Feeding the family on Monday washdays in working class London in the early 1900s

Based on childhood recollections of working class family life in north London in Edwardian times.

As washing took all day, my mother couldn't do any significant cooking. For dinner [lunch] when we came home from school, we always had cold meat from the previous day's Sunday roast, served with bubble and squeak which was fried mashed up cold vegetables, again from Sunday's dinner. We ate these with mustard pickle that one of us children had to go and buy from the shop at the end of the road. We had to take our own basin. It was sold from large jars and cost 1 or 2 pennies.

When we children came home at the end of the afternoon, tea, as it was called, was simple and the same every day, washdays included: bread and jam or bread and dripping and a slice of cake if any was left from the Sunday baking.

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.