The Poss Tub

[Maggie/915]

The old poss tubs and posers may be needed when the electricity runs out.

Anyone still say the wash house or are they now potting sheds.

Anyone still got a mangle.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Please Maggie, the poss tub was in the wesh hoose; the old newspaper in ootside netty, and the heating fuel in the coal cree.

One does try and educate the grandchildren of the simplicity of today's living, buying a house with a fitted washer/dryer already in place in the kitchen; downstairs cloakroom and a thermostat control in the entrance hall.

So we have no manual appliances left. The last to go was the tin bath. It spent the last 15 years as a large plant pot but the bottom finally fell oot.

A question for you Maggie. As the old ariy house have been knocked down, around the oval = Coquetale Place, Fontburn Avenue etc. the old ootside building with wesh hoose;cree & netty will have been knocked down. Does anyone know if these buildings, like the houses were modernised/rebuilt, without the coal cree of course?

[Symptoms]

In the early 1980s I was developing properties in London from big single family jobs into flats. One of these places had a courtyard with a series of attached buildings. I applied for planning permission to convert the house and the collection of courtyard buildings into flats but was refused permission to convert the outbuildings ... refused on change of use to 'domestic'. I was able to prove on appeal that courtyard buildings always had been 'domestic' so didn't need change of use approval; my proof was the existance of a poss-boiler in the corner of one of the buildings ... I was able to argue that clothes laundering was a domestic activity and the courtyard buildings therefore had always been used for domestic purposes. The beast was a brick-built cube with an arched fireplace below and a chimney out the rear, let into the top was an enormous cast iron cauldron, maybe two feet in dia for boiling the clothes before they were to be mashed with a poss stick (or dolly).

My Granny had a 'ribbed' galvanised steel poss-tub and a wooden poss-stick and I remember her using them in the mid 1950s - good exercise! There was also a big cast iron framed mangle with wooden rollers.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Symptoms

[Maggie/915]

There are still wash houses and coal sheds in Bedlington.

Should posers be with a double ss.

My I products change it!

[Symptoms]

Yes ... always a double s. Maggs - teach the Is to behave properly.

[wonky]

The old poss tubs and posers may be needed when the electricity runs out.

Anyone still say the wash house or are they now potting sheds.

Anyone still got a mangle.

i was working in the shed earlier this evening and my wife brought in my tea on a tray because i was too dirty for to be let in the kitchen..it was pork chops and veg..i mangled that..lol

[paul mann]

On one o' me last trips te Bedlin'ton I went te me aahd hoose at 27 West Lea and was amazed te find the coal hoose and the wesh hoose still intact.

[Maggie/915]

Today houses have very little storage area.

I prefer the time warp approach.

The thought that every time you move house you need a new bathroom etc, seems wasteful and unnecessary.

[Maggie/915]

An old Aunt died the other year and in her bathroom she still had, in use, the poss stick.

She had an automatic washing machine but still believed in the simple life.

Relatives from the South had no idea what the poss stick was, let alone what it would do

[Symptoms]

Remember the shuttering boards used to keep the coal in place in the coal hoose? As the hoose was filled the shuttering would be added to act as a sort of dam, as the coal was removed for the fire the stockpile would get lower so the top board would be removed. The removal process would be repeated until the hoose was nearly empty. The shuttering was held in place by the door frame. Did these shuttering boards have a local name?

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Remember the shuttering boards used to keep the coal in place in the coal hoose? As the hoose was filled the shuttering would be added to act as a sort of dam, as the coal was removed for the fire the stockpile would get lower so the top board would be removed. The removal process would be repeated until the hoose was nearly empty. The shuttering was held in place by the door frame. Did these shuttering boards have a local name?

Can't remember one, we just called then 'planks' of wood. If you were posh you had tongued & grooved planks.

[Eileen]

I can remember an old washer in my parents wash house, or wesh hoose, it was a square green metal thing, it had a lid on top with a handle, you put your boiled water in and clothes, put the lid on and turned the handle, must have been hard work. I also remember my mam getting her first electric washing machine, with a mangle on the top. My younger brother was always getting into mischief, he must have been about 3 so il have been 7, i walked into the kitchen to see his arm going through the mangle, i can remember screaming and pulling his arm out, my mam had to make me a cup of tea to calm me down, she then took him to Mr Cole who was a first aid man at the pit, my brother got away with a bruised arm and never shed a tear, unlike me. Can anyone else remember Mr Cole.

[Maggie/915]

The boiler was in the wash house for white washing and the Parnall washer was in the kitchen or scullery.

