Washing Clothes

Yes, though not everything was treated with this - sheets and shirts and pillow cases and tablecloths and serviettes all these were put through this method and then after that they were pushed through the mangle and the mangle was later replaced by a spin dryer.

When was the spin dryer being used, was this still in your Mother's time?

Yes, it was still in my Mother's time - that was a long time ago, I was still living at home then.

Because we consider the spin dryers in this country at least as something quite recent.

Yes, I've always thought that they were in use much sooner than in England - spin dryers.

Yes, all these things had - and all these articles needed to be starched as well, that was another thing that had to be done - they started on these clothes in order to improve the texture and make them more resistant to dirt, but these articles had to be ironed - while damp and it was very important to have the iron just right at that time - so that was another stress - another thing that was stressful.

Who prepared the iron?

Well, my Mother used to. We had an electric iron - from the time I can remember we never had a steam iron - I can always remember - we had some flat irons as well for certain things but from what I remember we always seemed to have an electric iron - not very efficient in comparison with the ones we have now - but we did always have an electric iron.