Mr & Mrs Day, Sebastopol, South Wales

Mr & Mrs Day lived in a very old cottage along a cobbled street under the Mountain.   Most of the houses in the row were made from large stones which were kept freshly whitewashed.   There were steps up from the street with old fashioned flowers showing their colours against the dazzling white.

            Mrs Day was tiny even to my child's eyes and Mr Day was not much taller.   Mrs Day wore a small lace cap and a long woollen skirt, tall buttoned boots and a black cardigan or sometimes a small black shawl.   I can never remember her wearing any colours other than black, grey or white.

            Mum was employed to help Mrs Day with the weekly wash.   No washing machines then, this was a long hard process.   First the water had to be collected from the well at the other end of that cobbled street.   The well ws a small stone archway at the side of the road.   Sometimes there would be a frog and mum would move it to the side.   Buckets would have to be plunged down into the water which was engineered to stay level with the pavement.  

These buckets we would carry back to the cottage and up the stone steps around to the wash house.   These steps were very large and some had pieces missing from age making them very difficult for a small child to manoeuvre and nearly impossible with my small water bucket.   This procedure continued until the stone wash boiler was full.   Rarely was I allowed further than the door of the washhouse because of the boiling water, but I remember the whitewashed stone built boiler in the corner.   Mum would light a stick and coal fire underneath through a small opening underneath.  The washing was placed in the boiler by removing a circular wooden lid.   Various baths and bowls were used to decant the scalding washing and apply starch for stiffness and the bluebag to improve whiteness.

            The bluebag was similar to the blue chalk used by snooker players and was wrapped in a white muslin bag.   It would turn the water, and your hands, deep blue, but the sheets would adopt a blue-white making them look sparkling.   Often if we passed a cottage whose walls were painted blue, or someone had decorated their kitchen a deep blue, my mother would comment "Someone's been at the bluebag."   Apparently it was a cheap and easy way of colouring whitewash.   A little less gruesome than the pink achieved by using pig’s blood.

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            A large mangle with wooden rollers and a dolly and wooden dolly tub were near the door and I was allowed to help mum fold and mangle the sheets.   The pressure on the rollers was adjusted by a wheel at the top, the more pressure, the flatter the sheets would be, requiring less ironing later.

            When I got bored with watching all this endeavour, I would go off to find Mr Day.   His garden extended around three sides of the house, and was organised with fruit and vegetables at the back of the house and flowers at the front and side. While my mum helped Mrs Day, I could wander around to my heart's content. Admiring the crocosmia, and sniffing the roses.   

             The outside toilet was along a brick path made dark by overhanging laurel and fruit trees on either side, and huge spiders webs.   I never went inside, afraid of finding the owners.  

less scary and less cobwebs than in the 1950s

            Each plot in the garden at the rear contained a great variety of vegetables and was surrounded by very neatly trimmed box hedging.   I was always given a bunch of flowers from the side garden to take home.   I remember always choosing the bright orange crocosmia and silver old-man's-beard.   I was only allowed to choose if Mr Day asked if I wanted flowers.   I would have received a hard slap across the legs if ever I had deemed to ask for flowers without Mr Day initiating the conversation.

            Mrs Day made fruitcake, although I never saw her do it, because whenever I went with my mum it was washday, not baking day.   After all the washing was done and the whitest of blue-white sheets were billowing in the wind to day, well supported by a sturdy wooden prop, of course, we would be invited into the dark little cottage for coffee and fruitcake.

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            The coffee was made with boiled milk and even though I was told to blow it, I walways burnt my tongue.    But it was such a treat sitting there like a grown-up with the others, sipping my coffee and eating that wonderful cake.   I would gaze out of the window of the dark little room, almost like watching television, and see the pink and red roses, knowing I could go and touch their velvet-like petals and smell their glorious perfume.   What a shame that many roses nowadays, although pest resistant, have lost those heavenly scents.

            Although I remember the dear old couple and their cottage, I can only remember one specific incident, probably because it was my first encounter with that horrible feeling,  embarrassment.   I had been playing on the oversized uneven stone steps when I slipped and sat in a puddle, getting my knickers soaking wet.   With no children in the house, there were no clothes for me to change into, but my mother had the solution.   She took off her headsquare and my knickers and tied the scarf around my behind.   How the three of them laughed at my paisley nappy, it was such a joke.   To complete my humiliation I then had to walk home through the village.   I felt the whole world was laughing.