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Pat
Nelson
"It
never used to vary. Monday was washday, Tuesday was ironing day,
Wednesday was bedrooms. Thursday, in fact my mother only had half
a day on a Thursday, working in a shop those days, half a day she
used to have off, Thursday was early closing. Thursday she used
to rush home you know, and do a lot of housework. But Monday was
washing day.
Back
then, we used to have a bath in the kitchen, and my mother used
to put everything in to soak, you know towels and things in the
bath, before she went to work on a Monday morning, I don't know
how she did it. She used to come home Monday evening, and get everything
out of the bath, and rinse it up with cold water. There used to
be a mangle in the garden, and I used to turn the handle, or mum
used to turn the handle and I used to feed the sheets through, and
that's how we did the washing.
And
then as I say, Tuesday was the ironing day, so she used to fly home
from work on a Tuesday. She had an electric iron, but it was one
of those terribly heavy ones you know, and she had that until she
died. She wouldn't have a steam iron. She would not have a steam
iron! She used to have a sort of squeezy bottle, and she used to
squeeze it all over the washing, so she used to have that. Tuesday
was ironing. Shirley and I never ever went to school in rough-dry
clothes, they were always pressed and ironed and starched and everything
else, and that was Tuesday, ironing day.
Wednesday,
I think it was downstairs. And as I say, Thursday she used to do
window cleaning as well, she used to do that on a Thursday, and
I don't know how she did it really! Saturday she worked all day
as well, so she used to just get Thursday afternoon. And it wasn't
what you'd call very early, 'cause she used to get home at 1.00
you know. And as I say, she used to have to do everything.
And
there wasn't supermarkets then to go to get your food. She used
to rush out, because they used to shut at half past five, so she
used to rush out in her lunch hour to get the food to bring it home.
But I mean loads of other women were doing the same, it was hard
for women really hard! It was very hard to be a mother on your own
in those days."
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