Wash day was a Monday and I even remember the music playing on the light programme.

I hated wet Mondays and the washing drying inside.

Left overs for lunch/ dinner!

Happy Days.

Even fish on a Friday.

[Symptoms]

Maggs - you're right about Monday washday ... I also remember there being some Bye-laws preventing hanging laundry out on a Sunday.

With the advent of universal hire-purchase in the 1950s my parents bought an English Electric washing machine ... a big, square creamy green thing with a circular lift-off lid on top and an electric mangle above. The tub had a big aluminium vertical agitator inside. My Dad wore shirts with detachable collars so the collars were washed separately in the tub with starch and Dolly Blue; it was always my job as a nipper to remove the collarbones* before the wash and to replace them after ironing.

*collarbones for our younger viewers were 1/4" wide by about maybe 2" long strips of white plastic which slipped into small pockets at each end of the shirt collar, thus maintaining the collar shape, i.e. no curling. Years later these old collarbones were often use as 'emergency' guitar plectrums when the real one broke or couldn't be found.

Below is a picture of the beast (I found the snap on the web):

Edited July 16, 2013 by Symptoms

[BigTessi]

As the old ariy house have been knocked down, around the oval = Coquetale Place, Fontburn Avenue etc. the old ootside building with wesh hoose;cree & netty will have been knocked down. Does anyone know if these buildings, like the houses were modernised/rebuilt, without the coal cree of course?

Eggy, they didnt bother to rebuild them after they pulled the houses down, but they did provide the tenents with wooden sheds for storage instead.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Eggy, they didnt bother to rebuild them after they pulled the houses down, but they did provide the tenents with wooden sheds for storage instead.

Cheers Big Tessi. Everybody (sorry every female) needs storage. Wor lass would be lost without extra cupboards to store stuff that will never see the light of day until the kids have to clear the house out.

[Maggie/915]

What about the Golf clubs Eggy!

My spin on hoarding is that everyone has a secret stash!

We all hoard some bloody odd things.

Maybe another topic.

[Canny lass]

The beast was a brick-built cube with an arched fireplace below and a chimney out the rear, let into the top was an enormous cast iron cauldron, maybe two feet in dia for boiling the clothes before they were to be mashed with a poss stick (or dolly).

We had these 'beasts' at Netherton colliery as well Symptoms. They were in the back yard against the 'scullery' wall (scullery, there's a lovely word!)and quite a few families had built a roof between the scullery and the outhouses, that's to say the coal house, netty (another lovely word) and shelter. I've no idea why it was called a shelter. Some people even built a wall, making the whole thing into an extra room/wash house, where the mistress of the household could do the washing even on the wettest of days. However, the beasts were not for possing. They were too high. Clothes were lifted out into the poss tub for possing. I remember an all wooden poss stick but I also remember the advent of the copper poss stick Anybody else remember them? A weird and wonderful contraption consisting of a wooden handle with a hollow copper bulb on the lower end. This had several holes in varying sizes which allowed it to fill with water, making it heavier while possing but lighter to remove from the poss tub. Oh these new-fangled gadgets! I wonder if it ever caught on? Could this be the 'Dolly posser'? After the coming of the washing machine the old pot-boiler (as the beast was called in my home) didn't become obsolete. It was still used on washing day to heat the water for the machine. I don't know if this was because the machine didn't heat the water or if it was merely good housekeeping - coal was free to miners, electricity was not.

[Symptoms]

Here's a photo I found of the wash being done in a barrel ... the poss-stick can just be seen in the old girl's hands

[mickypotts]

and who remembers the place next to Reddifusion that fixed and rented washing machines,???

[John Fox (foxy)]

and who remembers the place next to Reddifusion that fixed and rented washing machines,???

Micky,

If you are talking about the shop in Vulcan Place it was called Forresters, they moved to Glebe Road and still run a successful business there although under different management.

[Keith Scantlebury]

They were at the Market Place before going to Glebe Road were'nt they Foxy ?

[Keith Scantlebury]

They were at the Market Place before going to Glebe Road were'nt they Foxy ?

[John Fox (foxy)]

They were at the Market Place before going to Glebe Road were'nt they Foxy ?

I remember them opposite the Whitley School Keith, or directly opposite Binks shop, the terrace backed on to Millne Park when the Mechanics played their matches there.

Edited August 20, 2013 by foxy

[John Fox (foxy)]

I remember them opposite the Whitley School Keith, or directly opposite Binks shop, the terrace backed on to Millne Park when the Mechanics played their matches there.