1974: The Old PUBLIC LAUNDRY | Nationwide | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

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"They want to carry on washing, the way they've always done it."
James Hogg reports from the Silchester Road Public Baths building in North Kensington, which is due to be demolished as part of a redevelopment scheme, with the site earmarked for a new olympic swimming pool.
Local housewives, however - including the mother of footballer Alan Mullery - are up in arms about the decision, because the building houses the public laundry, which has been in use since 1886. Why do these women want to keep this antiquated public laundry, when the council plans to build a modern launderette to replace it?
James demonstrates the process of washing in the old laundry works - from the lead sinks to the scrubbing boards, to the press and the drying horses.
Originally broadcast 25 January, 1974.
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30 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 105

@zamiadams4343 Год назад

I live on a peabody estate in Fulham and we have a public laundry, saves me a fortune and is still the same as when it was built in 1906.

@josephocallaghan3000 Год назад

that needs reportin -- not allowed

@andymarshall4582 Год назад

no dont believe you ... really

@dfpguitar 9 месяцев назад

Is it private and just for residents ? Would love to visit if possible

@luiathmorgan7709 9 месяцев назад

Have u got link ..?

@zamiadams4343 9 месяцев назад

@@dfpguitar Private just for residents, cheers.

@markmooch Год назад

The councils disdain of the working class goes back a long way.

@EggBastion Год назад

_all_ the way

@tjmarx Год назад

It goes back as long as there have been councils, and before that the lords.

@Seminal_Ideas Год назад

Part of the incremental dissolving of British community spirit. What was thought of as progress was in fact increasing isolation. You needn't be a luddite to lament this and once it was gone, it was gone.

@nkenchington6575 4 месяца назад

spot on. Have you ever heard of Neil Postman? Worth checking him out.

@ingiemummalove130 Год назад

I love the woman who says “who wants easy work!” Bloody hell id die if I had to do all my washing by hand!!!!!

@sammyoyola2042 Год назад

Get used to it when hurricane forces disrupts power lines and water conduits.

@hilaryepstein6013 Год назад

I didn't like that man from the council, sitting in his ivory tower. I'd love to have seen those women giving him a piece of their minds.

@danyoutube7491 Год назад

He could have done with scrubbing his own clothes clean, he might have burned off a few calories and consequently his double chin :)

@ltipst2962 Год назад

@@danyoutube7491 You can imagine his shaking face at the meer suggestion! Would have been hilarious

@wolfblitzer1981 Год назад

He is long gone to that big council in the sky 😂

@charleswhitney3235 Год назад

I don't think much has changed at RBKC in the 50 years since this was made.

@Zlervo Год назад

They were meeting places. This was before my time but it would be interesting to go back and experience the friendly atmosphere and sense of community.

@northernsnow6982 Год назад

Go to a laundromat to meet people.

@Zlervo Год назад

@@northernsnow6982 😆😆😆

@HaloFlemz86 5 месяцев назад

I find this Fascinating. It was a community, they got the clothes cleaned and could have a chat with friends and cup of tea. It got the ladies out of the house. I think it was a shame at the time to get rid of it.

@shingitai5882 Год назад

It’s hilarious watching the reporter explaining how to wash a shirt by hand. I bet someone had just shown him!😂

@Hurc7495 Год назад

the lady on the left checks on him a couple of times!

@sammyoyola2042 Год назад

Exactly my thoughts.

@Barefoot_Joe Год назад

Guaranteed you would have known less in the same situation, you wouldn't have even known what the items were

@gary7vn 11 месяцев назад

This the 21st century. Why he? @@Barefoot_Joe

@dfpguitar 9 месяцев назад

@@Barefoot_Joeonly if they were a man who went from having a mother to a wife with no time in between.

@jamesgolightly5320 7 месяцев назад

Now look at London ffs what went wrong

@1alayzzia 6 месяцев назад

The clothes were made to last back then. People didn't destroy the environment and their wallet by getting a new outfit every three months or three weeks. And as someone who does some hand washing up my own I can tell you it is far superior. In a facility like that hand washing is not hard. It's incredibly convenient and I would kill to have access to a place like that. Narcissistic, people who never do their own laundry are dictating to people who do the laundry how to do it.

@chelamcguire 9 месяцев назад

I was born in 1960 and by 1963, my mother had two youngsters plus herself and my father to wash laundry for. Over and above that, we owned two farms, so there was all the overalls to wash every day......really grubby clothes! They really needed a good boiling that only the Wash House could offer. However, by '63 my mother had an Automatic Washing Machine and had kissed goodbye to her Twin-Tub. She still hopped in the car every week to go to the Wash House - as seen in this footage. This was in the southside of Edinburgh. I loved it there. It was always so nice and warm and very busy. Mum took all the sheets and white items to ensure they were boiled and perfectly white again. I had the whitest blouse and socks in my class! I recall the day that the Wash House closed and there was a party for all the regulars. My dear mother actually wept. There was a tremendous play written by Tony Roper called The Steamie and it was made into a tv production in the late 80's. It can be viewed here on YT. It's a brilliant comedy-drama set in 1950. Well worth a wee watch.

