1950s Not So Clean ................................................................





I read somewhere that the first Queen Elizabeth was thought eccentric because she bathed twice a year. The phrase 'personal freshness' pops into mind eh?

I can only speak for the English in the 1950s. No idea how the rest of the world handled its epidermis back then.

Today I can't bear to go to bed without a shower. Back in the days of my teens the choice wasn't there, nor, for the most part was the hot water.

Then, we bathed once a week. Usually one specific night was set aside for 'bath-night.' There was only one bathroom for the several flats.


If I may, I'll try and describe the scene I remember in 1955? I'd be living by then with my mother and stepfather in a 'flat' somewhere in south London.

The flat (apartment) was one of several in a large house. Our designated bath night was perhaps Thursday.

When my turn came, I suppose I set off, soap and towel in hand. I seem to remember the bathroom as a cold and cheerless place with a huge, cast iron, white-enamelled bathtub.

Perched at the end of the bath was a huge copper device. I remember the reddish, bare copper and the hints of green copper oxide. This was the water boiler. It was gas fired. (Coal gas in those days, piped to houses from the local gasworks).

Lighting said boiler was a mildly hazardous, rather exciting process. A lever had to be swung out, this was for the pilot light. Using matches this was lit and swung back in, turning on the gas with a loud hiss. After a long pause the main burner would ignite with a deep noted "Whooomph".
White powdery deposits would rain down into the bath. With ignition established the hot water was turned on and in due course hot water would issue forth.

Bearing in mind the admonition: "Don't use too much water, we have to pay for the gas!" I'd run my bath, turn off the roaring monster, add sufficient cold water and climb in.

There was little luxuriating in the hot water. It cooled too fast in that big tub and cold, cold bathroom. With loofah and flannel and Lifebouy soap I'd remove my dirt coating. A grey ring of soap and dirt and dead skin cells would form at water level around the tub and a coating too on the water's surface.

Then, reluctantly, I'd climb out, dry off and try to remember to clean out the tub with Vim.

And there I was, skinny, shivering and reasonably clean for another week.


Even in the 50s many people were still bathing in a tin tub in front of the fire, with water being supplied from pans of water boiled on the stove. In the generation before mine this was doubtless the rule, rather than the exception.

The good old days weren't always that good. But intimacy doubtless had more 'atmoshere' back then!