Thursday, January 7, 2021

Public wash-house Liverpool (1959) | BFI National Archive

 Haven't things changed? My mum was about 21 years old back then, my dad was 26, and I was a baby?


Anyway, some of the women didn't trust the "new fangled" modern washing machines and so stuck the old traditional methods, even if they were backbreaking. 


Admire the industriousness of the Liverpool women who transport huge bundles of laundry to and from the local wash-house every week, crammed into old prams or balanced skilfully on their heads. The wash-house doubles as a social hub for the women, with a cafe and creche facilities. At the time of filming, this one in the Pontack Lane area was one of 13 remaining original public wash-houses in the city, although new more modernised buildings were under construction.Liverpool's last working wash-house closed in 1995.


The peppy documentary not only looks at the modern wash-house, but introduces the story of Kitty Wilkinson, 'the Saint of the Slums', who pioneered the public wash-house movement in Liverpool during the 1832 cholera epidemic. John Abbot Productions, who made the film, specialised in sponsored non-fiction films from the late 1950s to the late 1970s







1 comment:

lastgreek said...

"Haven't things changed?"

Lol... Not much, K. My mother a couple of years ago had me buy her a top-load washing machine because she didn't trust the front-load ones.

Me I don't trust what they put in the vitamins and supplements. Simply because they're not government-regulated. Maybe ok with vitamin d if you spent most of your life indoors or when you do go outside you are covered from head to toe in an opaque sheet ;)