Tag Archives: home

Obsolete Household Equipment

Recently, I reached into my kitchen drawer for something and my mind wandered on to how household gadgets and equipment have changed over the years. I started thinking about items which, back in the 1950s here in Britain, were in every household. Some of these are virtually unknown now, others are still seen in some households but are no longer commonplace.

LAUNDRY

In the 1950s here in Britain there were no washing machines. My mum got her first one in the late 60s and it was nothing like the ones we use now! It seemed like luxury but was really very basic. Before that, clothes were washed by hand. the aids which most people used were 1.) a washboard or rubbing board. Wet soapy clothes were rubbed up and down against it to loosen the dirt. 2.) a mangle or wringer to squeeze more water out of the clothes than hand wringing could, thus shortening drying time, 3.) once people were electrified, a water boiler was invented – here the main brand was Burco – which was basically a very large electric kettle which enabled people (women!) to heat larger quantities of water for family laundry. My earliest memories of laundry in the 50s are the Burco boiler combined with the old fashioned mangle. The washing tongs was essential for dragging clothes out of boiling hot suds into the rinsing water. They were wooden with a meal joint at the top  Big hand wash items, such a blankets from the beds, were washed in the bath.

Mangle

MAQUINÁRIO 4 - Hand-operated mangle used to wring water from wet laundry at a mental health hospital in Victoria, Australia, circa Manufactured by Nicoll, G. Vintage Iron, Vintage Tools, Mental Health Hospitals, Old Washing Machine, Washing Machines, Vintage Furniture, Furniture Design, Wash Tubs, Vintage Laundry

Always used outside because the water just ran straight out of the wrung clothes onto the floor.

Washboard/ rubbing board

Washboards | Old washboards, Vintage laundry, Washboard

Burco Boiler

Vintage Burco Boiler for sale in UK | View 23 bargains

Washing Tongs

VINTAGE WOODEN LAUNDRY washing tongs metal spring kitchenalia ...

CLEANING

Before the days of fitted carets and vacuum cleaners, there were loose rugs and mats which were cleaned by being shaken and beaten outside, There was also a non-electric gadget called a carpet sweeper which was use for picking up bits and fluff in between beatings.

Carpet beater

Rattan Rug Beater - Home Decorating Ideas & Interior Design

Carpet sweeper

Pin on Bissell Through the Ages

COOKING

Mincer

VINTAGE 1950'S MEAT MINCER - SPONG 701 WITH WOODEN HANDLE - PLEASE ...

My mum used her mincer every week. Each weekend we had a joint of meat for Sunday lunch in true British style. The leftover meat was minced on Monday and turned into something ese like shepherd’s pie. The gadget clamped on to a table and you fed lumps of meat into the top, turned the handle and minced meat came out of the front.

Jelly mould

Vintage 1950's Aluminium Rabbit Jelly Mould, Chocolate Mould ...

No children’s birthday party would have been complete without jelly! Weekday jelly was just made in a bowl but for special occasions you could use a mould. I’ve chosen this photograph because it’s exactly like the one my mum had. The rabbit jelly was always the centrepiece of the birthday tea.

Pyrex

1920s vintage Pyrex Ad

Pyrex was the what every modern kitchen had to have in the 50s and 60s! Young couples were bought Pyrex oven to table wear as wedding presents,

Hand whisk and rotary beater.

The Magic Whisk | Etsy Blog – Australia                   Stainless Steel Collectable Small Kitchen Hand Mixers for sale | eBay

The electric hand held mixer and later the food processor (remember the name Kenwood Chef?) rendered the rotary whisk obsolete.

THE BEDROOM

Chamber pot

Antique/vintage small cream china potty or planter dated | Etsy

Many of the households I was familiar with as a child didn’t have indoor plumbing. This included my paternal grandparents’ house. When the facilities are at the bottom of the garden, the chamber pot or ‘potty’ was under the bed ready for you.

THE BEDROOM

Paraffin heater

paraffin | Remembrance of Things Past

My dad had one in his greenhouse and we three children had one in the bedroom in winter to take the chill off the air as we were getting ready for bed, also in the morning when we were getting up. Central heating was a long way in the future when I was young!

 

Eiderdown

Pretty Vintage Quilt Eiderdown C.1950s Rosy Floral Shabby Chic ...

Back in the 50’s in Britain, bedding consisted of a top sheet, a bottom sheet, woollen blankets, a coverlet or bedspread and an eiderdown which was a feather stuffed quilt and a sort of precursor to the modern duvet.

Candlewick Bedspread   So new and stylish in the 1950s!

Irish Candlewick Bedspread from 1950s Pink peach color with white ...

 

 

 

Bath Night

Now there’s an expression from the ‘olden days’! When I was a child, hot water was a precious commodity. Although we had an indoor toilet and bathroom and an immersion heater for hot water in our house, many of the farms and houses in our village didn’t. My grandparents in North Wales didn’t have indoor plumbing either. In the fifties, they still carried their water in buckets from a public tap 50 metres or so from their house – it had been converted from a village pump to a village tap. Their toilet was in a shed at the end of the garden and involved buckets which needed emptying daily. Even people who had indoor plumbing and hot water in the fifties remembered how life had been, just a short while back, so the use of hot water was very carefully controlled. I also believe that electricity was more expensive back then in relation to income which was an additional factor.

