WASHING DAY, 1908

This is a temporary blog created for my friend OLIVE RILEY, of Woy Woy, New South Wales, Australia, aged 108, the world's oldest blogger. Her main blog, The Life of Riley, is posted at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/

OLIVE RILEY's 72nd POST



Olive says:

Hello again to all my friends.

You 21st century people live a different life than the one I lived as a youngster in the early 1900s. Take Washing Day, for instance. These days you just toss your dirty clothes into a washing machine, press a few switches, and it's done.

I remember scratching around to find a few pieces of wood to fire the copper for Mum. Sometimes I'd find a broken wooden fruit box that I'd split with a tommyhawk. Sometimes I'd gather some twigs and dead branches, and use them for firewood.

When the water in the copper began to boil, Mum would add a cupful of soap chips, and throw in a cube of Reckitt's Blue wrapped in a muslin bag to whiten the clothes. Then she put in all the dirty clothes, first rubbing out the stains with a bar of Sunlight soap. She used a corrugated washing board for that. .

Some time later, when the fire had gone out, Mum would haul the clothes, dripping wet, out of the hot water with a strong wooden copperstick, and that was jolly hard work. The clothes weighed a lot more sopping wet than when they were dry.

Then she would feed the wet washing into a machine called a mangle. It had two large rollers with a narrow gap between them, and a big metal wheel that had to be turned by hand. That was my job - and it was real hard work for a small kid.

We hung the clothes out to dry on a line strung between two trees and held up with a prop made from a forked branch. Sometimes a crow or a magpie would leave a visiting card on a clean sheet, which would have to be washed again.

Mum used to starch the collars and cuffs of Dad's shirts to make them stiff and neat. He was a big man, and she was proud of the way he looked in his Sunday best, with his freshly ironed shirt.

Thank you to all my good friends who have sent me interesting emails and loving hugs by commenting on my blob. Love to you all, and please keep writing those comments.
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