Graham has helpfully found an illustration for you my mother had one. Used, with the deep tub, to pound, squeeze and agitate the washing.
I’m sure your inference was correct, a one-inch pastille of very bright blue dye in a cotton bag, used to ‘whiten’ linen. Retailed as “Reckitt’s Blue” and an indispensable household aid pre-war.
Not just pre- war Peter; much used in the reaches of the Nottinghamshire/ Derbyshire coalfields. Mind you we had to take the coal out of the bath first.
If you drove to Barrow in Furness from the A6 you used to pass through Backbarrow where they made Reckitt’s Blue and it was everywhere.
Good idea for the pot scrubber, but here you cannot recycle that type of plastic.
In fact, they seem to take no notice of the symbols on the base of plastic items and instead say bottles only.
I imagine that this is because they have not invested in the type of equipment to distinguish between the various grade of plastic. Instead they complain if the ‘wrong’ plastic ends up in their roadside bins.
We were always being told off by our Mayor because the ‘wrong’ plastic was in their bins, but as we live on a Tourist Route, we have no control over what is in our bins. Probably a lot less at the moment.
My Jim actually learnt to knit when I sprained my wrist and could not finish the poncho I was making for his Mother’s Christmas present. Admittedly it was just stocking stitch with a garter stitch border, but his tension was not too bad at all.
I am going to try to make some next week on my loom - in waffle weave if I can find the appropriate cotton. In fact if I can access some pure cotton thread (not mercerized) in bright colours I would like to make some. I will let you know how it goes.
At the moment I am using squares cut from old Tshirts that I overlock and boil as my Covid19 cloths for cleaning the items we purchase with a netoyant spray.
Washboards were the essential instrument in Skiffle Groups of the 1950s! But only the metal ones which were played with those finger protectors used with sewing - sorry aged memory has lost me on the name for the moment. Drums were made from Biscuit tins with stones in them, the double bass was a tea chest with a centre string attached to a broom handle. We had one old guitar which was also supplemented by a biscuit tin model with a hole cut in the lid and ‘proper guitar strings to an attached rod which was marked with painted stripes so you could remember where to put your fingers.
We often played in and around Slough as spotty teenagers, and on a couple of occasions played in the breaks between the sessions of visiting Trad Jazz Bands (on one notable occasion being joined on stage by Chris Barber playing a proper double bass. We never swung like that before and really made me appreciate that instrument. I suppose in reality we were rubbish, and there were dozens of us practising in backyards thinking w e were Lonnie Donegan - who really kicked off the whole thing in the UK. But this was also the start of the Rock era and a whole stack of three-chord singers and groups. A great age - crossing over from Big Bands to Trad Jazz , Rhythm and Blues and finally Rock n’ Roll.
Don’t get me started on the Big Band Concerts I saw!
All through a simple washboard and a generation who had no money but lots of imagination.
Glad I was a part of it.
Thimble?
Yep that’s the word - came to me over breakfast as well; One of the little joys of old age is (for me at least) not being able to bring a word, or name to mind, and then hours later suddenly it pops up!
Yes I am aware of dementia - one word I never seem to have a problem remembering!
Latest deafness thing is getting ridiculous domestically. Through the lockdown my wife and I established a ‘sound’ level at which we could talk comfortably. Yesterday she went to have it re-tuned as she wasn’t happy with it, and when she came back immediately yelped at me for talking too loud. So I dropped my own level where I could hardly hear myself, and she was OK, but then she spoke at a level I couldn’t hear at all. If she spoke any louder it upset her hearing aid!
Just as well we don’t talk much I suppose?
Realising just how bad my hearing is, the audio specialist said ‘it’s probably to late for your husband anyway’ Thanks a heap! Prior to this I was told not to use cheap eBay products - which actually DID help, as they’ could damage my hearing further’ What planet am I or others living on?
Ending the week with another rant.
Is it just me or do others find it odd to be approached by Facebook, and today Microsoft (and the addresses do seem real) separately notifying me by name that my account (Facebook) was now with a new opening number/code which was provided. Need I say that I had to confirm the code before i could access the Account - and that it didn’t work anyway? ‘Rejected for an incorrect password’ they had just provided?
