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Washing day on Woodgrove Lane


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Washing day on Woodgrove Lane, looking towards Penistone Road in Hillsborough

Year - 1968

What day of the week was 'WASHING DAY' in your house?

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17 minutes ago, Sheffield History said:

What day of the week was 'WASHING DAY' in your house?

Always Monday, Friday was bath night and the other days were all allocated in strict rotation to rooms/jobs.

Nursery rhyme here but we rarely got beef, the neck of mutton from Sunday was stretched as far as it would go.

Today is Monday,
Today is Monday,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

Today is Tuesday,
Today is Tuesday,
Tuesday string beans,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

Today is Wednesday,
Today is Wednesday,
Wednesday soup,
Tuesday string beans,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

Today is Thursday,
Today is Thursday,
Thursday roast beef,
Wednesday soup,
Tuesday string beans,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

Today is Friday,
Today is Friday,
Friday fish,
Thursday roast beef,
Wednesday soup,
Tuesday string beans,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

Today is Saturday,
Today is Saturday,
Saturday pay day,
Friday fish,
Thursday roast beef,
Wednesday soup,
Tuesday string beans,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

Today is Sunday,
Today is Sunday,
Sunday church,
Saturday pay day,
Friday fish,
Thursday roast beef,
Wednesday soup,
Tuesday string beans,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

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...immortalised, in a slightly different form (from memory, Tuesday was soup for example) by The Scaffold before they hit the big time with 'Lily The Pink'.

Monday was always washday (called that, not "washing day" in our house), and I think the rest of Gleadless Avenue did its washing on a Monday too.

I wonder when the convention of a particular day for doing the washing fell out of use. Perhaps the increasing number of spin/ tumble dryers in people's homes meant that washing could conveniently be done any day, and indeed any night.

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Slightly off subject but one thing that baffled me was how did the women manage to be all out donkey stoning their steps at the same time, I always thought there must be a secret signal.

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Wash-day in my maternal grand-father's house was on a Saturday morning, the significance of which I have never thought about before, but that is probably explained by the fact that he was a coal-miner. I remember that they possessed a fear-some, free-standing, electric motor powered roller-ringer, which looked more than capable of forming inch-thick armour-plate. The upside of this unusual schedule was that with the coal-fired range on full throttle, in order to produce sufficient hot-water, that the ovens were used, at the same time to cook the most wonderful rice-puddings, with thick, tasty skins on-top.

In my parents' house, wash-day, was, for many years, on a Monday, a convention that remained unchanged for long after the introduction of modern domestic appliances, probably because that was the way that it had always been done.

Today, we just bung the washing into the washer-spinner-dryer, and let the machine 'do-its' own thing' whenever the inclination takes us.

String-beans however - horrible, nasty things, that we kids always avoided.

POSTSCRIPT: By the 1970's, you could tell as to whose father worked where as to the design and colour of the 'acquired' ex-works towels hung to dry on the washing line. Now the guy who worked in the stores, his washing line could have rigged a clipper-ship.

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Just now, boginspro said:

Slightly off subject but one thing that baffled me was how did the women manage to be all out donkey stoning their steps at the same time, I always thought there must be a secret signal.

Yeah - like the rising and the setting of the sun - one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe.

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16 minutes ago, Unitedite Returns said:

Wash-day in my maternal grand-father's house was on a Saturday morning

That does seem unusual but non of my lot were miners, I knew where my mother would be Saturday morning, she got her house keeping Friday night so first thing in the morning round to the shops to get what she could in before the old man ran out of his beer money and asked for some back.

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27 minutes ago, Unitedite Returns said:

.

POSTSCRIPT: By the 1970's, you could tell as to whose father worked where as to the design and colour of the 'acquired' ex-works towels hung to dry on the washing line. Now the guy who worked in the stores, his washing line could have rigged a clipper-ship.

lol

"Acquisitive" Dads were not just confined to those in factory jobs. I still have books on my shelves bearing a "Woodhouse Grammar School" stamp on the flyleaf (Dad taught there in the '50s and early '60s), and 3 days ago Mrs. Athy and I put each other's presents under the Christmas tree in large fabric bags marked "Cambridge University Examinations Syndicate" (for whom he set and marked English Language O level exams).

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13 minutes ago, Athy said:

lol

"Acquisitive" Dads were not just confined to those in factory jobs. I still have books on my shelves bearing a "Woodhouse Grammar School" stamp on the flyleaf (Dad taught there in the '50s and early '60s), and 3 days ago Mrs. Athy and I put each other's presents under the Christmas tree in large fabric bags marked "Cambridge University Examinations Syndicate" (for whom he set and marked English Language O level exams).

Still to this day, I use a pair of leather gloves for gardening, acquired from British Steel in 1979. Called 'crane-drivers' gloves' at the time, for reasons unknown, but undoubtedly the most robust pair of gloves that a have ever owned. An absolute bargain. ;-)

 

And I wonder has to how many of us have possessed a donkey jacket with either N.C.B., OR B.S.C., on the back. Mine's lined, and is still used on occasion.

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