David wrote: <Gosh Jean - England's coppers must have been more sophisticated than Australia's. Ours had a wood fire underneath (Mum was far better at chopping wood than Dad was), and detergent hadn't been invented here in the late 40s - early 50s. Mum used a large long block of Velvet soap, then later Lux flakes came on the market.</quote>
The copper was at my gran's house and had gas because the house was a new build after her original house was destroyed during the bombing in the war - we lived on the eastern side of London, although not in the actual East End. My parent's maisonette - a ground floor flat with just one other flat above it in a long terrace of flats - was very pre-war and had a tiny kitchen with no room for anything to do the laundry. That had to be done in the sink, with hot water being supplied from a wall-mounted gas heater. We didn't have a bath either, so it was a choice of sharing the tin bath in the living room brought in from outside and filled with water boiled in kettles and saucepans on the cooker, or going round to gran's for a bath - naturally the choice was going to gran's.
And you're quite right about the soap and Lux flakes - I'd forgotten that. People washing soap was Lifebuoy.
Jean in Poole, Dorset, UK To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected].