Ditto with Microsoft new account detail - sent to me by email ie by name, only to be rejected as I didn’t have a correct password? Is this some fiendish plot to send me even crazier than I already am?
That facebook things sounds suspicious to me…have you tried not using a link and logging in with your normal route?
This happens to me. I know what a French word means, but can’t for the life of me remember its English counterpart. It’s infuriating. Does this happen to anyone else?
BTW Norm, your SF voice is perfectly pitched, with a refined accent (though hard to place) and very distinct punctuation. Were you a Harrovian or a Wykehamite by any chance?
Ha ha, 40 years ago I used to work in a day centre and we used to have people knitting dishcloths - loopy grey string, yuk!
I love this thread (no pun intended!)
So many replies! So much information! So many views (and Views!)
Folks have really got their priorities right! 
Gosh l wish l was a bi-lingual forgetful old man - l can barely remember English words let alone French ones. I have to rely increasingly on Madame Dubois who needs to know in which context the french word l want to know the meaning of was used before she will commit to a definitive answer. Unfortunately, like Norman, that’s started happening in my Mother tongue. However, my 11 year old grand daughter, who recently commented “that it must be grim when one’s memory becomes sporadic”, is always ready to help me out - Bless her.
Like me, l thought Norman was a Buckinghamshire boy who spent his formative years in Sluff - which is a little nearer to Eton than Harrow, as you obviously know.
Yes indeed Dan, I did live rather more than my formulative years in Slough, until I was about 22 when I finally got the Hell out, and never to return.
In moments of rank stupidity in younger days I used to stretch the truth by sayng I was an old Etonian (which fooled no-one:). My last school there was, wait for it - The Slough & Eton, Church of England Secondary Modern School aka School for useless hooligans, second only to the Orchard School also in Slough. It was a place of pretensions by the Headmaster, a viillainous old sadist who looked remarkably like, and also acted like aJapanese POW Commandant!
Oddly, from the school roughing up patch - where forms of football were ‘played’ but invariably ended up in St Trinians type punch-ups , you could actually see the Wall of the Eton Ball Game - where the thuggery was even greater than at our school, surprisingly.
Wish I could do the invariable ‘ah the good old days’ bit, but I can’t. I hated the place, loathed Slough and everything it stood for.
The only good thing to be said about it was it gave me the desire to get out and try to improve my life’s prospects - which fortunately did happen.
John Betjeman was right!
Ah accents, there’s something to play with. In Slough I had London yob accent, and you will recall that in those far off days it was very rare to really hear one’s own voice? There was a party in our house one day and unbeknownst to me a new fangled reel-to-reel tape recorder had been set up and hidden. I had never seen one of these in my short life, so was doubly fascinated to listen to the replay.
I could identify every voice but one - and which I was shocked to learn was my own. I was bright enough to realise that at that time at least, there was no future for someone sounding like that in class-ridden England, so I set about making a fool of myself by trying to ’ talk proper’.
The only thing I really achieved was flattening the accent, and oddly becoming susceptible to all others. I found myself unthinkingly mimicking the company I was in.
This developed to a point where I could tell jokes in a wide range of accents which was a great social asset - and also disguised the errors I still made in my own - a bit like My Fair Lady in reverse.
When I went to Australia in a matter of a few months I WAS Australian, and that particular one does still pepper my speech when I get excited.
Still not very good with the French one though. That is because I don’t respond to criticism very well, and every time I open my mouth my wife still berates me for the errors - even more so in company than in the house. One of the reasons my French reading is way, way better than my French spoken.
Funny old world innit?
Hi Jane, no not really. I am not a Facebook fan or user, although I did have an account in the early days where it was useful to keep in touch with people around the world. I have tried to visit on the odd occasions when I have been advised that someone I knew had sent me a message - which of course meant ‘sent the whole world a message’.
I prefer my correspondence on a more personal level.
Ive still got the darning mushrooms, used to use a mangle too, never used a washing dolly but in school (Scotland 1968) I was taught how to boil up the laundry and iron using a flat iron.