Hello there ...
What is it about this time of year ....it always starts us off thinking of yesteryear ... the whys and wherefores .. what .. who .. and why..
what happened to such and such..
the memories.
Even the everyday ... things we live with can get us thinking.
I've got a thing about soap .. yes I know ... 'Another Thing'!
But I love soaps ... especially the old chunky sort ...
The sort that our grandmothers would have used on a daily basis for all the cleaning jobs ... from floors to dishes to the children's hair.
As you can see I have some on the windowsill in the kitchen that I use ... I wash my hands with it and dab my scourer on it to rub stubborn stains on pans ...or whatever.
I just love these old boxes of soap ... just fab ...
Perfection .. of course .. what more needs to be said!
And this pink one is just wonderful .... it even smells healthy ....goodness knows whats in it.
The soap is always there on the windowsill ... so why start musing on soap ...?
well I found a couple of little pinny's.
Just like Gran use to wear ... the pull over your head ... like a dress .. and tie well around your ample figure ... all good stout cotton....
they all use to wear them ... ladies of a certain age ... it was like a uniform...
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This particular one even has its label on saying Made in Lancashire ... I grew up in Lancashire and the towns were mill towns .. producing cotton and all manor of cotton products...
and as it states here 'Sterling cloth'.
Many a morning the fresh bright colours could be seen wrapped about a stout matron nipping to the corner shop for her fags ...
I remember walking to my friends house .. she lived in town ... amongst the rows of terraced houses built originally for the workers of the mills...as we dawdled through the cobbled streets many a Mum would be outside with a bucket and scrubbing brush .. sprucing up the front of the house ... and in that bucket lurked a bar of the hard soap.
Windowsills .. doors and steps would be scrubbed and sluiced down. Not many 'donkey stoned' the front step when I was a child .. that had mostly died out .. but still the houseproud ladies scrubbed off the grime of a industrial Lancashire town.
And I loved this little label .. you just wouldn't get this nowadays would you!
Of course its just a passing piece of treasure .. nice to have a while ... nice to have the memories ... but it will go to a new home to make its own memories ... its on ebay .. its new owner awaits.
Whats brought back the memories for you this week ... happy ones I hope?
xx
what an amazing find the history, that is different soap than i have ever saw, you certainly have some treasures, it a blizzard here tonight, can't see a hand in front of your face,
ReplyDeleteDo keep warm and safe. Glad you enjoyed the post.
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wonderful post!
ReplyDeleteThank you Annie.
DeleteI think the pink soap is carbolic soap. I remember it from boarding school. It was called Lifebuoy and it's still available. One sniff and I get transported back... love those granny pinnies, too. xx
ReplyDeleteI do love the smell of carbolic ... and coal tar which is proberably the same kind of thing.
DeleteGlad it brought back some memories.
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Lifebuoy was certainly pink, one sniff and I am transported back to my Nan add a whiff of TCP and I am in nostalgia heaven. My mum was a whizz with big blocks of green Fairy soap and she remembered having to grate it as a child for wash day. I carried on the tradition of always having a big block of Fairy in my arsenal of 'scrubbing' solutions. Worked like a charm on lots of stains. Don't know about north of the 'Wash' but down here the uniform pinny wear was a wrap over version of your over the head style. My late mother in law was an out worker for one of the factories making them. She used her treadle machine and was elated when she could afford the electric motor that made her life easier and quicker. I still have a huge bag of bias binding that she used.So I have been reliably informed, the sense of smell is the last sense to go. Only need to say 'lemon' and I bet everyone has a lemon memory. Mine is of my mum getting some Lap san sou cheoung tea in the mid 50's and us being very swanky and drinking it with lemon instead of milk.
ReplyDeleteFunny that sense of smell thing ... the least whiff of something and memories come flooding back.
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I still use the 'green' one now, when it can be found to buy!! Love the pinny, may have a look online later at that and your other treasures. X
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to find .. we have a great old fashioned hardwear store that still stocks it .. and of course if I see any really old blocks I snap them up.