There was always a ‘bath night’. Just once a week, usually on a Sunday so that you would be clean and ready for the week ahead at school. Back in the 20s, 30s and 40s, when our parents were growing up and water had to be carried into the house, hot water had to be heated in pans on the coal fire. The bath was a tin bath which was brought inside and filled with the hot water. Is it any wonder people only bathed once a week?

 

1964-Tin-Bath

 

So in the fifties and sixties, even in houses with indoor bathrooms and hot water, people were still really, really careful with hot water and bath night was still strictly once a week.

The bathrooms of those days were not places designed to relax in like the bathrooms of today. No thick, fluffy towels warmed on the radiator, no scented oils, candles. There was no heating in British bathrooms in the fifities so bath night in winter was an ordeal – especially on the way into the bath and on the way out.

Toiletries were basic and the choice was limited.

vintage-lifebuoy-toilet-soap-original_360_00e06dc4be75bb4920be084937656172      Wrights coal tar      Imp Leather

Some basic soaps from the 50s.

 

loofah     forsters_natural_sea_sponge_    Pumice Stone Mouse 5060528741590 | eBay

Apart from the ubiquitous flannel, the only washing equipment found in 50s bathrooms were the loofah, the sponge and the pumice stone. Also a back brush and nail brush. What is interesting about the three items shown above is that none of them are man-made. The loofah and the sponge were living organisms and the pumice stone (why was it always mouse-shaped?) is a volcanic rock. The back brush and nail brush were always made of wood with natural bristles.

 

Bath cubes     bath cubes

radox bubble bath 

Toiletries were minimal. A bar of soap and a shampoo. Mums and Grandmas liked a bit of ‘scent’ in their bath water so there were things called bath cubes which were dissolved into the water. Bath cubes were one of the things you bought your mum or your granny as a present. Bubble baths became associated with luxury and glamour so bubble bath started to become popular as a bath additive and Hollywood stars were often shown relaxing in a bubble bath. Then came bubble bath for children and I well remember the arrival of Matey. The idea was that this fun-looking bottle had a liquid in it which made bubbles but also washed you clean! Radox was widely advertised in the 60s on TV as an additive which helped with aches and pains. I believe it was Epsom Salts or similar with a bit of added perfume. Epsom salts and some other salts and minerals are still hailed as being beneficial to the body when used externally such as in a hot bath

Below is a selection of toiletries and the washing aids available today. Just a few, there are hundreds, if not thousands!

 

oilgh-shampoo-for-dry-hair-1549639786

body scrubber scrubbers

 

Mother’s Day

Here in Britain today is Mother’s Day, or Mothering Sunday to give it it’s original title. As it was traditionally associated with the church and Easter, it is what’s known as a moveable feast. It is always on the fourth Sunday in Lent. This year Easter is very late so Mothering Sunday is also late.

Mothering Sunday here began as an explicitly religious event of the 16th Century, with no connection to mothers at all. The word “mothering” referred to the “mother church”, which is to say the main church or cathedral of the region. It became a tradition that, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, people would return to their mother church for a special service. This pilgrimage was apparently known as “going a-mothering”, and became something of a holiday event, with domestic servants traditionally given the day off to visit their own families as well as their mother church. It is said that on their way home they would pick some wild flowers from the hedgerows to give to their mothers.

When I was a child we three children always made a fuss of our mum on Mothering Sunday. We would buy or make a card and buy a small gift with our pocket money, often a bunch of flowers or a house plant. We also, encouraged by our dad when we were very young, made an effort to be of some help to her and to lighten her workload for a day. It usually only amounted to making her a cup of tea or helping with the washing up.

As a mum myself, anything my daughters bought me, made me or did for me on Mother’s Day always touched me and still does. As a teacher I enjoyed seeing the love and care the children put into making a card to take home for their mothers – or, if the mum was not in their lives, for their gran or a special aunt. The commercial side of the day has greatly increased since the 1950s but now as then, it’s the sentiments which count. A loving message, some flowers, a carefully chosen card, a hand made card from a young son, daughter or grandchild, a small personal gift – these are the things which melt our hearts.

Only recently I discovered that, although most countries have a Mother’s Day, the date varies.

The extent of the celebrations varies greatly. In some countries, it is potentially offensive to one’s mother not to mark Mother’s Day. In others, it is a little-known festival celebrated mainly by immigrants, or covered by the media as a taste of foreign culture.

In America the Mother’s Day holiday arose in the 1900s as a result of the efforts of Anna Jarvis, daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis. Following her mother’s 1905 death, Anna Jarvis conceived of Mother’s Day as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children. Years later, Jarvis openly criticised the way the day had become commercialised.

In the Catholic Church, the holiday is strongly associated with revering the Virgin Mary. In some Catholic homes, families have a special shrine devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In many Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, a special prayer service is held in honor of the Theotokos Virgin Mary.

In Islam there is no official Mother’s Day, but the Quran teaches that children should give priority to loving their mother over their father.

