few day there after they were ironed. Clothes were gone a whole week nearly, my kids hand stuff to us at 7:00am and they can be wearing them to school for 8:20am.

 

Bath time 70s style, enamel bath that was too cold above the hot water line to lie back against, not enough hot water cos the immersion heater hadn't been on long enough, condensation on on the linoleum floor because the only heat was an electric ring around the ceiling light on a pull cord, later replaced by a pink dimplex freestanding radiator that you could at least warm your towel on,

 

Using the airing cupboard turns our middle bedroom into a sauna...

 

We had a second hand twin-tub when we first got married. The first thing we bought when we got one of those new fangled credit cards was to buy an automatic washer - attached to the taps with chains, with the waste pipe hooked over the side of the sink. I remember sitting and watching it for about two hours as it walked around the kitchen floor the first time we used it and having to watch the waste pipe in case it flooded the kitchen if it came off the side of the sink. Cost us about £200 almost 40 years ago.

 

We had one of these we used to light our smokes on it and then hang out the window.

 

We had one of those infrared heaters on the wall, which would arc nicely when steam got into it. Couldn't open the window, because you'd be "letting the heat out", the ultimate sin.

None of this fancy Head-and-Shoulders stuff when it was time for a hair-wash. My Dad used to buy stuff made by ICI - forget the name, Centrum? Came in a big lab-style bottle. I think it was actually for de-lousing dogs.

If I tell my kids this as they step into their fancy Hansgrohe thermostatically-controlled shower in the double-glazed bathroom, water heated by a microprocessor-controlled Worcester boiler, they don't believe a word of it.

 

Silver beat me to it!

 

When I was living in nz about 10 yr ago, top loaders were still fairly normal/popular. As much as I love nz, they are a bit backward . I hate top loaders, they're Marmite

 

My granny's job as a child was to push the wash through the mangle while her mum turned the handle. One day she caught both her thumbs in it. Crushed. No spring opening for her. Right to the end of her life she had misshapen thumbs. As I child I thought that was completely terrifying and wouldn't go near mum's top loader and posh electric mangle.
well that was my excuse.

 

Yes! And loo seats too cold to sit on so you'd either hover or tuck your hands under each cheek.
Which reminds me of Izal. Suely the devil's work.

 

Yeh why would anyone want to wipe their bum with greaseproof paper

 

I remember when I was a kid, my grandad (Boer war veteran) lived in Harmony Street, Rusthall, TN3 near the famous Toad Rock. He had no electricity at all, gas cooker and a gas light in the scullery and a gas light in the sitting room. The street lighting was gas and I remember the man used to go on his bike with a hooked pole to switch on the street lights as it got dark.

I used to take grandad's accumulators to the village cycle shop to get them charged up for his radio. He had one cold tap and outdoors toilet. No heating except the big fireplace in the sitting room, the rest of the house was freezing I remember. But he was happy there and independent and only the winter of 1963 got him.

We used to walk to his house and collect his washing as he couldn't do it himself.

Folks today have it so easy and they still complain.

 

The Radio Times was softer.

 

Ah, Izal. Do they still make it? Remember it well from my primary school days - I think Hertfordshire County Council used to buy it by the mile. You had a choice of sides, one polished to an aerospace-spec mirror finish, the other was about 60-grit abrasive, like sandpaper.

 

That is grim . When I was in hospital in Germany (I actually had my appendix out in Dachau ), the Greek bloke in the bed next to me had run his hand through the rollers at the local paper mill. It honestly looked like something out of Tom and Jerry - I was horrified. Miraculously, once they wired numerous bones together, he actually got the use of it back, although I think his boogie-piano-playing days were over...

 

Immersion heaters are our only hot water supply in most of France judging by the amount and variety you can buy at brico's(diy)

 

Not Fleetville JMI in St. Albans BTW?

 

We had one of those. We called it a posh. Presumably because mom used to posh the washing with it

 

Yep me too - Mum's washing was in a gas copper in the '50s complete with copper washing dolly- with a hand operated mangle over the sink. She was made up in the early '60s when she got an AEG Lavalux twin tub (working in an electrical wholesalers made it more affordable). When I got married (1970) we started with a second hand electric washer with electric mangle