I'm a terrible photographer/videographer but I kind of want to do it myself - places that are dying out in the cracks and crevices of cities - back alley car garages, laundrettes, greasy spoons, old markets etc etc. It will be boring to most people now but in 30 years, fascinating!
@@MeadeSkeltonMusic Don't be so hard on England, or Britain at large🙂I don't think any of us anywhere in the world, has been planning ahead🙂I am from a country called Kenya, in East Africa. Kenya and Tanzania are neigbhbouring countries, and the President of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985 was called Julius Nyerere. Back in those times, Tanzania was Socialist and Kenya was Capitalist, which we still are. Tanzania has been Capitalist since 1985. Back in those times too, Kenya was highly regarded, Kenya back then was like the "Paris of Africa," and the legend even goes that Julius Nyerere, back then, used to tell Tanzanians that there was no need to travel all the way to Britain to see how pristine neighbourhoods, localities, towns and cities looked like, that all they needed to do was cross over into Kenya to see how pristine neighbourhoods, localities, towns and cities looked like. Would you believe it?🙂Can I say the same thing about Kenya today in the year 2024?🙂Not quite🙂 And Kenya, by the way, was a British Colony from 1920 to 1963, so there is quite a British legacy and heritage over here, that is however beginning to wane. For many years, for example, many of us tried to speak with British accents, which is not quite the case anymore🙂 Regards, Michael M. Kamau, Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa, 6th December 2024.
it's literally human nature. nothing special here. glorifying basic human instincts like survival, tribalism and racial bias is what leads to fascism and nationalism - the true plagues of pre-A.I. humanity.
I recall my mum talking about the Liverpool wash houses when I was little girl. The women somehow used the wash house to cook potatoes during their time at the building and then took the cooked potatoes home to prepare their family's meals. They must have placed the potatoes somewhere hot for them to bake or roast, near to the washing boilers perhaps. Talk about time management, that's resourcefulness for you! It's amazing to remember that from my mum's recollections. I wish I'd have listened more closely now to remember how they achieved it. (Mum was born in 1926 on Athol Street, off Scotland Road and passed away a long time ago. I'll be 63 this year.)
Thank you for sharing that, very interesting. I wish I'd asked my dad more questions than I did. He grew up during the depression & WWII as a child of migrant farm workers in the US ala Grapes of Wrath. Times were tough indeed. It was a different world than what we have now.
In 1 minute 27 seconds the woman at the washing machine is a woman named Anne Scott. At the time she lived in Everton. Her husbands name was John. They had 10 kids. All well looked after. And they all had many ferry trips to New Brighton and many sundays out to the local parks. They were great days.
@baronvonnembles I am one of her 10 kids. Third born. She first had 4 boys then 4 girls then another boy then the last girl. 9 kids grew up Evertonians and 1 Liverpudlian. Sorry my reply was late, I have only just seen it.
There's a documentary from around the same time about working class Liverpool called "Morning in the Streets" which is on TH-cam and you can hear them talking on that. They sound pretty different to modern day Liverpudlians.
@@aidy6000 I'm originally from Merseyside and when I was growing many elderly people spoke similarly to how the people in the documentary spoke (including my relatives who were born and raised in Merseyside). I guess maybe it could be possible they were taught to speak that way as it was viewed as "better" when they were growing up?
Times were bloody hard back then, my mother was born in 1946 & often recalls her mothers washing regime once a week; my mum still soaks clothes in big buckets despite having a washing machine, before getting my father to empty them into the sink, soak in comfort by hand & spin off in the machine. She doesn’t do this with everything, mostly bed sheets. Despite me voicing the fact the machine does it all, she’s stuck in her ways; although I’m worried now she’s not as able bodied it’ll get too much for her & Dad. The thing is, you had such a huge sense of community back then which is missing now. Everyone knew everyone, kids knew one another, more like siblings than friends, people left their doors open, no one thought twice to pop round for some sugar or a drop of milk before pay day. Elders were always taken care of as were new mums & the sick. Nothing like that these days.. breaks your heart. I’m 33, disabled & live alone. I wish I had friends or neighbours to talk to. Thanks for the lovely video x
I suppose the next best thing would be online forums with interests similar to yours for finding like-minded people to talk to. I did feel that way before, but found a Christian group with like-minded attitudes and beliefs and it's an encouragement. If you've ever wondered how to go to heaven, the gospel makes it clear we don't save ourselves with good works, Jesus saves us because He paid the price for our redemption. Our faith in Him grants us God's grace and we are forgiven everything. Search "the bible way to heaven" here on TH-cam by Sanderson1611 for a clear gospel presentation, you won't regret it, I guarantee it!
@@alanward4506 I remember those as well mate. The year this film was about 1959 was the year I was born and Bred in Liverpool, lived there all my life.
@@dblessed7860 Nope. That you can no longer leave your door open, have community spirit, no one knows anyone’s name anymore - not for lack of trying. People are too ‘busy’ in their technology to put it down & take a look around them, help people, interact, create lasting friendships. Everything has changed, & if you didn’t grow up in any of the eras before the early 00’s you’ll not understand how much the world has changed.
My late mammy used the wash house behind saint Vincent's school on park lane in Liverpool, myself and my 5 brothers had no idea of the hardship but I'm eternally grateful for what she and many other women up and down the country did, well done mammys
The young mums these days would collapse with shock if they had to do a tenth of what women had to do before the 70s. My mum kept the house clean and would sandstone the doorstep, polish the letter box and door knocker while the Sunday joint was getting cooked. On washing day she would fill 2 bed sheets with all of the clothing to be washed and put on a pram. She would then push it down Everton brow to the wash house where she would be working away for a few hours. Coming home when all was done she would have to push the pram back up the brow. When she got her first washing machine it was almost like having a good but modest win on the pools. Hard times but a great time to be a kid.
@@Tony-h7b4pyou serious?! You’re comparing cleaning a modest working class home with the few brass items, putting a stew on the stove and one day of walking with a pram full of dirty clothes to a facility in which machines do the work to women working full time jobs, cooking AND cleaning the house next to most of the childcare?
@@ikkelimburg3552 Yeah I am serious. My mum also worked while bringing her family up. Who were always dressed in clean and tidy clothes and also well fed on home cooked food as the only fast food around at the time. Also are you ill or do you have mental health issues.
@@ikkelimburg3552 yeah! I am serious. The mums these days live on fast food, pizza, and oven chips. And a day out for their kids is either Macdonalds or. Burger King. I know you will disagree and say something stupid but there are many people who will agree with me. Plank!
I was born in 1956 one of four, I was the eldest. Every Monday morning mum headed off to the wash house off Kensington Rd/ Gilead St, Liverpool 7. All the washing for the week was bundled in a bed sheet and pushed in a pram to the wash house. Luckily the wash house had large clothes dryers. After drying mum returned home with neatly folded clothes tied to the pram with washing line. The following day mum spent ironing them. They were hard times but mum met other women and enjoyed the social aspect of the event. 😊
@@telboyynwa699 I know Gilead street. My mum was brought up as a child in Kensington. In Kemble Street. My mum used to take one or two of her kids to Capaldis cafe, it was a well known meeting place.
Maybe less lonely times are not the harder times🤔. The hardest times are when you don’t know you are in the hardest times and you can’t handle it. When you think you have more things compared to the poorer times, but your soul is just bank robbed and dry. These are the really harder time. When in the 3D you seem to be rich, but in the 5D you are the poorest one. If you become sensitive and awaken you can then turn the tide. But you must see by the heart and not by the mind.
I think it was also an opportunity for women to meet up and as stated there was a cafe and creche. There was a sort of community. And mutual support, we were less isolated.
I never did laundry this way and I think it looks more enjoyable, despite having to lug your laundry someplace else once a week. My friends and I text each other on Sundays when we are all doing our laundry.
Yes, if you needed to talk/chin wag, the washhouse was the place to go. Ordinary women helping each other through life. Nowadays, we're all behind a screen tapping away....cough cough!! Loads of problems were solved probably. Or, directed to someone or somewhere who could help. Life was so different in the '40s and '50s compared to today, it's like another world.
@yellow man maybe it's because they no longer feel represented by Labour. Many working class people vote Tory as they feel detached from Labour and its current policies feeling that it no longer represents workers.
@yellow man I wasn't blaming anyone for anything, I was mearly offering an opinion as to why some working class people would vote Tory. If they didn't feel detached from its policies then they wouldn't be voting for the opposition. Labour and its policies have at lot more to answer for in the North than you appear to acknowledge.
Hello from Germany. My mother had received a washing machine for her wedding (1964) as a gift. She said later: "With two small children, two old people and a man who brings dirty work clothes home, a blessing. I think many people today forget what it was like without a machine.
I remember my mother getting her first washing machine, a "twin tub". A washing tub one side and a spinning tub the other side. First thing she did was wash the families housekeeping money by leaving it in the pocket of her apron that she washed. We had a lot of potatoes that week.
