Wash Day
What is in this case?
- Posser
Miss Jones from Skelton recalled, ‘You boiled all your clothes in those days: white sheets, tablecloths, pillowcases, hankies, all white things first then your towels.’
- Washing tongs
‘Clothes were hung on the line if it was decent weather, in the back street. If it was wet, they were all in the house. All houses had lines inside, with hooks on the walls in the ground floor rooms,’ remembered Mr Ramage of Brotton.
- Mangle
Mr Wilson of Loftus explained, ‘Well, them big wheels we’d take off mangle and put them on a barrow, go for wood, come back and put the wheels back on mangle for washing day.’
- Vacuum cleaner
Before vacuums made cleaning the house easier, Mrs Allanson from Loftus recalled that ‘scrubbing and cleaning was bucket, cloth, soap and scrubbing brush, done once a week.’
- Rug
Making these homemade rugs, with scraps of recycled cloth, was often a family affair. They have many names locally, including proddies, proggies, hookies, clippies and rag rugs.
- Rug tools
Miners often gave rug tools – hooks and proggers – to their wives as gifts.