Fence outside the scullery showing the tin baths stored away - a computerised composite of several original photographs, created to illustrate my mother's recollections
After the washing was done and put to dry, the clearing up began.
First of all, the tin baths were put away on hooks on the fence in the back yard outside the scullery door, alongside the mangle.
Tin baths hanging on the outside scullery wall of a small 1900s house. Note the typical cloth hat worn by the man in the garden. A computer edited photograph of a TV showing the 1943 film Millions Like Us.
Then the scullery floor was scrubbed and the copper was hearth stoned over.
I understand that hearth stone was a kind of stone used in particular for cleaning door steps. If you can supply further information, please let me know. - Pat Cryer
With hindsight it is easy to see why tempers frayed on washdays. My mother had to do her mother's wash too, as well as her own family's.
Finally once the washing was dry, it was taken in ready for ironing and the clothes line was looped up and hung on a hook to make the garden look tidy.
If you have an old photo which would illustrate this page, I would very much appreciate a copy. Pat Cryer
Women's hands were always chapped and red because of the washing and cleaning that they did. Even on high days and holidays, when everyone was dressed up, it was easy to tell which women did and did not have help in the home, just by looking at their hands. There were no waterproof gloves.
These childhood recollections are of clearing up after Monday washdays in working class London around the time of the 1911 census.