There is 'no' forgetting. They dont know period. We all have now days even local laundries. No one does without. I have done laundry in a bathtub many times in the past.
Hello Kiliipower. What an absolute joy it must have been for your mother ! 19 years after the terrible destruction of most German cities that gift must have had huge significance for a survivor like your mother. I hope she enjoyed the rest of her life after those years of horror.
We lived in London and my Mum got her first washing machine in 1986 which was also when we had our first bathroom, indoor toilet and running hot water. So pleased she got to experience these luxuries.
The Mrs. says: I watch British television and news on You Tube a lot, now I am seeing an old woman wash her clothes in a big wash house and I started to cry, Life did not hand me any roses and I can relate to her hardships right here where I was Born, America, I worked in Factories in Electronics and had to tape up my fingers because I was making cables and we were all blistered and bloody from the wires so we taped up all our fingers every day and did not dare complain, there were plenty waiting for our jobs and women were not treated well, all we were was a bunch of dogs on a rope. Never take anything for granted not even a piece of buttered toast, I can tell you I lived a day that that piece of toast would have been a gourmet's delight.
You are a strong woman. It is sad that so many young women do not know what your generation endured to enable the current generation all the comforts they now enjoy. Still, there is much to be achieved both for women and for men here in the US.
I would love this. As a mother of 5 I can tell you that an industrial sized washing machine to get all the laundry done in a day would be wonderful for me. Also, it can be soul destroyingly lonely staying at home, raising kids and doing housework. Life is so focused on the home that it can be difficult to meet new people.
My late mum used a local wash house in Manchester, when she was a teenage mum during WW2. Long before she had me I might add. But she said it was a place for a good natter and talk out your problems with friends.There is a play called "The Steamie" which was about a Wash House in Glasgow
We still had a big copper boiler for the stop of the stove that linens and baby nappies were boiled in in the 1950s. It was years before my mum got a hoover washer-extractor unit - it had to be wheeled over to the sink, the machine hose attached to the faucet and filled. Same with the extractor, water dumped onto the sink from an attached hose. Everything was then dried outside or on racks in kitchen in winter. My granny went to a communal washhouse with the old tubs as shown here. one washhouse for every row of houses - every woman had her assigned day. All washed by hand in a boiler, all mangled with a manual machine then dried outdoors. I still have a clothesline and do a lot of delicates by hand, but I am so grateful to have a washing machine and dryer.
Not only were the people tough in those days but so were the clothes! Boiled, scrubbed and pummeled with heavy metal bar...they didnt buy them out of Primark...😉
Who needs places like this now, through Thatcher capitalism provided us with everything we need to be a rugged individuals!!! so who gives a flying f*** about community and shared values, just be a rampant individualistic consumer! Whats that you say dear working class Britons? your wages have gone no where for 40 years making it so you can barely afford a pint never mind new clothes? and your communities have been decimated by the market? oh well, perhaps it was a bad idea voting for Tories for most of those years after all.
...and the holes that did appear as a result of rough treatment were darned :). I remember my mum repairing the holes in my dad's socks when we were kids - how many people would bother doing that now?
@@Nine-Signs It's the same here in the States, the same results of Thatcher in Britian, Reagan here. I remember all those cozy meetings they were always having, undoubtedly planning on how they would short change us for the benefit of their rich handlers for decades to come. Reagan actually insinuating that it was somehow unpatriotic not to let them steal our future prosperity.
@@Nine-Signs It's the same here in the States. Thatcher in Britian, Reagan here, conspiring, no doubt to steal our future prosperity for their rich handlers. I remember all those cozy meetings, actually wondered if something untoward could be going on. Ugh! Perish the thought! Anyway, yes we have certainly been manipulated. Regan actually insinuated that it was somehow unpatriotic for working people to balk at being short changed by the rich.
We had a wash house on post when I was a young wife. The clothes were never as clean as they were back then. All the great conversations we ladies had while our husbands trained. I certainly do miss my neighbors and friends from those years.
@@waywardson8360 Well, to be honest, she looked quite firm and fit! With a work regimen like that, that granny was an A1 GILF! That's once you got past that grill!
@@jchapman8248 I thought of that and youd have to put alot of base on it ,rouge , lip gloss and well, probably hire a cinematic make up artist or justcut off the lights
@@lordx4641 every woman is slightly different like all men are too. Some value feminism as their main agenda whereas there are others who are happy as a housewife and are proud of it. Most fall in the middle of the spectrum as an estimation.
@@zetametallic mate i am not saying men r not stupid i am saying that todays stupid culture (modernity)which happened by accident has not empowered ppl but their ego anyways i do say men r also not less than pigs nowadays sexaholics but the fact that feminis wants to undermine feminine qualities of women such as calm,patient approach to probkem solving and just want to impose fake masculine trait i aont saying they should stay in kitchen but should not ask for unnecessary advantages and act like victims
@@lordx4641 I do agree that the mass media has played a part in shaping our perceptions of the sexes both negative and positive. BTW I'm female and I too find it annoying when this happens because I'm just me not a tick box of 'feminist' or 'activist' say and my husband agrees; he gets annoyed with the notion that men aren't allowed to show feelings and be 'strong' all the time. Once you label something you embrace all the qualities of that thing without realising and it defines you. Screw that. X
@@zetametallic "when u identify with something u constantly try to defend it. Thats how bias is generated"~sadhguru I say women should come to industrial field aswell but i do not know about the whinning and uniting under a tag and saying men oppressed women and are still oppressing thats not half the truth women were alwyas important part of family even today i notice i do not see animals taking advantage of them at all!its just men do not thunk superior to women but then as companions thays fills the species puzzle similar to rascism i do not say it ain't their but mostly its not for skin or race but for some specific reasons for i.e crimes lets say. So my idea here is that criticism is ok and should not be confused with disrespect but toxic criticism is disrespect. Unfortunately we all r forgettjng that we follow this society based on ppl of social virtues of past not saying we should cling up to em but certainly we shall not disband them in name of change sometimes change can be a constant. Anyways as for ur pont that men r emotional too yes u see their r a lot of similaroty but we should also recognizing dissimilarities in general most of the dissimilarities do not affect us this cosmos is filled with similaroties and differences then why villify one? I have always acknowledged a women calm yet chilled way to deal problems that gives us more clarity thats why women in past were renounced as problem solvers when men came to em and etc. Taking aways this aspect is odd but we all should learn from it (men too). Anyways media is propaganda
Life looks hard but certainly doesn’t look lonely when you’re all doing your washing together - and probably have been for 20 years or more! Something we just don’t have these days especially with many desk jobs and remote jobs!
My mother in law was from Scotland. She told me of this exact process. How wonderful it is to see what she was talking about in this film! These women were tough.
Just mentioned in an earlier comment that there was a very moving and funny play about a Glasgow wash house and its regulars called "The Steamie" I watched it on TV with my mum who had used her local one in Manchester and she loved this play. I've never seen this play since sadly.
@@thedativecase9733 you can find the STV production on the STV app. I've watched it lots of times with my mum on TV over the years. It makes great memories for me as she is sadly no longer with us. Reminds me of her. Our family are Scottish and I can relate to all of the humour.
I grew up on stories from my Nan, a hard working Toxteth woman who tried for years to explain the wash house to me but I could never picture it. Now I see what truly hard graft it was!
I was born in 1964. I remember my mum taking me to the wash house, when the washing machine was broke at lodge lane liverpool. Great days, that was when people came together. I'm now 58, with alot of health problems, don't see anyone from day to day.
I remember my gran, who was northern, calling on the phone when she was in her mid 80s and she sounded out of breath so slightly worried I asked he if she was ok her reply was 'well, today I've changed my bed cloathes, done the washing, made my bread, filled the coal scuttles, scrubbed the harth, cleaned my brasses, swilled out the yard, dead headed the roses and now I'm all out of breath and I don't know why. It's not like I've done much'. Yet some people today think loading a dishwasher is hard work.
My Grandmother in 1940's -50's Eastern Kentucky would rise in dark, catch kill and dress a chicken and then on a coal stove, prepare a huge ham and eggs breakfast and lunch for her family and a couple of farm hands. The lunch was put out on the table and covered with a linen tablecloth to keep flies away and the men would come in and eat when they could. When we went to visit, my mother (who had a fairly modern kitchen for the time) was always talking about how she couldn't believe how hard Grandma worked. (toilet was an out house as well - I was scared to go in the dark)
@@Mr.SLovesTheSacredHeartofJesus I love your comment .. it's so true . People in those years and during the blitz were of much stronger mental attitude than now .
I was born 1948 my grandma not only took her own washing but also her neighbours , she had 5 children to feed so made money by doing washing for others xx
Massive respect for these women, I can hardly hold on with doing all the house chores for 6 people, I do all the laundry for my young nephew and his mother (my sister). I also watch him a few days of the week, everyone works except him, and I look after everything in the house as my job lol.
