London Wash House (1970-1979) 

These women made better wives for men back then than 98% of all women under 55 today.

My Nan.

I like main speaker & old joanna player with cigarette🚬🎹🎹🎹🎹

I don’t think it is said anymore but I was brought up to “use elbow grease” 😂😂😂

Yes I would think so. They look worn out & didn’t have time nor money to do anything nice for themselves. Make no mistake folks this was a harsh life.

I agree the dates are wrong, most probably early sixties. By the 70s there were automatic coin-operated laundrettes all over London. You could take your washing in early morning and it would be ready for pick-up by lunch time.

By 1960, most people had a washing machine in the home and probably a spin dryer. Even before that, there were hand driven washing machines. The dates are way out.

These purists

Most middle- and upper-class families could afford them back then. The majority of working-class families in Britain (at that time) however either didn't have the money and/or space in their homes for a washing machine and still used these places to do their weekly laundry. The following decade saw a major shift take place with many working class folks starting to do the majority of their laundry at home and it continued into the 90's with launderettes beginning to fade in usage. Nowadays, launderettes are used mostly by people who live in the city and have no laundry facilities in their place of living.

@@woohooboy yeah growing up I’m brum my mates mom had her finger in the mangle. Was permanently curled . Hottie she was

@@woohooboy Certainly not a majority, nobody in their right mind would say live in a flat without washing facilities. These ladies found a social hub at the washhouse and provided a service to the local council for the ill,elderly and infirm residents as well as local businesses like small hotels.

@@Efferpheasants - I grew up in a working class neighbourhood (in terrace houses no less) and no one had the space or money to buy a washing machine back then. In fact I was 11 when my family were finally able to afford one and until that point, my Mum did our weekly laundry at the local launderette. When we got our first washing machine, it was a small one that we had installed in our kitchen due to space limitation. Later when we moved, we had a separate laundry room that was big enough to accommodate a standard washing machine and seperate dryer. The council estates in my area has their own communal laundry rooms that were shared by its residents and only for their use. On the other hand if you were private renting (which my family was), the terrace houses more often than not weren't equipped with laundry facilities. In fact, the toilets were still outside. I was well into my teen years before the housing mandate was finally updated which meant the all plumbing has to be moved indoors. I can't tell you what a relief it was to finally have a toilet indoors and not have to either hold it until morning or make the brave venture at night to the backyard (in the dark no less) to use the toilet!

Everything’s so dang fancy now! 😢

They're all luxury flats. Wonder where all the luxury jobs are?

Wealth transfer keeps grinding on.

I wonder how many people who live in those flats are native Londoners.

@@apebass2215 It's all part and parcel

Women are still as hard as nails…..they have to be

Go and cry in your safe space lol.

😂

The washouses like this one, we’re originally built to combat cholera and other disease. The water was boiling to ensure hygiene hence the long wooden poles to pull the washing from the machines and troughs. Of course some families clothes were dirtier than others so would often look dirty but mainly they were just worn and discoloured.

Because you're a moron.

Yes there was a Ford Cortina Mark 1. However the rest of the video predated that by some time. A hotch potch of stuff strung together,

Well they lasted at least 60 years in public use. How long did your last washing machine work for?

One needs water to clean laundry.

We say it's hard but most of history was hard to us. Dare I say we need a hard life to return, and soon.

They didn't live long. Seventy was a good age.

5p

Like Rickets, smog and smallpox eh?

As an Australian living in the UK, it is so to an extent. If you open up your view you see that it is now a "worldwide" issue (including Australia), as money/materialism has been made more important than the earth and all that inhabit it. The rich people of the world may have material wealth, but do they understand the deeper meaning of being alive and what it really means to be happy from the inside out?

Agreed, the Britain’s problems will only be solved when structural reform happens in society. By placing the citizen at the centre of the constitution and removing the monarchy and aristocracy which copper fastens the whole system with the economically failed anachronism of Empire. A republic will be start to renewal in Britain.

@@demelza32bullshit. That’s how the rich get away with this complacency.

I don't think they're romanticising poverty, they're acknowledging hard work. Having a strong work ethic was always very important to the working class because laziness can't be tolerated when you're relying on one another for survival.

Bingo.

Exactly,so well put and why they’re able to get away with the white privilege crap these days as most youngsters have NO idea what life was like and how hard it was in this country in the past.

If they could afford them, yes.

In the US you could buy petrol powered washing machines as few places had electricity.

Oh, you innocent child!

@@barkebaat Imagine the incredible joy of the local housewives when the steam engine powered bath and wash house first opened and it was no longer necessary to do all the washing by hand!

Great isn’t it. Poor old woman aren’t having to get two busses to wash their husbands clothes for hours upon hours a day.

What are they doing now?? Working silly hours in some office to service a colossal mortgage (and to help generate billions for some distant billionaire), farming their kids out to childcare and breakfast/afterschool clubs and feeling permanently guilty about it; amassing huge amounts of (largely useless) stuff they believe they must have because an advertisement told them so. Catching a bus to do some washing doesn’t seem all that bad.

​​@@itsweb1584no, instead they're isolated from their communities. Poor people still take buses to do their washing at laundrettes, but it tends to be their clothing and their children's clothing, no husband to be found.

Urdu.

@@Betterthantelly really? Where do they speak that?

Martian.

English 😐

@@carmelhughesparolya899 what, noooo!?

It was better than your clothing being filthy and better than doing ALL your laundry by hand and catching Cholera.

It was normal. Nobody knew anything else so they were contented.