Gran's Brewhouse

Emily Elizabeth Powell nee Horton was a small red headed woman, whose nose I have inherited and in turn given to my youngest daughter Sarah, who also has red hair like her Great Grandmother. She and my Granddad Joe rented a cottage – one of many that were built over a hundred years ago to house farm labourers.  They were known for maximum rents and minimum comfort. The rents were still being collected during the war by the descendants of the Lord of the Manor, and the cottages were in acute disrepair.

The brew house stood some thirty yards away from a row of six cottages. It was originally built to brew beer, but not in Gran’s time or recollection. She said it had always been used as a wash house. The six cottagers took it in turn using the brew house, leaving Sunday as a day of rest and worship. It would be nice to think that the landlord, who sent a bullying fat man with a leather bag each Monday, arranged it so, but in fact there was no space for any more cottages. And even he couldn't have made the cottages any smaller. The brew house was made of brick, which was crumbling and desperately held together with green sticky mortar. The building was shabbily topped with a slate roof, with several holes in it.

Inside there was a copper boiler that was recessed into a brick rectangle with an iron door in it, which allowed coal to be placed under the boiler for a fire.  Gran said that no coal should be left for neighbours to use the next day. For although wartime Britain brought out the best in some people; it also brought out the worst. Coal was expensive in this coal producing area, and cash was short. Once a fortnight the coal man delivered each household’s ration; two bags were chucked down through the street grating into the cellar.

Next to the boiler in the brew house, was a large wooden barrel, which was encircled by two broad metal bands. The boiler and the barrel were laboriously filled with cold water, brought by buckets from one green fungus-coated tap, which was far enough from the brew house to add a lot of trudging back and forth to this already labour intensive job.   The water in the boiler was heated, and some shavings of soap dissolved in it.  The clothes were washed in the hot water, being thumped about with a large wooden implement called a ‘dolly’ or a ‘maid’, then fished out and placed in the barrel of cold water, with some Reckitt’s Blue added to whiten them, and were thumped about some more.   

The clothes were then man handled  (or more correctly woman handled, for I never saw a man wash clothes) into the big cast iron mangle. The mangle rested on a rusty iron frame, and was turned by hand, revolving two grease-encrusted sprockets, which in turn revolved two long worn wooden rollers that squeezed the excess water out of the clothes. Then the clothes were hung on the clothesline. It was hard work.

The floor was made of cobblestones, very uneven, and inevitably swimming in frothy water, which collected in innumerable cracks and crevices. Feet soon got wet. In the winter I wore my hard leather boots, with metal sprigs on the soles and horseshoes on the heels. The ‘Birmingham Mail’ subscribers donated these to us poor kids, as everyone at school knew. Gran dressed in a special way for wash day. She wore her oldest rusty black dress, a hessian sack around her waist, tied with a piece of string, and big black baggy boots on her feet.

As I turned the mangle we chatted about school, my numerous aunts and uncles, who were serving their country, and the latest bombing, but we always avoided conversations about Grandad and 'poor old Bill,' my father.  No point talking about unpleasant things.