If spin-dryers were uninvented …

By Rhiannonw

Thu, 07 Apr 2022
  • 478 reads
6 comments
 

In days of yore
when we were newly wed,
it was awhile before
we could afford
a twin-tub or a spinner,
and for a while I tried to squeeze
 – as Grandma with apparent ease
could wring with wrists of steel.
One day my wedding gift I found
drooping down towards the ground
with stalactite-like icicles
hanging from its decorative fringe –
a mangle someone offered,
but being ‘modern’ we preferred
to see how soon we could now buy
a tub and spinner,
and though it couldn’t tumble-dry
as yet,
we felt so rich to own!

[IP: think of the possible consequences if something could be uninvented]

 

Certificate U
Poem
Families
Humour
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Really good choice of subject Rhiannon, must have been so stressful not to have a washing machine when you got married? Your Granny's wrists of steel reminded me of having to wash clothes in the bath when ours broke, it was impossible to get jeans to stop dripping, or duvet covers. 

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thanks. You always really realise how beneficial these things are when they break. But it was good to have to wait and purchase somethings one at a time! Of course, my Grandma was actually called Mamgu as we were SouthWalian Welsh! But that would have been difficult to incorporate into a poem and not understood by many! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

I remember Mum's twin tub. I also was given a twin-tub in 1988 when my elder daughter was born.

Before anything it would be ok when there was sun and wind, provided I had a drying line but it must have been misery in winter. Pity the Scottish families is Aberdeen before the wash-hoose was invented. If they dried their clothes in front of a coal fire where would the family sit on a wet wash day?

Good choice of topic BTW

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Hopefully it would be a roaring fire, and warm the whole room, but a bit steamy I would think!

My twin-tub we got seemed less well-made than the ones my mother and mother-in-law had had, I don't hink it lasted as long, maybe price and quality reduced. We still don't own a tumble-dryer, and our radiators don't seem to get hot as much as the annexe where my son's family live, but their need for drying is greater than ours! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Hi Rhiannon, you bought back so many of my own memories in this poem. My mum always did her washing by hand at the sink when I was young. We had a mangle too, but I don't recall how she got the washing dry in the winter months, as we only had one coal fire in the living room. I also don't know how we managed in the winter of 1963 when we had months of snow and freezing temperatures, it must have been so difficult. 

I don't have a tumble drier, haven't had one for years, but our radiators do get quite hot, well hot enough to dry clothes after they've been on the line. Our neighbours across the road had a tumble drier and it blew up causing the whole of the back of the house to catch fire, luckily they got out in time, but it was very scary at 7am and the house had to be condemed for nearly six months while the owners cleaned up the mess, that really scared me, especially with all the bad things told about tumble driers being rejected because of faults.

Anyway your poem gave me plenty to think about and converse with you for just a while, so thank you for that.

Take care.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

So many intersting memories, Jenny! We once had a washing machine that could tumble, but I think I rarely used it except to tumble/shake the towels just a short while so they dried less hard, as that washing machine seemed to stretch them hard in the final spin.

My mother actually had a very useful rack at ceiling level in the kitchen that could be hauled up and down, and my daughter had a more modern type over her hall and stairs. I once had a little one over the bath and remember hanging plastic pants on it to drip (that dates it!), and anyone going for a bath would find in pushing them aside that a cascade of water would have collected in one part of them!

But memories of that thick towel with its icicles has remained as a very humorous memory! Rhiannon