Great Chitter Chatter - Stories from Loud Voices

I sometimes wonder whatever happened to upright washing machines? OK so they weren’t very efficient kitchen appliances cleaning wise, took up space that’s available to use as a work surface if you have a front opening unit but they didn’t leak or flood the kitchen when they went wrong, you could take things out or throw extra things in mid-wash, even if you’re well organised you need to open the machine mid cycle from time to time, if you’re like me it’s almost every single time!

Alright, your integrated washing machines can wash your clothes in a trice while the upright’s central do-dad rotates gently from side to side at about 45 degrees hour after hour but that inefficiency meant that if you left things in your pockets they’d come out damp but unharmed the other side. The one I remember wasn’t even plumbed in, when not in use I think my grandma just covered it over with a tablecloth. To use it you had to pull it over to the sink, attach it to the kitchen taps with a hose to fill it, switch it on and wait as it sort of fidgeted your clothes clean. You had a pair of wooden tongs to push the clothes under the surface of the water like a sack full of kittens but my nan, safety conscious as she was never let you push the clothes under while it was going because it could “Rip your arm off!” She certainly had a very inflated opinion of this white goods’ death dealing capabilities. I could imagine Daddy Long Legs besting it in a fair fight and we all know how easily separated they are from their limbs.

When the weather was nice then the clothes would go out on the line, but in the winter or when it was wet there would be so many clothes horses shambling around the house it was like a dressed up dressage! Gran would never consider wasting money on anything as frivolous as condenser tumble dryers, (and her idea of an integrated dishwasher was putting a scouring pad on a fork if the washing up water was too hot) notwithstanding the fact I had childhood asthma and my granddad had emphysema, luckily their house was so draughty that the damp never really became a problem. Provided the clothes had been run thorough the mangle properly. There’s a thing. I’ve already started seeing toys I used to have in antique shops and things I used to use regularly my daughter will only see in museums of social history. Feeling old much? You bet!

I was watching that show with Sarah Beeny the other day, the one where she’s fixing up her own house that has been left to rot for the past however many years. Some of the alterations that she’s having to put right are just insane, like fitting a floor a couple of feet above the original, doors plasterboarded over and alcoves walled in, it’s like a set from a bad horror movie only crawling with mould and fungus.

It’s a massive house but I understand she bought it quite cheaply considering its condition and location, the absolute middle of nowhere, and not in a good way, not secluded, just really really remote. I think she must be a little bit barmy, buying a house that size which should really be condemned and then fixing it up but I can’t help also being a little bit jealous. My place isn’t exactly a starter home but you could probably fit it into just one of the larger rooms. In my kitchen I have enough room, I manage with a slimline dishwasher and separate washer dryers, the two of them take up quite a bit of space but in Sarah’s kitchen, besides the kind of grot you would want jet wash with bleach, there’s enough room to tuck away a supermarket full of food. Space envy, that’s what it is! You see some-one’s crumbling, rotting, mouse-eaten pile and you don’t see any of that, you just think “Oooh, what I would do if I had all that space!”

I’d like to say the show’s given me some ideas but in all honesty I watch it thinking “You’re INSANE! Get help!” then begin to ponder whether I could knock a wall through, or maybe just a new doorway…