I was Born in Liverpool in 1950 remember my Mother going to the local wash house for quite a few years till we modernised the house and could do it all at home.
Same 1953 Edge Hill remember my mother taking me I used to play on the bomb sites outside, can't believe he said you was only allowed an hour I could have swore it was hours don't know what my mother was doing yapping I suspect
what a generation of Liverpool women ( hats off to all you wonderful ladies ) . I remember having to keep a place for my lovely man every Monday at four o’clock in the fifties at the wash house in the buildings Melrose road kirkdale. , even remember the machine no she got every week F8 . such happy and simpler times . Jimmy poss (Saint Agnes road ) .
My grandmother, born 1896, used these communal wash places. She said people were always talking and laughing, but it wasn’t free. Everyone worked hard for their dignity and respect for one another was high. Good to see that video documentary.
I think if clothes were boiled, whacked, and scrubbed today not only would the clothing fall apart, the person doing the boiling, whacking, and scrubbing would fall apart too.
@@gary6576 I watched this clip on the YT app on the telly and can't leave comments there. This comment made me laugh so much that I had to crack open the lappy just to reply and congratulate. you. 😂
My mother did this all by hand in a basin (1945 ) and then dried on lines in the backyard . If it rained we kids would all dash out and bring in the laundry . Sheets were a real pain . After washing she would clean out the fire grates and restock with coal and small kindling logs . She would create an updraft after lighting the new fire by holding an old newspaper over the grate and chimney . Took quite a skill and numerous potential fire disasters ! Coal man came once or twice a week . During the war we used the coal shed as an air raid shelter .
My ex mother in law used a Liverpool washhouse, after moving to north wales she missed the dolly tub and chatting . She was a wonderful woman who could create a very tasty meal for very little money. When her Liverpool landlord first put electricity into her terrace house she and her husband could only afford one lightbulb and at night he would use a tea towel to wrap around his hand so he could unscrew the bulb an put it in the ceiling thingy at the top of the stairs. I was very glad to have known her.
What our mothers and grannies went through. Respect. My old maw started work in service at 14, getting up at 0500 to blacken grates and start fires. She used to say to us “stress, stress, youse don’t know what fxxxing stress is,”. We should never forget them, the finest generation.
Everyone in that film had lived through the war, they looked out for each other and were grounded in common sense. Yes they were resilient and knew how to cope in a crisis.
There used to be a giant sized wash house in a street close to mine in Salford. (Holland street)I remember it in the late 60s early 70s before the slum clearances. Could often find my mother there it was always a hive of activity and very much like a factory and the cafe that was attached I remember did a lovely round of toast and marge. All gone now and old crowded Salford which was full of soul seems lost forever.
individually in our homes where we speak to far fewer people and know far fewer of our neighbours than ever before not that it matters as they rarely stay put for more than 5 minutes due to being forced to move from stagnant wages and sky rocketing rents or for work that is insecure. Such progress we have made.
I live in Scotland We lived in old miners houses ours had a kitchen with only cold running water . Most of the cooking was done on the large fire in the front room where Mum Dad and the baby slept.We that is me and my two sisters and my brother slept in the only other bed with old coats to keep us warm. Our toilet was across the street which was used by other families. On a Monday all the women in our street went to a brick wash house where they filled up a huge brick area with water and then lit a fire to heat the water when the cloths were rinsed they were put through a hand wringer then hung out to dry in the garden across the street next to the toilet. The women all worked together as a team, some in the wash house and some looked after all the children. On a Sunday night we all got bathed in a tin bath by the fire. After the bath we all got the bone comb through our hair to make sure we didn’t have nits. I stayed there from 1953 until 1959 when we moved to a 4 bedroom Council House with a coal fire and a boiler. It was great to have hot water on tap and a big bath in our own toilet.I have many happy memories of those days.
Love these social documentaries. It really puts modern life into perspective. I shall not be complaining about there not being enough hours in the day anymore. The cast iron generation.
My father told me about how his mother used to wash clothes: big tubs of boiling water, harsh soaps and alkalies, beating the clothes with a paddle, rinsing them, squeezing them dry, hanging them up to finish drying, then ironing them the next day. A huge effort that lasted 2 days every week.
In the 60's my Nan still had a dollytub (heated by a coal fire) with the wooden dolly to agitate the clothes, next to it was the mangle, and then in the kitchen above the range was the drying and airing frame that would be hoisted up to the ceiling to dry the clothes in the heat of the range. She brought up 10 kids, 8 were still living at home in 1950. She was up at 5 am every morning setting the fire and everyone got a cooked breakfast and a packed lunch. She even made a couple of them different dinners because they were fussy eaters. How she did it I'll never know.
@@sandwormgod0189 -- An incredibly devoted woman. Unfortunately, kids are too young to appreciate their parents' / grandparents' sacrifices. Kids take it all for granted. I hope that your Nan got at least a "thank you" when the kids became adults.
It’s too bad we can’t hear the women chatting. My nephew in Yorkshire has a wife from Liverpool. When her and her sisters get together it’s like listening to birds chirping. I love it.
'Oh Betty, dear, you see that one down there, the one with the bare hair, I've heared tell she never scrubs her front doorstep and we ALL know what that means. And did you hear about Kathy, yes she went to the doctors for (mouths 'women's troubles') yes turns out she's pregnant again, and with her husband inside, yes I know. Oooh I couldn't say who the father is no, but I have heared that the local Vicar has been to see her a few times......'
I remember my mum loading the pram with the washing, detergent & washing soap. Then she’d meet up with a friend & they’d push the prams to the washhouse on Oldham Road in Manchester. The washing came out lovely, the drying cabinets were brilliant & there were irons so everything could be done in one go. There was also the swimming baths & a public baths where you could your have your, it was weekly then, bath. The bath was filled by the attendant up to a line, you could have more water if you paid extra, then the top of the tap was locked so you couldn’t fiddle more water. Happy times & there was always music over the louspe
It was hard for the young women, tho. Especially just off the boat from Ireland. They had expected so much more and this was their new life, with no way back. The old dolls knew a bit about life. The Caribbean women would take them aside to show them how to cook.
I lived in Liverpool in the mid 80's and there was a wash house just down the road from the Launderette I used. One evening watching my clothes in the coin operated dryer, I said to the lady that ran the place that i had thought about trying the wash house instead. When she stopped laughing she gave me one of those, he's only a man and doesn't understand, looks. "You cant go there, that lot would eat you alive", she said, so I took her word for it and stuck to the launderette.
There was still wash houses in the mid 1980's...where in the city? My parents were born 1942 , me 1976- neither of us remember this. My dad grew up in Aigburth and my mum was a Belle Vale prefab child.
I've done hand washing for 3 months in between moving house. Washing and hanging is easy as long as you have a large deep tub. It's the twisting and squeezing water out between rinses and before hanging that is the struggle. Really puts pressure on the wrist and finger joints.
I have just realised, my family must have been really rich. We had our own dolly tub, scrubbing board and dolly posher all kept in the kitchen and an old clothes mangle in the backyard. We also had a permanent lowerable clothes rack attached to the ceiling in the lounge room over the fire place place. It is a wonder that on washing day (Mondays) there wasn't a rainbow in the lounge room there was so many nappies hanging there to dry. I can still see that room, seven of us in a two up and two down house all sitting around a table covered with old newspapers as a table cloth, eating chips, egg and beans (The Good old days (the 50s) in Manchester).
Before the steamies people washed at home and of course you might not even have one near to your home, so wealth didn't necessarily come into it It' s ironic that we've gone backwards and for convenience we miss out on these good facilities, and the chance to build a community. I bet a lot of women preferred using them to washing at home. I can't help thinking those big industrial driers would be way better than anything we have today as well. My pal had one if these clothes rails that hung from the kitchen ceiling in her childhood home. I miss launderettes, we' ve lost all of our local ones.
I used to work in a laundry in Bermondsey baths. Spa road. Lovely hot marble slipper baths. Teak wood work brass taps, purple marble swimming pool. All ripped out in the name of progress or vandalism.
Everything was so much more social. Times were harder but people seemed happier. I was raised in the 60s and 70s, I wish my kids could have experienced growing up in that time, it was magical.
We have to be careful about things like that. It's being young that's magical, rather than the era you're brought up in. When we get older, we look back at the past through the naive eyes of the child we were then. Each era has its own share of problems and the 60s and 70s were no different. Let's not forget - that was the time when the likes of Jimmy Saville could get away with the most appalling crimes and nobody seemed to care.
I was born in 1958 and my mother had a primitive washing machine at home and a spin-dryer which was a mini version of the ones shown in the film. Clothes were hung on racks suspended from the kitchen ceiling and before central heating, it took days for them to dry in Winter. My grandmother still used a mangle in her house which I'm probably lucky not to have got my fingers trapped inside. Back then, my family still talked about a horrible accident involving an elderly aunt in the 1930s when her three year old son fell into a boiling hot wash tub at home in Holyhead and was scalded to death. We are definitely better off with modern machines...
