Genealogy Chat

like Joan I can also remember the old concrete/brick boiler in the corner of the wash-house. I had to light it every monday morning before going to school ready for Mum to do the washing when she returned from her office cleaning and woebetide me if the darned thing happened to go out before she arrive home, another reason I didn't like Mondays !!!

Hi all, Talking of mangles, I remember my dad telling me how he was helping his mum with 'mangling' her washing. She was feeding the wet clothes into the mangle, whilst he was turning the handle. She was telling him to go faster and in doing so, he trapped both hands (excluding the thumbs I believe), in the mangle rollers!!! He said he didn't know what was worse, her swearing and screaming at him to 'rewind', or wondering whether or not he could outrun her!!

Going back to the original post, I have a long rellie at the Birmingham Goal as it was known, listed as an 'idiot' Now I know where it comes from

Ohhhhhhhh.....so that's what it is/was. Thanks for that Joan. We are just knocking down a couple of outbuildings close to our house and in one of them there was a brick built oven with a little iron door at the front and a load of ash inside it. On the top was a lage iron bowl which had been set in concrete and you could lift the lid up of it....this must be an old fashioned washing machine. We have all been trying to guess what it was for. Justine x

i remember my mums washing machine from the 50s, it was a square tub that swished the clothes around and a small mangle attached to the top of it, and she had a boiler in the corner of the kitchen,grey colour! everything was so white!! and a pully on the ceiling! mind you,i have one of those now!! they don't half dry the washing in the winter,especially if you have the central heating boiler in the kitchen like i have! i remember my nan having one of those big mangles in the back yard, don't remember her using it tho! but i suppose she did!

Joan, You were quite 'posh'. lol. I married in 1969 and had to use the Launderette until after I'd had my two boys. Didn't even have any sort of washer until about 1978. Those certainly were the days!!!! Kath. x

I think if the truth be known, an awful lot of us on this site remember helping our mothers with putting the washing through the mangle. And I'm really NOT 150 years old!!!!!!! Kath. x

Mine too Chris - but let it be our secret! LOL Dad even bought Mum a little one with suckers on the bottom so she could put it on the draining board in the kitchen and not have to go out to the Mangle Shed! Sue xx

*** Blushes*** My family were still using a mangle in the 1960s.... Never made a penny from it 'tho :)) Chris

A mangle was a status symbol , people would come from far and wide to use it!!!! Just think no Tumble dryer or radiators or washing machines YUK!! (Sounds more interesting than launderess!) Kim

hi nell, thought maybe she took in washing! but i found it funny as an occupation to say 'keeps a mangle'!

There was a thread about this a while ago - apparently if you had a mangle you could hire it to people who'd pay to use it, so it was obviously a way to earn a living. nell

I once found a woman with my own maiden name who 'keeps a mangle'. Thought it was hilarious! Anne

i have been doing some transcribing for freecen, i came across this in the occupations, one women 'keeps a mangle'!!! another,who was only 17 'insane'! think that was put in the wrong colomn! don't think that was an occupation! it must of been hard going that one!!