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Alright, just WHERE did you get my mum's soap dish from?!!! Gosh, I remember it so well. And big bars of Fairy soap, and Camay in the bathroom if you were "posh", and carbolic, and tins of solid chalky blocks of strawberry-flavour toothpaste, and Izal looroll.
ReplyDeleteLove the pinny too, Made in Lancashire - blimey. No cotton industry there these days. The patchwork shop I go to was saying ALL cotton prints are imported these days, there is not ONE factory printing cotton fabrics in the UK. What a loss.
Lovely nostalgic post . . .
I found the soap dish at the boot .. in a box .. as you do .. of course!
DeleteI think all of life turns up in a box at the car boot sale eventually!
Yes its sad the and worrying that we have no real manufacturing industry left in this country ..
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What brought back memories for me ... this post. Memories of my granny wearing her pinny with it's seemingly bottomless pocket on the front, always containing her 10 No. 6 cigarettes and matches, hair pins, hankies and if I was lucky the odd wrapped Nuttalls Mintoe.
ReplyDeleteHappy days, thanks for the memory.
Have a good weekend.
Ooo yes .. did all grannies have mintoes? Is it.. was it a pre requisite for a granny to have a stash of sweeties!
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Often it's the smell of something that takes me right back.My mum would wear MaGriffe (I can't spell it!) and I'm sure that would be a blast from the past if I smelt some now. This week I have actually braved some christmas decorations, so some of those bring back very happy memories.
ReplyDeleteYes indeedy .. Christmas decs ... I have a disabled Fairy .. she has only one arm .. I can only ever remember her having the one arm .. she has grown old with me from early childhood .. happy days.
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I love reading your posts Vicky, they always transport me back to my childhood, with lots of lovely memories. My grannie always wore one of those pinnies, she was a huge old dragon of a woman and scared me to death half the time. I remember being at her house and wanting to help by bringing the milk off the front step, I shook the bottle up to mix in the cream....oops!! she tore a strip off me for doing so as that was her treat in a cup of tea!! My other grannie was as soft as putty and smelt of lux soap and ponds face cream....she was my favourite :-) Happy days indeed xx
ReplyDeleteThankyou .. I do enjoy blogging it gives me a chance to indulge in my memories..
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My gran lived in Atherton, just past Leigh, Lancs. I do remember them donkey stoning the steps but where I lived, in Warrington, people were a bit more up to date and didn't do it.
ReplyDeleteI do remember those pinnies. Didn't they all look old? I can't imagine I am older than they would have been and just can't think of myself as old.
My gran lived in Atherton, just past Leigh, Lancs. I do remember them donkey stoning the steps but where I lived, in Warrington, people were a bit more up to date and didn't do it.
ReplyDeleteI do remember those pinnies. Didn't they all look old? I can't imagine I am older than they would have been and just can't think of myself as old.
I grew up in Manchester and remember my nana wearing her pinny, just like that one. I would go to her house every Saturday morning to do her shopping (at the corner store) and then I had to 'cream stone' her front steps. I remember getting the cream stone from the rag and bone man. My mum always had a bar of fairy soap at the sink. I remember carbolic soap from school and my dad loved the smell of it, I hated it.
ReplyDeleteWe called those pinnies "house dresses" here in the US. My gradmother wore them for housework but would not leave the house in one..you had to change into a proper dress. I think she was in her 60's when we convinced her she could wear trousers! Don't remember any of the strong soaps, tho...
ReplyDeleteMy gran had pinnies like that.
ReplyDeleteThose 'pinnies' are still popular here; mostly with women over 50-ish. I also had a Welsh Aunt who wore one back in the 80's.
ReplyDeleteOooh glad I found you were selling that pinny before the end of the sale, have managed to get a bid in as it's a big pinny. I remember having my mouth washed out with soap like that once by my nanny for saying something bad, don't know what it was, she always wore pinnies like that though.
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