My Auntie used to go to the public baths once a week in the early 60's. Just a tin bath in the privy across the yard in the house (2 up 2 down) Can't imagine that nowadays...
@@TomorrowWeLive yes, I'm sorry to say the world I grew up in doesn't exist anymore, no respect, no manners , me me me attitude, which was shown with the panic buying in the lockdown
It’s amazing how quickly things that were once completely normal everyday things become almost completely forgotten. Like women wearing head coverings and scarves/shawls over their heads in Britain whenever they were outdoors as an almost mandatory part of polite dress, or gas ‘mantles’ you had to buy for gas lighting in the home. Women carrying packages on their heads like in this video. The past that we think we are aware of is an anachronistic jumble of different eras and sometimes misconceptions, with huge gaps and it’s really hard to get a truly accurate picture of a particular era and all of its technology and its mindset because it can never not be coloured by the fact we have knowledge about what comes after it, before it and all the way through it.
I'm 64, and it amazes me to think that people were living like this the year before I was born. Then I remember that two of my grandparents were born in 1898.
Kitty Wilkinson and the Blond Angel, See their portraits in the Stained Glass window in the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. The first time I've seen her Portrait. Her achievements in a time when the lower orders didn't count for much. I worked in such a place yes even in London we lived in areas and worked in places like this. Say one thing cloths were clean. We had Steam and Hot baths upstairs Ebony, Brass and Italian Marble they were Beautiful, all stripped out and er! sold as scrap. Then the Yuppies moved in no thought given to those who lived there.
Great credit to those who thought up the concept to be fair....and great credit to those women that used it. I was born in 1959 in Ireland but really can appreciate British resiliance and charachter...it is to be admired. I worked in the laundry business for many years and I am familiar with those machines. The hydros? My God but that was hardship! Great women...
Stebble Street Baths had a wash house, an area of bath tubs and a swimming pool all in the same building. I had a bath there a few times, I went swimming there a few times, but my favourite part was buying a piece of toast at the 'cafe'. I would ask for the crust, usually the thickest piece of bread, it cost 2d if I remember correctly. Often I didn't have 2d and went without, sad.
While their husbands were living it up 65hr a week down the mines before dying at 47. This is an amazing clip...are people going to look back from 2079 and say how tough it was in 2019???
Born in 51, I remember the wash house days well, although as a little kid my only interest was the warmth and the tea and toast :) We used the one that was in the basement of the Steble Street Baths just off Park Rd. Nostalgia plus !
My grandmother used that one. Went there a few years ago and it was still there. It's a listed building. My father grew up on Roache St. I spent a lot of time there in the 60s. I remember the little police station just round the corner from Stebble St. 4:28
When I was an undergrad at Hull Uni. (1980s) there was still a public baths (not a swimming pool) both along Beverley Road. For a ridiculously small amount of money, you could sit for half an hour in a bathtub so huge that a friend reckoned you could 'swim widths' in it. A similarly type of public bath is shown in the film Quadrophenia where Jimmy (the Mod) finds out that his mate Kevin is a Rocker. All those public service buildings are pretty much gone now, apart from the lavatories.
The baths were large because families used to use them - that's why you got half an hour - it was just sufficient time to do two adults and their larger children. Given the number of slum properties with dysfunctional showers/baths there's still a need for public baths. BTW, they're just finishing the renovation of the swimming baths on Bev. Rd.
I can't believe this film was made the year before I was born... it looks so archaic. How times change eh? I remember my mum talking about using the old dolly tub & posher...I'm so grateful for our modern appliances!
This was two years before I was born. I still remember my gran putting the wash through a mangle. Now I’m watching this on my iPad......does my head in. Time to skin up again.
Hurray for the photographers who think to record the mundane tasks of every day life. That's what makes history come alive for me. 👍👏
Precious, indeed.
I adore this kind of detail of life vignette
And show when England was actually still British.
I'm a terrible photographer/videographer but I kind of want to do it myself - places that are dying out in the cracks and crevices of cities - back alley car garages, laundrettes, greasy spoons, old markets etc etc. It will be boring to most people now but in 30 years, fascinating!
@@MeadeSkeltonMusic Don't be so hard on England, or Britain at large🙂I don't think any of us anywhere in the world, has been planning ahead🙂I am from a country called Kenya, in East Africa. Kenya and Tanzania are neigbhbouring countries, and the President of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985 was called Julius Nyerere. Back in those times, Tanzania was Socialist and Kenya was Capitalist, which we still are. Tanzania has been Capitalist since 1985.
Back in those times too, Kenya was highly regarded, Kenya back then was like the "Paris of Africa," and the legend even goes that Julius Nyerere, back then, used to tell Tanzanians that there was no need to travel all the way to Britain to see how pristine neighbourhoods, localities, towns and cities looked like, that all they needed to do was cross over into Kenya to see how pristine neighbourhoods, localities, towns and cities looked like. Would you believe it?🙂Can I say the same thing about Kenya today in the year 2024?🙂Not quite🙂
And Kenya, by the way, was a British Colony from 1920 to 1963, so there is quite a British legacy and heritage over here, that is however beginning to wane. For many years, for example, many of us tried to speak with British accents, which is not quite the case anymore🙂
Regards, Michael M. Kamau, Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa, 6th December 2024.
I'll never complain about doing the laundry again.
I used to go to the river outside my town to do my laundry (just kidding)
i will, that looks like fun, a day gossiping with the girls.
That's what I would of thought a real woman would love to do this chat with her Friends and take care of the house
"They regard the wash house as their club." Sure. That's totally believable.
@@greer545 and those.machines got.your laundry super clean.
Don't forget these women had just lived through the blitz as well. I have nothing but respect for these women and men.
"The whole country is a model of...morality." Surely you jest.
J Sev It was once upon a time. Back then!
it's literally human nature. nothing special here. glorifying basic human instincts like survival, tribalism and racial bias is what leads to fascism and nationalism - the true plagues of pre-A.I. humanity.
Don’t forget the people who came from windrush to help rebuild the mother land Britain
What blitz
I recall my mum talking about the Liverpool wash houses when I was little girl. The women somehow used the wash house to cook potatoes during their time at the building and then took the cooked potatoes home to prepare their family's meals. They must have placed the potatoes somewhere hot for them to bake or roast, near to the washing boilers perhaps. Talk about time management, that's resourcefulness for you! It's amazing to remember that from my mum's recollections. I wish I'd have listened more closely now to remember how they achieved it. (Mum was born in 1926 on Athol Street, off Scotland Road and passed away a long time ago. I'll be 63 this year.)
Thank you for sharing that, very interesting. I wish I'd asked my dad more questions than I did. He grew up during the depression & WWII as a child of migrant farm workers in the US ala Grapes of Wrath. Times were tough indeed. It was a different world than what we have now.
I love this story, thanks for sharing! I bet the potatoes tasted fantastic
❤😢
Thanks for sharing your memories.
In 1 minute 27 seconds the woman at the washing machine is a woman named Anne Scott. At the time she lived in Everton. Her husbands name was John. They had 10 kids. All well looked after. And they all had many ferry trips to New Brighton and many sundays out to the local parks. They were great days.
1:27
@baronvonnembles I am one of her 10 kids. Third born. She first had 4 boys then 4 girls then another boy then the last girl. 9 kids grew up Evertonians and 1 Liverpudlian. Sorry my reply was late, I have only just seen it.
@@Tony-h7b4p You should put your pants in the tub , it'll extinguish them...
Strong woman repesct to her
@@sharonhyde7735 hic
I wish they recorded them talking
There's a documentary from around the same time about working class Liverpool called "Morning in the Streets" which is on TH-cam and you can hear them talking on that. They sound pretty different to modern day Liverpudlians.
Thanks for that Gemma I'm from an Irish back ground from London when I have walked the old docs in liverpool the energy is electric there
@@gemmam5703 I've seen parts of it. And I think it's more a case of 'telephone voice' then it actually being different.
@@aidy6000 I'm originally from Merseyside and when I was growing many elderly people spoke similarly to how the people in the documentary spoke (including my relatives who were born and raised in Merseyside). I guess maybe it could be possible they were taught to speak that way as it was viewed as "better" when they were growing up?
I love the scows accent and interested to see how much it has changed or not duss that answer your question geno
Fascinating social document. That film was made in my lifetime yet it seems to be about a lost world.
Yes, hard to believe we grew up in those ages. It's all so different now, some good but a lot bad. such is progress.
This Britain is totally gone. Britain is totally different now than pre-Blair. Blair turned Britain into little America.
@@Patrick3183 Thatcher paved the way for Blair. The two of them are Tories and read from the same hymn sheet.
@@Patrick3183 Blair turned Britain into little Pakistan.
