"Monday is washing day"

Ruapehu Bulletin, 13 August 1991, Page 13

"Monday is washing day"

by

Ngaire

James

I don't know the name of the man who invented the washing machine but I class him as one of my best friends. When the magic machine springs into action I so often think of my mother and those dreadful marathon washdays, every Monday religiously. On Sunday evenings the job allocated to me was filling the copper which stood outside, so the operation was carried out by a short length of hose reaching from the wash house tap through a hole in the wall. How we hated washdays! Mother was up with the roosters and had the copper fire going while there was no shortage of chores for my sisters and me before we left for school. Once the copper was steaming the household linen was put through the boiling process and then skillfully removed by means of a copper stick, plunged into a tub \ of water for rinsing then followed by a second rinse in blue water.

Then came the backbreaking job of turning the hand ringer and finally everything was laboriously carried to the clothesline. Coloured clothes were next on the agenda and these were washed rub-a-dub style on the washboard. By the time we arrived home for lunch the end was in sight. Mother would be pegging the sox on the

line, rather reminiscent of centipedes having moved in. Lunch was no social occasion - it was every man for himself. We spent little time at the table as we had to wash the dishes, fair enough I suppose as Mother still had to empty the copper and scrub the wash house, but we were invariably late for school on these

occasions. When we arrived home after school we were just in time to bring in the washing and help pull the starched tablecloths into shape. There was no shortage of starched ironing to be done as girls were dressed in fragile confection-like frocks with starched frills and looked like big dolls, a far cry from the wacky clothes of today.