Happy Mother’s Day to all mums reading this whether your day is today or on another day!!

Images and some information sourced from the Internet. If anyone objects to any of this post’s content please contact me directly.

Mail Order

This winter, in the build-up to Christmas, there has been a lot of discussion about online shopping being the death of the High Street in Britain. This might well be true but what occurred to me was that there have always been other means of shopping besides physically visiting a shop.

The small town I lived in when I was a little girl (population around 2,000) was five miles away from our village had all the basics. There were two butchers, two newsagents, a greengrocer, a jeweller, two pharmacies, a couple of assorted draperies and gents outfitters, a hardware shop etc etc. For requirements beyond what our town could provide, we had to travel some distance. Swansea and Cardiff were at least an hour’s drive away and ‘big’ shopping trips were made a few times a year for Christmas shopping, new winter coats for the family, new shoes and so on. I remember thinking they were amazing with their department stores, book shops, large stores with lifts and escalators and toy shops. This was the only time we saw Boots, W H Smith, C and A and – most important of all (to us as children) – Woollies (F W Woolworth) which was heaven! It was also the perfect place to spend your little bit of pocket money as it had everything and it was all affordable.

Good old Woollies – RIP.
Howells Department store in Cardiff.
W H Smith, Newtown, Wales. One of the earliest branches and still in the style and layout of the original shops. It also houses a small museum telling the W H Smith story.

 

The rest of the time, my mum relied heavily on her mail order catalogue as did all the families in our village.

My mum’s catalogue was Marshall Ward followed later by Kays. I remember a neighbour favouring Freemans and my grandmother who lived with us liked J D Williams. Women used to swap catalogues to enjoy a wider choice of goods. From the catalogues we bought bedding, household goods, underwear, toys (via Father Christmas of course), adult and children’s clothing and many more things I can’t recall now. My mum would never buy shoes by mail order.

The pages we children used to pore over longingly!

In addition to the catalogues selling clothes and homeware, my dad used to get seeds and bulbs by mail order. Dobbie’s and Doby’s are two I remember. Newspapers and magazines also had goods for sale and on special offer.

 

 

Images obtained from the Internet. Anyone with objections to my use of a particular image can contact me and I will remove it.

How to Get a Man – 1950s style.

Unlike most of my posts, this one isn’t based on my own personal memories of childhood in the 50s and 60s but has been triggered by something which amused me.

Recently, I was on a train and I picked up a copy of the free newspaper Metro. In it was an article inspired by McCall’s magazine’s list of ‘129 ways to get a husband’ which has recently resurfaced online. Fair enough, even now single people can struggle to meet a partner if they live somewhere remote, work in an environment dominated by their own gender or are extremely shy and lacking in confidence. Dating apps and websites are replacing the small ads and can be a great way of meeting people as long as certain precautionary measures are taken in order to stay safe.

What is different about this is how dated it now sounds now and also how extremely sexist! Were men given similar advice? This links with my last post which covered sexist brands and ads from the 50s and 60s. In it I showed some adverts which implied that a woman had to be great in the kitchen in order to keep her man. I’m sure there weren’t any equivalents for men urging them to be handy with the DIY tools so that the woman didn’t leave him for a more capable model!

What follows are some quotes from the ‘129 ways’ list.

‘Don’t whine — girls who whine stay on the vine.’

‘If your mother’s fat, tell him you take after your father. If your father’s fat too, say you’re adopted.’

In the list women are advised to sit on a park bench and feed the pigeons, or ‘accidentally’ spill the contents of their bag in the hope that a handsome stranger will come to help.

The next one is particularly bad!

‘Make and sell toupées. Bald men are easy catches.’

Some examples from the actual list, taken directly from Metro online –

Inline_2083728_16.9

Inline_2083727_16.9 (2)

Inline_2083902_16.9

50s wife       1950s-housewife-850x1211

50s couple   wife-53-600x728

The-perfect-50s-housewife

I also did a bit of Internet searching to see if there was a similar amount of advice offered to men at the time but found very little. Some of the tips I did find still managed to turn it around to what was expected of a wife e.g. ‘When you come home to a clean house and a hot meal, be sure to thank your wife for providing you with these things. Surprising her with flowers or another small gift will take you far.’

Finally, this list – abbreviated for the post – gives a list of nine things a wife must always bear in mind if she wants to keep her man happy. All advice was given by so-called marriage experts of the time.

1. A Smile Goes A Long Way

2. Keep Quiet

3. Wear Pink Underwear

4. Don’t Let The Kids Be Too Much Trouble

5. Expert Cooking Will Keep Your Man Loyal

6. Put As Much Care Into Your Appearance As Dinner

7. Don’t Be Too Sexual Or Too Prude

8. Don’t Be Mad If He Goes Astray

9. Remember That The Man Is In Charge

Have things changed? For the better or not? I leave you to be the judge of that This is for entertainment purposes only and I hope you’ve enjoyed it!

 

 

As always, my disclaimer is that all pictures and some information has been accessed online. If anyone has an issue with anything in this post, or in any earlier ones, please let me know and I will remove it.