@@SoloTravelerOffTheBeatenPath 🙄
Times were bloody hard back then, my mother was born in 1946 & often recalls her mothers washing regime once a week; my mum still soaks clothes in big buckets despite having a washing machine, before getting my father to empty them into the sink, soak in comfort by hand & spin off in the machine. She doesn’t do this with everything, mostly bed sheets. Despite me voicing the fact the machine does it all, she’s stuck in her ways; although I’m worried now she’s not as able bodied it’ll get too much for her & Dad.
The thing is, you had such a huge sense of community back then which is missing now. Everyone knew everyone, kids knew one another, more like siblings than friends, people left their doors open, no one thought twice to pop round for some sugar or a drop of milk before pay day. Elders were always taken care of as were new mums & the sick.
Nothing like that these days.. breaks your heart. I’m 33, disabled & live alone. I wish I had friends or neighbours to talk to.
Thanks for the lovely video x
I suppose the next best thing would be online forums with interests similar to yours for finding like-minded people to talk to.
I did feel that way before, but found a Christian group with like-minded attitudes and beliefs and it's an encouragement. If you've ever wondered how to go to heaven, the gospel makes it clear we don't save ourselves with good works, Jesus saves us because He paid the price for our redemption. Our faith in Him grants us God's grace and we are forgiven everything. Search "the bible way to heaven" here on TH-cam by Sanderson1611 for a clear gospel presentation, you won't regret it, I guarantee it!
Me too I remember wash day in my nans house.Top loading machine with a mangle attached ,hard work even in our lifetime.
@@alanward4506 I remember those as well mate. The year this film was about 1959 was the year I was born and Bred in Liverpool, lived there all my life.
So what changed? That u can no longer leave your door open .
@@dblessed7860 Nope. That you can no longer leave your door open, have community spirit, no one knows anyone’s name anymore - not for lack of trying. People are too ‘busy’ in their technology to put it down & take a look around them, help people, interact, create lasting friendships. Everything has changed, & if you didn’t grow up in any of the eras before the early 00’s you’ll not understand how much the world has changed.
My late mammy used the wash house behind saint Vincent's school on park lane in Liverpool, myself and my 5 brothers had no idea of the hardship but I'm eternally grateful for what she and many other women up and down the country did, well done mammys
The young mums these days would collapse with shock if they had to do a tenth of what women had to do before the 70s. My mum kept the house clean and would sandstone the doorstep, polish the letter box and door knocker while the Sunday joint was getting cooked. On washing day she would fill 2 bed sheets with all of the clothing to be washed and put on a pram. She would then push it down Everton brow to the wash house where she would be working away for a few hours. Coming home when all was done she would have to push the pram back up the brow. When she got her first washing machine it was almost like having a good but modest win on the pools. Hard times but a great time to be a kid.
@@Tony-h7b4pyou serious?! You’re comparing cleaning a modest working class home with the few brass items, putting a stew on the stove and one day of walking with a pram full of dirty clothes to a facility in which machines do the work to women working full time jobs, cooking AND cleaning the house next to most of the childcare?
@@ikkelimburg3552 yeah I am serious. Also seriously, are you thick or do you have mental health issues?.
@@ikkelimburg3552 Yeah I am serious. My mum also worked while bringing her family up. Who were always dressed in clean and tidy clothes and also well fed on home cooked food as the only fast food around at the time. Also are you ill or do you have mental health issues.
@@ikkelimburg3552 yeah! I am serious. The mums these days live on fast food, pizza, and oven chips. And a day out for their kids is either Macdonalds or. Burger King. I know you will disagree and say something stupid but there are many people who will agree with me. Plank!
I was born in 1956 one of four, I was the eldest. Every Monday morning mum headed off to the wash house off Kensington Rd/ Gilead St, Liverpool 7. All the washing for the week was bundled in a bed sheet and pushed in a pram to the wash house. Luckily the wash house had large clothes dryers. After drying mum returned home with neatly folded clothes tied to the pram with washing line. The following day mum spent ironing them. They were hard times but mum met other women and enjoyed the social aspect of the event. 😊
@@telboyynwa699 I know Gilead street. My mum was brought up as a child in Kensington. In Kemble Street. My mum used to take one or two of her kids to Capaldis cafe, it was a well known meeting place.
Stop bragging 🙄🙄
Harder times, but maybe less lonely times
Maybe less lonely times are not the harder times🤔. The hardest times are when you don’t know you are in the hardest times and you can’t handle it. When you think you have more things compared to the poorer times, but your soul is just bank robbed and dry. These are the really harder time. When in the 3D you seem to be rich, but in the 5D you are the poorest one. If you become sensitive and awaken you can then turn the tide. But you must see by the heart and not by the mind.
I think it was also an opportunity for women to meet up and as stated there was a cafe and creche. There was a sort of community. And mutual support, we were less isolated.
I never did laundry this way and I think it looks more enjoyable, despite having to lug your laundry someplace else once a week. My friends and I text each other on Sundays when we are all doing our laundry.
Yes, hard times- but looks like good support & understanding. Sad for women to be too alone!
Yes, if you needed to talk/chin wag, the washhouse was the place to go. Ordinary women helping each other through life. Nowadays, we're all behind a screen tapping away....cough cough!! Loads of problems were solved probably. Or, directed to someone or somewhere who could help. Life was so different in the '40s and '50s compared to today, it's like another world.
@yellow man maybe it's because they no longer feel represented by Labour. Many working class people vote Tory as they feel detached from Labour and its current policies feeling that it no longer represents workers.
@yellow man I wasn't blaming anyone for anything, I was mearly offering an opinion as to why some working class people would vote Tory. If they didn't feel detached from its policies then they wouldn't be voting for the opposition. Labour and its policies have at lot more to answer for in the North than you appear to acknowledge.
Wonder if the older woman with the plunger has a "delicates" setting
Probably, located in her elbow.
Her days of wearing anything "delicate" were long over....
That was her delicate cycle! LOL!
Beat the tar out of it
Les B I doubt it! Lol
Hello from Germany.
My mother had received a washing machine for her wedding (1964) as a gift.
She said later: "With two small children, two old people and a man who brings dirty work clothes home, a blessing.
I think many people today forget what it was like without a machine.
I remember my mother getting her first washing machine, a "twin tub". A washing tub one side and a spinning tub the other side. First thing she did was wash the families housekeeping money by leaving it in the pocket of her apron that she washed. We had a lot of potatoes that week.
There is 'no' forgetting. They dont know period. We all have now days even local laundries.
No one does without.
I have done laundry in a bathtub many times in the past.
Great someone normal does not have sentiment for his grandmother working hard while doing washing for all family.
Hello Kiliipower. What an absolute joy it must have been for your mother ! 19 years after the terrible destruction of most German cities that gift must have had huge significance for a survivor like your mother. I hope she enjoyed the rest of her life after those years of horror.
We lived in London and my Mum got her first washing machine in 1986 which was also when we had our first bathroom, indoor toilet and running hot water. So pleased she got to experience these luxuries.
The Mrs. says: I watch British television and news on You Tube a lot, now I am seeing an old woman wash her clothes in a big wash house and I started to cry, Life did not hand me any roses and I can relate to her hardships right here where I was Born, America, I worked in Factories in Electronics and had to tape up my fingers because I was making cables and we were all blistered and bloody from the wires so we taped up all our fingers every day and did not dare complain, there were plenty waiting for our jobs and women were not treated well, all we were was a bunch of dogs on a rope. Never take anything for granted not even a piece of buttered toast, I can tell you I lived a day that that piece of toast would have been a gourmet's delight.
You are a strong woman. It is sad that so many young women do not know what your generation endured to enable the current generation all the comforts they now enjoy. Still, there is much to be achieved both for women and for men here in the US.
What a lovely service provided for the community. Childcare and refreshments available as well.
I would love this. As a mother of 5 I can tell you that an industrial sized washing machine to get all the laundry done in a day would be wonderful for me. Also, it can be soul destroyingly lonely staying at home, raising kids and doing housework. Life is so focused on the home that it can be difficult to meet new people.
My late mum used a local wash house in Manchester, when she was a teenage mum during WW2. Long before she had me I might add. But she said it was a place for a good natter and talk out your problems with friends.There is a play called "The Steamie" which was about a Wash House in Glasgow
Maybe you needed to spend less time on ya back….don’t f@cking moan about being a mum!
You would love it????
What are you doing Thursday afternoon?
@@herrfister1477 😂😂😂
God bless these women my grandmother was one of them
Me too! God Bless them.
My folks were from the country, but I heard plenty of stories about washing clothes un the creek before putting them through the wringer!
As was mine. RIP Nan.
It's all illegal boat people now with drugs and knife crime.
Reply
These ladies kept their homes going god bless them all they were hero's !!
Ahem,... Heroines !
Only the apostrophe was wrong. It's heroes. Heroes, heroines, whatever, who cares? I know these women probably wouldn't be bothering about it.
Who cares !? think most men would be offended of you called them a Heroine
Women don't realise how easy they have it today with automatic machines for everything..