@joeyree22 5 месяцев назад

Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed reading it; heading off to google The Steamies now :)

@JamieSMB Год назад

I love BBC Archive

@ltipst2962 Год назад

Same. Big time same. This shouldn't have been hidden for so long and there's absolutely no harm in having a 24 hr channel just streaming archive footage one after another.

@jq8974 Год назад

I really like the old washing house. Those drying cupboards are making me jealous! And the more I look at how they scrub a specific area and how the rinse water worked, I get it. I do more and more hand wash in my life, and I would love this much resource and control. And a place to meet others 🙂

@josephocallaghan3000 Год назад

if u want a man in yer life then.... I will take ee to all the best laundry fings

@Blackwater_House Год назад

I remember the Drying Horses from the City of London Freeman’s School Laundry in Ashtead, (Surrey) in the mid to late 1960’s. My Mother was Head Laundress for the School and as a child I’d occasionally enter the back area of the Drying Horses to retrieve items which has accidentally fallen off the Rails.

@dfpguitar 9 месяцев назад

Imagine all the clothes drying you could do with the heat generated by the underground! I think a communal laundry would be reallg popular in London today. People have such little space in their homes and it would be a great way of being part of community while doing dreary house chores.

@froogsleegs 7 месяцев назад

if you reintroduced spaces like this back into society that actually tried to slow down processes and make them more social, I think they'd be really popular. so much about our environment has become so efficient that it's lacking in the fine, deliberate attention to detail that makes things really special. putting these spaces back in would be like therapy for the masses

@estusflask982 Год назад

0:52 "this lovely old LEAD sink here"

@brandywell44 Год назад

Zinc plated steel more like. It is clear that the presenter was in a subject out of his depth of understanding.

@ltipst2962 Год назад

@@brandywell44 Are you absolutely certain? I guess its a weight thing and the sound it made

@calebm9000 6 месяцев назад

Yes, imagine the foolishness it takes to mistake the material of a Victorian wash tank 🙄

@vitaliyzakharov6708 5 месяцев назад

@@ltipst2962lead just wouldn’t work as a sink material. Its too soft.

@borderlands6606 Год назад

My mother and aunts would use a wash house, though my mother was a bit snooty about it. I remember the huge drying roller, far more efficient than an iron, you just fed the garment through and it came out flat.

@hildaelson4203 Год назад

I have an East Asian heritage, and friends tease me about why I hand-wash some of my stuff, like my lingerie, attributing it to my ancestry. Clearly they’ve never talked about laundry with their grandparents.

@andypandy9013 2 месяца назад

Amazing to think that even as recently as 50 years ago many of us were still doing our laundry like that.😟

@malcolmjawohowelll2892 Год назад

Sharing the same experience as your friend or neighbour has a sense of belonging On the whole...domestic living has improved immensely as well as social housing...but perhaps there is much less that ties us to one another . Obviously the affluent i do not include in this social comment

@Talboy-p4e 8 месяцев назад

I remember Public baths 1960 North Newcastle It was normal When England had everything Very little money But value Amazing all the service you can have anytime Today Nothing Nothing working No services No law No police Very odd And yet happy children Frendly people Strict authority Back then 1960 Even had best tv flims and tv dramas back then Only 2 channel back then Suppose golden years back then Love these documents Bring back England and memories

@susansaxon4780 6 месяцев назад

Work done by women, but men think they know better about something they’ve never done and don’t have a clue

@JasonJonesoriginal Год назад

They sound like me defending hand washing dishes vs using a dish washer😂

@rareblues78daddy Год назад

@soon Dishwashers are about the most idiotic appliance I have ever seen. Washing by hand, all my dishes are _always_ clean, and I never have to worry about running out of silverware.

@tjmarx Год назад

@@rareblues78daddy why do you have to worry about running out of silverware with a dishwasher? Why aren't your dishes clean with a dishwasher? Perhaps more importantly, what percentage of resources are you using hand washing dishes verse a dishwasher?

@moominmay Год назад

@@tjmarxI guess if you’re using a dishwasher you’re only running it once a day and not washing as you go along so it’s possible to run out of dishes/cutlery especially if you only own a small amount like me. So for a single person it’s better to just hand wash I reckon.

@xr6lad 9 месяцев назад

@@tjmarxa dishwasher is stupid. The idea you are meant to quickly rinse the dishes BEFORE putting them in a dishwasher pretty much means you may as well just fill the sink with hot water and wash them anyway. We wash by hand and it’s done in 5 minutes or so. As against what - a 40 minute or hour cycle.

