The Nostalgia column with Margaret Watson: Changes at a flick of a switch

The children will still have their Easter eggs but there won’t be any grandparents around to watch them tuck in.

But social distancing is saving lives and helping the NHS cope with the insurmountable task ahead, so we must support them.

Let us instead get on with things as best we can and look back on happier times, knowing in our hearts they will return.

I look back on my childhood often and can still laugh at things which seemed horrible at the time.

I was born in 1941 and experienced massive changes, especially the arrival of electricity into our house, which had previously been lit by gas.

Our gas mantle which had cast shadows around the room, was replaced by an electric bulb which gave instant light at the flick of a switch.

The long-handled brush which swept our carpets was replaced by an upright vacuum cleaner with a suction power so great it lifted the carpet off the floor.

The flat iron heated on the coal fire, was replaced by an electric one with a thermostat which meant we no longer had to spit on it to test if it was hot enough.

Neither did we have to rely on lighted newspaper to light our way down the cellar for coal because our electric light now guided our way.

As a child, fetching up coal was the fear of my life because I never knew if there was a Vampire or Zombie lurking there.

How I managed to shovel up any coal I’ll never know because I always did it with my eyes tightly closed.

But the greatest boon by far in our house was the electric washer which overnight changed the lives of women up our street.

I’ll never forget the day our first washer – an upright Hoover – arrived into our home, and the fuss it caused.

How could anything so small do an entire family wash all on its own we wondered – but it did.

Mother treated it with great respect, just like she did with any favourite piece of furniture, covering it with a pretty lace cloth and standing a vase of flowers on it.

Prior to the invention of the electric washer, washing day was the day all children and dads dreaded because of all the upheaval it caused.

The house, smelling of soda and bleach, was turned upside down with everyone wandering around in a frenzy of soap suds.

The water was boiled in a set-pot at the side of the sink and then transferred to a zinc tub into which were placed the clothes to be washed.

These were “possed” with an instrument called a “posser” to get out as much dirt as possible.

Then taken out one by one with wooden tongs to be given thorough rubbing by mother on a zinc rubbing board.

Any stains which persisted were scrubbed out on the kitchen table, again by mother, whose arms were like navvies and strong enough to do it well.

Another sister would “twind” the washed garments through the huge wooden rollers of the mangle to squeeze out as much water as possible.

Some in my family still bear the scars of those days, none more so than my sister Doreen who once got a finger trapped in the mangle and lost the end of it.

She had been so fascinated watching the sheets going through the rollers, she decided to follow them with her fingers.

Such painful memories, however, were soon put to one side when our new washer arrived.

We knew nothing about electricity but my older brother Joseph managed to wire a three-point plug to the flex hanging from the washer.

This he stuck into an electric socket, and the washer took off like a rocket with its agitator spinning at what seemed like a million rotations a minute.

We were all terrified as the washer began rumbling and shaking and started to move across the kitchen floor of its own volition..

We all panicked and rushed out into the street, except Joseph who had the presence of mind to switch it off before it went into orbit.

It seemed all the rattling and rolling had been caused by the washer being placed on an uneven stone floor which was soon rectified by placing a mat under it.

Wash day was never the same after that.

Neither was life.

Happy Easter xxx.

○ Does anyone know relatives of A P Seddon who played for Cleckheaton Amateur Football Club and was presented with a gold medal in 1911?

The medal has been found by a metal detector in Wigan who would like to return it to his family. Please email [email protected] if you have any details.