Of course, men still dont do washing in the 21st century
Hard work but nice to see the ladies making the best of it and having a bit of time for some camaraderie and a cuppa & bite to eat! Bless them All x
clean clothes, proud women and a sense of togetherness. Plus provided services that met peoples needs. Well done Liverpool
Well done the whole bloody nation!
So different to today 😥
Sounds like white privilege
There was a saying in Liverpool.. about certain women...."She'll be the talk of the Wash House "
my adopted grandmother is from Liverpool and she says this 😂
I love these little anecdotes.
Rough looking crew
Ms Cambridge LOVE it
She will be the talk of the town
We still had a big copper boiler for the stop of the stove that linens and baby nappies were boiled in in the 1950s. It was years before my mum got a hoover washer-extractor unit - it had to be wheeled over to the sink, the machine hose attached to the faucet and filled. Same with the extractor, water dumped onto the sink from an attached hose. Everything was then dried outside or on racks in kitchen in winter. My granny went to a communal washhouse with the old tubs as shown here. one washhouse for every row of houses - every woman had her assigned day. All washed by hand in a boiler, all mangled with a manual machine then dried outdoors. I still have a clothesline and do a lot of delicates by hand, but I am so grateful to have a washing machine and dryer.
I had copper boiler for nappies with first child. Bet t here worth loads now.
Not only were the people tough in those days but so were the clothes! Boiled, scrubbed and pummeled with heavy metal bar...they didnt buy them out of Primark...😉
Who needs places like this now, through Thatcher capitalism provided us with everything we need to be a rugged individuals!!! so who gives a flying f*** about community and shared values, just be a rampant individualistic consumer!
Whats that you say dear working class Britons? your wages have gone no where for 40 years making it so you can barely afford a pint never mind new clothes? and your communities have been decimated by the market? oh well, perhaps it was a bad idea voting for Tories for most of those years after all.
@@Nine-Signs Working class people are richer than they've ever been. Now everyone can afford private washers and dryers.
...and the holes that did appear as a result of rough treatment were darned :).
I remember my mum repairing the holes in my dad's socks when we were kids - how many people would bother doing that now?
@@Nine-Signs It's the same here in the States, the same results of Thatcher in Britian, Reagan here.
I remember all those cozy meetings they were always having, undoubtedly planning on how they would short change us for the benefit of their rich handlers for decades to come.
Reagan actually insinuating that it was somehow unpatriotic not to let them steal our future prosperity.
@@Nine-Signs It's the same here in the States. Thatcher in Britian, Reagan here, conspiring, no doubt to steal our future prosperity for their rich handlers. I remember all those cozy meetings, actually wondered if something untoward could be going on. Ugh! Perish the thought!
Anyway, yes we have certainly been manipulated. Regan actually insinuated that it was somehow unpatriotic for working people to balk at being short changed by the rich.
at 2:19, I really like the drying racks going into the hot air tunnels. That idea still seems like it would be usable and would have some benefits.
I agree!
We had a wash house on post when I was a young wife. The clothes were never as clean as they were back then.
All the great conversations we ladies had while our husbands trained. I certainly do miss my neighbors and friends from those years.
Great idea to try to prevent disease by introducing the wash houses. Probably saved many from sickness.
I’m certain that the elderly woman at the end was doing her washing in a way that her clothes were PERFECTLY clean. Gramma clean.
And she was getting good excercise as well. Rather than eating a biscuit while a machine did the work.
She wouldn’t have been the type to hang up dirty laundry to dry, it would be clean as a whistle.
Wayward Son I choked on my drink-
@@waywardson8360 Well, to be honest, she looked quite firm and fit! With a work regimen like that, that granny was an A1 GILF! That's once you got past that grill!
@@jchapman8248 I thought of that and youd have to put alot of base on it ,rouge , lip gloss and well, probably hire a cinematic make up artist or justcut off the lights
Marvelous women and a most informative film.
Nowadays women r good for nothing but feminism
@@lordx4641 every woman is slightly different like all men are too. Some value feminism as their main agenda whereas there are others who are happy as a housewife and are proud of it. Most fall in the middle of the spectrum as an estimation.
@@zetametallic mate i am not saying men r not stupid i am saying that todays stupid culture (modernity)which happened by accident has not empowered ppl but their ego anyways i do say men r also not less than pigs nowadays sexaholics but the fact that feminis wants to undermine feminine qualities of women such as calm,patient approach to probkem solving and just want to impose fake masculine trait i aont saying they should stay in kitchen but should not ask for unnecessary advantages and act like victims
@@lordx4641 I do agree that the mass media has played a part in shaping our perceptions of the sexes both negative and positive. BTW I'm female and I too find it annoying when this happens because I'm just me not a tick box of 'feminist' or 'activist' say and my husband agrees; he gets annoyed with the notion that men aren't allowed to show feelings and be 'strong' all the time. Once you label something you embrace all the qualities of that thing without realising and it defines you.
Screw that. X
@@zetametallic "when u identify with something u constantly try to defend it. Thats how bias is generated"~sadhguru
I say women should come to industrial field aswell but i do not know about the whinning and uniting under a tag and saying men oppressed women and are still oppressing thats not half the truth women were alwyas important part of family even today i notice i do not see animals taking advantage of them at all!its just men do not thunk superior to women but then as companions thays fills the species puzzle similar to rascism i do not say it ain't their but mostly its not for skin or race but for some specific reasons for i.e crimes lets say. So my idea here is that criticism is ok and should not be confused with disrespect but toxic criticism is disrespect. Unfortunately we all r forgettjng that we follow this society based on ppl of social virtues of past not saying we should cling up to em but certainly we shall not disband them in name of change sometimes change can be a constant. Anyways as for ur pont that men r emotional too yes u see their r a lot of similaroty but we should also recognizing dissimilarities in general most of the dissimilarities do not affect us this cosmos is filled with similaroties and differences then why villify one? I have always acknowledged a women calm yet chilled way to deal problems that gives us more clarity thats why women in past were renounced as problem solvers when men came to em and etc. Taking aways this aspect is odd but we all should learn from it (men too). Anyways media is propaganda
Life looks hard but certainly doesn’t look lonely when you’re all doing your washing together - and probably have been for 20 years or more! Something we just don’t have these days especially with many desk jobs and remote jobs!
There’s something wonderfully communal and practical about this.
My mother in law was from Scotland. She told me of this exact process. How wonderful it is to see what she was talking about in this film! These women were tough.
The Steamie😊
Just mentioned in an earlier comment that there was a very moving and funny play about a Glasgow wash house and its regulars called "The Steamie" I watched it on TV with my mum who had used her local one in Manchester and she loved this play. I've never seen this play since sadly.
@@thedativecase9733 you can find the STV production on the STV app. I've watched it lots of times with my mum on TV over the years. It makes great memories for me as she is sadly no longer with us. Reminds me of her. Our family are Scottish and I can relate to all of the humour.
@@janinefarnell8570 So, how accurate are Groundskeeper Willie's (Simpson's Scot) antics and parodies?
@@Grenadier311 not very accurate at all😂. It's just comedic but I love The Simpsons anyway. Hilarious and brilliant.
I grew up on stories from my Nan, a hard working Toxteth woman who tried for years to explain the wash house to me but I could never picture it. Now I see what truly hard graft it was!
First time I seen one was on Quadraphenia
I was born in 1964. I remember my mum taking me to the wash house, when the washing machine was broke at lodge lane liverpool. Great days, that was when people came together. I'm now 58, with alot of health problems, don't see anyone from day to day.
We had a wash house in Porchester Hall Paddington .My mum and mates wheeled their washing there in a prom .A joy ful day was had by all .
I remember my gran, who was northern, calling on the phone when she was in her mid 80s and she sounded out of breath so slightly worried I asked he if she was ok her reply was 'well, today I've changed my bed cloathes, done the washing, made my bread, filled the coal scuttles, scrubbed the harth, cleaned my brasses, swilled out the yard, dead headed the roses and now I'm all out of breath and I don't know why. It's not like I've done much'. Yet some people today think loading a dishwasher is hard work.
Great comment.
My Grandmother in 1940's -50's Eastern Kentucky would rise in dark, catch kill and dress a chicken and then on a coal stove, prepare a huge ham and eggs breakfast and lunch for her family and a couple of farm hands. The lunch was put out on the table and covered with a linen tablecloth to keep flies away and the men would come in and eat when they could. When we went to visit, my mother (who had a fairly modern kitchen for the time) was always talking about how she couldn't believe how hard Grandma worked. (toilet was an out house as well - I was scared to go in the dark)
@@Mr.SLovesTheSacredHeartofJesus I love your comment .. it's so true . People in those years and during the blitz were of much stronger mental attitude than now .
I was born 1948 my grandma not only took her own washing but also her neighbours , she had 5 children to feed so made money by doing washing for others xx
I'm outta breath just reading what your gran did
Massive respect for these women, I can hardly hold on with doing all the house chores for 6 people, I do all the laundry for my young nephew and his mother (my sister). I also watch him a few days of the week, everyone works except him, and I look after everything in the house as my job lol.