@tjmarx 9 месяцев назад

@@xr6lad That's an awfully large leap of logic to jump from "we need to use 100ml to rinse off all these dishes" into "we might as well use 5000-10,000ml of water". Rinsing does not mean cleaning the dishes. It means, don't put a plate in with a left over chicken leg or something on it. You can mostly just scrap off into the bin and you're done. Cutlery usually doesn't need to be rinsed.

@RogueCylon Год назад

No cheap places in Kensington now.

@mickmackem1479 Год назад

My dad sister used to wash phil lynott thin lizzy and he would say if left any money in keep it

@DIETRICHCICCONE 9 месяцев назад

The council in question - the Tory RBKC - is the one that is responsible for the Grenfell disaster.

@pyroyergen5986 Год назад

wow, as a millenial it feels impossible that this is not that long ago

@tjmarx Год назад

Millennials have destroyed the west.

@user-dt3rj8qm3k 9 месяцев назад

How's that going for you?

@kaelaleedaley Месяц назад

That Council Man is EXACTLY who he looks to be! The "awful lot of money" being spent on these amenities is raised by the Tax Payer, the people they've forgotten they work for and are supposed to represent! When hearing negative feedback, he just brushed it off with no regard to the sentiment or sense of those who raised the objection in the first place - very modern indeed x

@tonyjones2308 2 месяца назад

Whst an amazing place thay place was. When you think how little you get from your council tax these days. I think that is Grenfell tower at 0:15.

@DarylDevine 7 месяцев назад

4:17 surprise Kenneth Williams cameo.

@QuoPaperPlane 8 месяцев назад

Alan Mullery of Tottenham Hotspur.

@frankhooper7871 5 месяцев назад

"Then you get your faithful old scrubber" - hey, she's standing next to you!

@perfectpete1 Год назад

No mention about how the women paid to use the place. Maybe it was free.

@emmabrooker166 8 месяцев назад

Fascinating but I bet they LOVE their washing machines now. As soon as you have an injury, chronic illness or just simply age, laundering in such a manual way is a disaster.

@tomace7924 2 месяца назад

That blonde in the knit sweater was rather fit. Nice.

@jameshodgkins559 Год назад

The pipes all lagged with asbestos

@stepheng8779 Год назад

"then you get your faithful old scrubber" See people were more helpful in those days.

@marria01 Год назад

the fact the lady looks over the moment he says it.

@anthonycollingridge970 2 месяца назад

Had it survived and been rebuilt, I'm certain by now it would have been closed down due to Health & Safety concerns.......

@elliemay1103 5 месяцев назад

I used to go with my mum to help in Silchester ...i also used to go there swimming after school every night

@rachelknight6028 5 месяцев назад

You know... they could of kept it... It was a grand commodity to the community. It was a social activity for the Ladies. We as housewives, know too well the drugery of doing laundry. At least here, they had company and some joy whilst they did it. I know, I'd rather do my laundry this way.

@jasonl4411. 9 месяцев назад

The year I was born. Lovely stuff

@beebeb3524 3 месяца назад

There is a tendency to romanticise any of the old gathering places, because really that's what this is, isn't it? A place people can go with their kids in tow to meet all the other people in the neighbourhood and do something. It isn't profitable to provide such places anymore.

@gyromatical Год назад

Lead sink? 💀💀💀

@theram4320 Год назад

Following the last few years - pandemic response etc - I wonder if cost really was the main consideration here. These ladies had a sense of community here, a service they cherished. Hard work no doubt, looks very effective though. I wonder if the Council wanted ordinary people 'cleansed' (pun intended) from Kensington, so they could build prime housing for their extremely rich mates.

@brandywell44 Год назад

Constant redevelopment is very lucrative too. Remind me again, who pays that mans wages? The notion of the Woman being in charge of the business of home was being eroded too as women had to get jobs to make up for the devaluement of the currency and so automated washing at home could be useful.

@BsktImp Год назад

Replaced by TikTok doom scrolling, fast fashion & disposable nappies.

@lindasmith6072 Год назад

So was this all free then?? Would the laundrette have been free?

@rachelknight6028 5 месяцев назад

Very good point.. I doubt it, they would have charged per load... council have to recoup their money somehow.

@jeremynv89523 4 месяца назад

Other documentaries on the same topic have said that, while it wasn't free, it was dirt cheap.

@robbrowe 5 месяцев назад

Haha the most arch mfer ever at like 4:50

@ltipst2962 Год назад

Notice the fairy liquid? Thank you for sharing bbc, this one is a good one total food for thought.

@davedogge2280 Год назад

Why did the mid1970s in South Kensington look like the mid 60s ? have they got the date correct ? 1974 ? really ?

@s125ish Год назад

Because it’s black and white

@ltipst2962 Год назад

@@s125ish lol

@jdm65 Год назад

*North* Kensington. Entirely different district.

@sophiejdalston Год назад

The clip was originally in colour but a lot of BBC archive footage had a black and white copy and a colour copy made, but colour tape was expensive so re-used and recorded over with other things.