The washing line

In 1964 my wife and I bought a larger house to accommodate our growing family. By this time I was earning £11 or £12 a week and was probably near the peak of my spending power. So although we had a washing machine at our previous property, we bought a new one when we moved in.

The old machine was I believe called a Thor and had three pedals to operate it, one to start washing, one to spin and one in the middle to stop whatever operation was going on. Not very sophisticated!

Now we’d bought one of the new automatics. At the time the family was composed of three daughters, Susannah, Judith and Rachel and then of course there was my wife Anne and myself. Together we generated a lot of washing, hence the necessity for the machine.

Of course in a new property we also needed a new washing line. There was a timber yard within easy walking distance of our house, so twenty minutes after the thought, I returned home with three eight foot lengths of 3 x 3 timber.

Anne indicated the place where she wanted the washing line to end on the lawn. I sharpened a point on my new pole with an axe and prepared for business. Up a set of steps with a sledge hammer I went, to bang two feet of the pointed end into the ground for a good solid job.

The first 18” or so were easy then I met some sort of obstruction, probably an old brick or a large stone. Being young, I bashed the end of the pole more enthusiastically and eventually it cleared the obstruction and went down to the marked level.

Anne came out to approve the placement and we both tested the solidity of the support. Fixing the other end of the washing line was simple and a nail in the last length of timber provided a clothes prop. We were in business.

All went well for a week or two, and then we began to notice a strange smell. We put up with it for a bit before I began looking for the source. It wasn’t too long before we both agreed that there was a problem with the sewage system.

Way back then the responsibility for the drains lay with the local council, so after a phone call; two men arrived to see if they could solve the problem.

I don’t remember their names but for simplicity in writing about what developed I shall call them Bob and Harry.

They arrived with a selection of tools and quickly lifted the cover to the drains. I think Bill was the brighter of the two.

“There’s a blockage in the drain between this point and the house” he observed brightly. Harry went off to the lorry to fetch a drain cleaning rod, while Bill leaned against our robustly fixed clothes post.

Harry returned in a few minutes and began rodding the relevant pipe. He soon cleared the “solids” with a satisfying gurgle and then tried to recover the cleaning rod.

“Me rod’s stuck,” he observed after a frantic tugging session.

“Give it another go,” suggested Bill helpfully. Harry heaved manfully.

Bill jerked from side to side in time with each pull on the rod. “Thought so,” he said while he was still leaning against the clothes line support, “every time you pull, this post moves. We’ll have to dig down and find out what’s happened!”

Naturally Harry did most of the digging while Bill shovelled out the loose earth. The cause of the blockage was soon clear. I’d hammered the pointed end of the pole through the sewage pipe. Not only that, but I’d gone through the intersection of a ‘Y’ shaped section of pipe.

“Have to dig out the whole section;” said Bill, “it’s going to cost you a bit governor!”

Well there was nothing else for it. I had to agree and in a remarkably short space of time the broken section was removed. I can’t remember if we had to wait for a new ‘Y’ piece or not but the drains were duly repaired and the large hole filled in.

The cost of all this when the bill arrived from the council was expensive, about eleven or twelve pounds.

Anne was the driving force in all things gardening and she said it was a waste of time to wait for the lawn to re-grow. So we turned the neatly dug hole into a flower bed.