I was Born in Liverpool in 1950 remember my Mother going to the local wash house for quite a few years till we modernised the house and could do it all at home.
Same 1953 Edge Hill remember my mother taking me I used to play on the bomb sites outside, can't believe he said you was only allowed an hour I could have swore it was hours don't know what my mother was doing yapping I suspect
I would love to be a fly on the wall to have heard their conversations. Respect to these women!
what a generation of Liverpool women ( hats off to all you wonderful ladies ) . I remember having to keep a place for my lovely man every Monday at four o’clock in the fifties at the wash house in the buildings Melrose road kirkdale. , even remember the machine no she got every week F8 . such happy and simpler times . Jimmy poss (Saint Agnes road ) .
My grandmother, born 1896, used these communal wash places. She said people were always talking and laughing, but it wasn’t free. Everyone worked hard for their dignity and respect for one another was high. Good to see that video documentary.
I think if clothes were boiled, whacked, and scrubbed today not only would the clothing fall apart, the person doing the boiling, whacking, and scrubbing would fall apart too.
Cripes you can say that again 😂
They turned the bloody clothes woke!
🤣
Thats really funny 😂
@@gary6576 I watched this clip on the YT app on the telly and can't leave comments there. This comment made me laugh so much that I had to crack open the lappy just to reply and congratulate. you. 😂
I've just learnt more about local history in a few minutes than I ever did at school! Thankyou. They were were all,' Wonder Women!' 😊
My mother did this all by hand in a basin (1945 ) and then dried on lines in the backyard . If it rained we kids would all dash out and bring in the laundry . Sheets were a real pain . After washing she would clean out the fire grates and restock with coal and small kindling logs . She would create an updraft after lighting the new fire by holding an old newspaper over the grate and chimney . Took quite a skill and numerous potential fire disasters ! Coal man came once or twice a week . During the war we used the coal shed as an air raid shelter .
My ex mother in law used a Liverpool washhouse, after moving to north wales she missed the dolly tub and chatting . She was a wonderful woman who could create a very tasty meal for very little money. When her Liverpool landlord first put electricity into her terrace house she and her husband could only afford one lightbulb and at night he would use a tea towel to wrap around his hand so he could unscrew the bulb an put it in the ceiling thingy at the top of the stairs. I was very glad to have known her.
What our mothers and grannies went through. Respect. My old maw started work in service at 14, getting up at 0500 to blacken grates and start fires. She used to say to us “stress, stress, youse don’t know what fxxxing stress is,”. We should never forget them, the finest generation.
Why the swearing.?.
kitty wilkinson's hands... lifetime of hard work is written all over them. bless her.
Those were some hard working ladies!
God bless the person who invented the washing machine is all I can say!
Thank you.
What an invention that baby was 😀sure saved all that plunging and scrubbing
Life seemed to be relentless hard work for people then. I'm looking at a lot of women old before their time.
@Tut Pook 😳 🤣🤣🤣
What a wonderful documentary! People back then we're way much more resilient than now. All respect for those ancestors!
Everyone in that film had lived through the war, they looked out for each other and were grounded in common sense. Yes they were resilient and knew how to cope in a crisis.
love these old films.. somewhere out there as these ladies wrestle with their washing John and Paul are composing!
There used to be a giant sized wash house in a street close to mine in Salford. (Holland street)I remember it in the late 60s early 70s before the slum clearances.
Could often find my mother there it was always a hive of activity and very much like a factory and the cafe that was attached I remember did a lovely round of toast and marge. All gone now and old crowded Salford which was full of soul seems lost forever.
I like watching these old documentary it makes one appreciate the modern machinery we have today.
Im always fascinated by how people lived during times gone by and now we have the option of watching it on 21st century TH-cam.
individually in our homes where we speak to far fewer people and know far fewer of our neighbours than ever before not that it matters as they rarely stay put for more than 5 minutes due to being forced to move from stagnant wages and sky rocketing rents or for work that is insecure. Such progress we have made.
This year means a lot to me, so really enjoyed this. Thank you 🙏
Great channel ! Keeps History alive .
In Liverpool now, Kitty’s Launderette is the modern version of the wash house!
Dats a great way to spell Laura, to be sure.
I absolutely love these old videos like this! Keep them coming!
I find social history fascinating I could watch these kinds of programs for hours
Amazing glimpse into a bygone age. Thankyou Kitty for forging ahead with such innovations!
I live in Scotland We lived in old miners houses ours had a kitchen with only cold running water . Most of the cooking was done on the large fire in the front room where Mum Dad and the baby slept.We that is me and my two sisters and my brother slept in the only other bed with old coats to keep us warm. Our toilet was across the street which was used by other families. On a Monday all the women in our street went to a brick wash house where they filled up a huge brick area with water and then lit a fire to heat the water when the cloths were rinsed they were put through a hand wringer then hung out to dry in the garden across the street next to the toilet. The women all worked together as a team, some in the wash house and some looked after all the children. On a Sunday night we all got bathed in a tin bath by the fire. After the bath we all got the bone comb through our hair to make sure we didn’t have nits. I stayed there from 1953 until 1959 when we moved to a 4 bedroom Council House with a coal fire and a boiler. It was great to have hot water on tap and a big bath in our own toilet.I have many happy memories of those days.
WOW! Incredible to read this.
Amazing woman, I've been to liverpool and the people are so AWESOME and friendly.
Love these social documentaries. It really puts modern life into perspective. I shall not be complaining about there not being enough hours in the day anymore. The cast iron generation.
Times were hard respect to each and every one of them
I find it amazing that the people with the least usually smile the most. God love them, they look as if they had tough lives.
So many people would be glad of this type of facility nowadays. For the company if nothing else.
There are laundromats still, but thankfully other ways to socialize.
I feel so spoiled with my hi-tech washer and dryer in my home. I hope we all realize how blessed we are.
All? Majority of the planet don't even have wash houses to do their clothes in and still do it in rivers....
My father told me about how his mother used to wash clothes: big tubs of boiling water, harsh soaps and alkalies, beating the clothes with a paddle, rinsing them, squeezing them dry, hanging them up to finish drying, then ironing them the next day. A huge effort that lasted 2 days every week.
In the 60's my Nan still had a dollytub (heated by a coal fire) with the wooden dolly to agitate the clothes, next to it was the mangle, and then in the kitchen above the range was the drying and airing frame that would be hoisted up to the ceiling to dry the clothes in the heat of the range. She brought up 10 kids, 8 were still living at home in 1950. She was up at 5 am every morning setting the fire and everyone got a cooked breakfast and a packed lunch. She even made a couple of them different dinners because they were fussy eaters. How she did it I'll never know.
@@sandwormgod0189 -- An incredibly devoted woman. Unfortunately, kids are too young to appreciate their parents' / grandparents' sacrifices. Kids take it all for granted.
I hope that your Nan got at least a "thank you" when the kids became adults.
@@sandwormgod0189 nowadays women have one child and they "need their wine".
@@sandwormgod0189 I keep telling people: housewives should get paid a regular salary
I can recall my mother getting a twin tub washing machine, she was absolutely delighted wish she was still here
James mcgeoghegan 💕
Thank you for this amazing piece of history! I love how women could have tea and have a chat, and there was a small nursery included.
It’s too bad we can’t hear the women chatting. My nephew in Yorkshire has a wife from Liverpool. When her and her sisters get together it’s like listening to birds chirping. I love it.
@@davidvasey5065 I actually like some when it’s not fake posh anyway. 😆
When my wife gets together with her sister for a chat it’s like two galahs shrieking…
@@oo0Spyder0oo 😆
My mum was from Liverpool ,
I used to love as a kid about it.
She would put on a real broad
Liverpoodling accent, it used
To crack me up.
'Oh Betty, dear, you see that one down there, the one with the bare hair, I've heared tell she never scrubs her front doorstep and we ALL know what that means. And did you hear about Kathy, yes she went to the doctors for (mouths 'women's troubles') yes turns out she's pregnant again, and with her husband inside, yes I know. Oooh I couldn't say who the father is no, but I have heared that the local Vicar has been to see her a few times......'
I remember my mum loading the pram with the washing, detergent & washing soap. Then she’d meet up with a friend & they’d push the prams to the washhouse on Oldham Road in Manchester. The washing came out lovely, the drying cabinets were brilliant & there were irons so everything could be done in one go. There was also the swimming baths & a public baths where you could your have your, it was weekly then, bath. The bath was filled by the attendant up to a line, you could have more water if you paid extra, then the top of the tap was locked so you couldn’t fiddle more water. Happy times & there was always music over the louspe
It was hard for the young women, tho. Especially just off the boat from Ireland. They had expected so much more and this was their new life, with no way back. The old dolls knew a bit about life. The Caribbean women would take them aside to show them how to cook.
