Washday blues

In all my rambling and scrambling around the ruins of West Wales I've only ever found one of these intact. Adjacent to a tumbledown cottage there remains a tiny wash house with its 'copper' still in situ, enclosed by a brick surround with a space underneath for a fire and a flue leading to an external chimney that still stands.

Although you occasionally come across the deep cast-iron bowl, or copper, thrown away cracked and abandoned, or else serving as a water butt or cattle trough, this one survives in its original location even though the cottage itself is now just a shell. Whenever I pass by this way I stop to peep in at this curious relic which must once have been the focus of years of domestic slavery. Every Monday water would have to be hauled in buckets from the river, fortunately only yards away, to fill the copper, a fire lit underneath with sticks gathered from the woods around, and once the water was hot enough the family's laundry would be washed with soap and elbow grease - traditional woman's work of course that girls would learn at their mother's side from an early age. The wash day chores lasted until the clothes were dry - easy enough when pegged up outside in fine weather but otherwise the wet things would have to be hung around the open fire indoors, a cause of frustration and annoyance for all.

When I was quite little I was sometimes minded by a neighbour who lived in a cottage with a wash house only a bit more modern than this one, although with piped water I think. I have a clear memory of the copper, with a wooden lid, in one corner, next to it the mangle, and opposite a large rectangular sink and other mysterious items like a washing dolly, wash board, bluebag and starch. Although my mother washed by hand she didn't use these things and they intrigued me. One day the childminder suggested that next Monday I bring some of my dolls' clothes to go in the wash along with her laundry. But Monday was often the day when I went walking with my father and when he discovered that I was intending to stand him up in order to spend the day in a steamy wash house he was incensed. So I never got to use the copper and the mangle, never got to be initiated in the mysteries of an old-fashioned washday and that's the reason I leave a small bouquet to the domestic goddess who once performed her arduous rites at this neglected shrine.

The land around the old cottage has been cleared and a notice proclaims that planning permission has been applied for - I doubt the wash house will survive the modernization.

Edit

More stuff about coppers here and here.

Dolly Parton tells it like it was. [Sorry, this disappeared from my original posting.]