I lived in Liverpool in the mid 80's and there was a wash house just down the road from the Launderette I used. One evening watching my clothes in the coin operated dryer, I said to the lady that ran the place that i had thought about trying the wash house instead. When she stopped laughing she gave me one of those, he's only a man and doesn't understand, looks. "You cant go there, that lot would eat you alive", she said, so I took her word for it and stuck to the launderette.
Ha ha! That’s funny!
There was still wash houses in the mid 1980's...where in the city? My parents were born 1942 , me 1976- neither of us remember this. My dad grew up in Aigburth and my mum was a Belle Vale prefab child.
@@zetametallicI went to John Hamilton comp left in 1981 and there was a wash house near-by that was still being used.
This was interesting to watch. I'm a fan of Call the Midwife, seeing this puts me in mind of the early episodes of the show.
I've done hand washing for 3 months in between moving house. Washing and hanging is easy as long as you have a large deep tub. It's the twisting and squeezing water out between rinses and before hanging that is the struggle. Really puts pressure on the wrist and finger joints.
I have just realised, my family must have been really rich. We had our own dolly tub, scrubbing board and dolly posher all kept in the kitchen and an old clothes mangle in the backyard. We also had a permanent lowerable clothes rack attached to the ceiling in the lounge room over the fire place place. It is a wonder that on washing day (Mondays) there wasn't a rainbow in the lounge room there was so many nappies hanging there to dry. I can still see that room, seven of us in a two up and two down house all sitting around a table covered with old newspapers as a table cloth, eating chips, egg and beans (The Good old days (the 50s) in Manchester).
Before the steamies people washed at home and of course you might not even have one near to your home, so wealth didn't necessarily come into it
It' s ironic that we've gone backwards and for convenience we miss out on these good facilities, and the chance to build a community. I bet a lot of women preferred using them to washing at home. I can't help thinking those big industrial driers would be way better than anything we have today as well.
My pal had one if these clothes rails that hung from the kitchen ceiling in her childhood home.
I miss launderettes, we' ve lost all of our local ones.
Might be a teenage John, Paul, George, or Ringo's clothes being washed there
From the look of the district, possibly on RIngo's.
I doubt Johns were.
Pete Best's clothing was in the film but it was edited out, sadly
Cilla Black's underwear was there
@@sirronnitram8937 that's what the old lady had on her head at 0:33
I used to work in a laundry in Bermondsey baths. Spa road. Lovely hot marble slipper baths. Teak wood work brass taps, purple marble swimming pool. All ripped out in the name of progress or vandalism.
I had a friend who talked about their mother taking them to the baths.
Everything was so much more social. Times were harder but people seemed happier. I was raised in the 60s and 70s, I wish my kids could have experienced growing up in that time, it was magical.
We have to be careful about things like that. It's being young that's magical, rather than the era you're brought up in. When we get older, we look back at the past through the naive eyes of the child we were then. Each era has its own share of problems and the 60s and 70s were no different. Let's not forget - that was the time when the likes of Jimmy Saville could get away with the most appalling crimes and nobody seemed to care.
Aye, nostalgia’s not what it used to be eh?
@@zeddekaexcellent point!!
I'm loving watching these old videos.
Oh, my goodness. I had no idea. Thank you for the history lesson. The drying racks were most impressive!
I was born in 1958 and my mother had a primitive washing machine at home and a spin-dryer which was a mini version of the ones shown in the film. Clothes were hung on racks suspended from the kitchen ceiling and before central heating, it took days for them to dry in Winter. My grandmother still used a mangle in her house which I'm probably lucky not to have got my fingers trapped inside. Back then, my family still talked about a horrible accident involving an elderly aunt in the 1930s when her three year old son fell into a boiling hot wash tub at home in Holyhead and was scalded to death. We are definitely better off with modern machines...
i was born in 1944
It was like this all over the country in working class areas even though people had nothing they did have standards.
My Auntie used to go to the public baths once a week in the early 60's.
Just a tin bath in the privy across the yard in the house (2 up 2 down)
Can't imagine that nowadays...
And now we have everything except standards
@@TomorrowWeLive yes, I'm sorry to say the world I grew up in doesn't exist anymore, no respect, no manners , me me me attitude, which was shown with the panic buying in the lockdown
0:34 Carrying the bundle on her head .
Another world - "The past is a different country "
Incredible.
It’s amazing how quickly things that were once completely normal everyday things become almost completely forgotten. Like women wearing head coverings and scarves/shawls over their heads in Britain whenever they were outdoors as an almost mandatory part of polite dress, or gas ‘mantles’ you had to buy for gas lighting in the home. Women carrying packages on their heads like in this video.
The past that we think we are aware of is an anachronistic jumble of different eras and sometimes misconceptions, with huge gaps and it’s really hard to get a truly accurate picture of a particular era and all of its technology and its mindset because it can never not be coloured by the fact we have knowledge about what comes after it, before it and all the way through it.
@@animalunaris very true
thank you very much.
I'm 64, and it amazes me to think that people were living like this the year before I was born. Then I remember that two of my grandparents were born in 1898.
Harder times but oh there was a community, a caring and a sharing ❤🙏🌍🙏
Kitty Wilkinson and the Blond Angel, See their portraits in the Stained Glass window in the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. The first time I've seen her Portrait. Her achievements in a time when the lower orders didn't count for much. I worked in such a place yes even in London we lived in areas and worked in places like this. Say one thing cloths were clean. We had Steam and Hot baths upstairs Ebony, Brass and Italian Marble they were Beautiful, all stripped out and er! sold as scrap. Then the Yuppies moved in no thought given to those who lived there.
Bless Kitty for her vision of hygiene
This is priceless. Thank you.
Great credit to those who thought up the concept to be fair....and great credit to those women that used it. I was born in 1959 in Ireland but really can appreciate British resiliance and charachter...it is to be admired. I worked in the laundry business for many years and I am familiar with those machines. The hydros? My God but that was hardship! Great women...
Excellent. A cup of tea and creche for the kids. Its a social gathering and its been lost now.
Thank you for this little peak into our history.
Stebble Street Baths had a wash house, an area of bath tubs and a swimming pool all in the same building. I had a bath there a few times, I went swimming there a few times, but my favourite part was buying a piece of toast at the 'cafe'. I would ask for the crust, usually the thickest piece of bread, it cost 2d if I remember correctly. Often I didn't have 2d and went without, sad.
Lodge Lane was similar to Stebble Street. Visited both and the Lodge Lane wash house with mum as a little boy ..
Is that the one off park road?
My father grew up just round the corner from there on Roache street. I remember Steble street baths as a child.
@@MAC-mo9cj Yes. I believe it's a listed building now.
My mum used that wash house between 1950 and 1958 and I went with her.
While their husbands were living it up 65hr a week down the mines before dying at 47. This is an amazing clip...are people going to look back from 2079 and say how tough it was in 2019???
Most of the comments about the good old days here are by folk who weren't even adults at the time.
If WW III never happens, then probably.
actually social structures of past were much better than todays sjw bs now women r good for nothing but feminism and men r sexaholics
Don Kinghan
Not in Liverpool, we only had the jam butty mines in Knotty Ash.
I'm thinking Liverpool will be an underwater diving park.
Wonderful upload, thank you.
I can remember when we had public toilets that had attendants they kept them spotlessly clean as well, i grew up with pounds, shillings and pence. ;-)
I think I just saw my mum, but can't be sure. She been dead for years and no one I can ask. But so nice to watch this video.
Red moon 💕
Born in 51, I remember the wash house days well, although as a little kid my only interest was the warmth and the tea and toast :) We used the one that was in the basement of the Steble Street Baths just off Park Rd. Nostalgia plus !
My grandmother used that one. Went there a few years ago and it was still there. It's a listed building. My father grew up on Roache St. I spent a lot of time there in the 60s. I remember the little police station just round the corner from Stebble St.
4:28
@@skadiwarrior2053 Wow, really :) Went to Australia 1977. Visited Liverpool in 2015. Loved the place as a kid, not now, UK dying!
When I was an undergrad at Hull Uni. (1980s) there was still a public baths (not a swimming pool) both along Beverley Road. For a ridiculously small amount of money, you could sit for half an hour in a bathtub so huge that a friend reckoned you could 'swim widths' in it. A similarly type of public bath is shown in the film Quadrophenia where Jimmy (the Mod) finds out that his mate Kevin is a Rocker. All those public service buildings are pretty much gone now, apart from the lavatories.
The baths were large because families used to use them - that's why you got half an hour - it was just sufficient time to do two adults and their larger children. Given the number of slum properties with dysfunctional showers/baths there's still a need for public baths. BTW, they're just finishing the renovation of the swimming baths on Bev. Rd.
I can't believe this film was made the year before I was born... it looks so archaic. How times change eh? I remember my mum talking about using the old dolly tub & posher...I'm so grateful for our modern appliances!
This was two years before I was born. I still remember my gran putting the wash through a mangle.
Now I’m watching this on my iPad......does my head in.
Time to skin up again.