Free Gift from the Gallowgate by Doris; Davidson Page A

about it myself, but Miss Ross had inspired me towards creative writing, so I took in some of my stories for Mrs Sheriffs to read; short schoolgirl-type plots. She
told me I should think of taking up writing as a career, but it would be over fifty years before I was able to take her advice.
    Whoever was finished their allotted task first had to clean the silver with bathbrick or some other little job that only needed doing occasionally, but after lunch, we had to sit down in a
circle and add a bit to the large rug that several schools had taken a hand in. The design was stamped on the canvas and the rug wool was cut into the appropriate lengths – I found this
activity quite soothing.
    We got out half an hour earlier than normal, and there was a large grocery shop across the road, which, I discovered, sold a pennyworth of soft brown sugar in a poke. Now, I’m not too sure
about this, but the bus fare from where I lived to get me to Skene Square School was either a ha’penny or a whole penny. Whichever, I bought a poke of the delicacy (if I have a bag of this in
the house nowadays, I still dip my finger in like I did as a child) and then I walked all the way home, revelling in the sweetness and making sure that I wiped off all evidence of it from hands and
mouth before going into the house.
    The two in the kitchen were always last, of course, because they had to clean up after the meal, but we all had to take our turn at that. On the whole what we were served was quite palatable and
I don’t know how the others felt, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of my time in that flat . . . well, maybe not so much when it came to cleaning the bathroom.
    My ‘housewifery’ course prompted my mother to shanghai me into helping her with the washing. ‘You’ve got a washing machine,’ I objected, not that
I ever paid much attention to this side of things.
    ‘It still needs somebody to turn the handle,’ Mum said, firmly.
    And so I was initiated into this weird and wonderful – and back-breaking – chore. The cumbersome piece of
apparatus – bigger than a modern automatic, and much, much heavier – was dragged out on its sturdy legs from its hidey-hole under the sink and the procedure began. First, a hose had to
be attached to the hot tap; the water was heated by the coal fire but it never came anywhere near boiling point. Then Mum went down on her knees to light the gas ring underneath the monster. I was
terrified of matches and gas rings, so she didn’t even think of asking me to do it.
    While the water was being brought up to the necessary heat, the dirty clothes were sorted out; whites in one pile on the kitchen lino, light colours in another, dark colours well apart,
otherwise sheets and towels would be liable to turn blue, or red, or whatever got in with them by mistake. The piles were quite big; one or two of the lodgers put their things in too, although some
took their laundry home to their mothers at the weekends. Then the ropes were put out, starting at one of the four poles on the drying green, continuing round the square and then diagonally
across.
    Now began the actual washing. The lid had been placed on top of the clothes, and the handle was ready for turning, its wooden knob at the end of the agitator that came up through a hole in the
middle and lay across the top in an L shape.
    The process wasn’t as simple as turning a handle round and round, unfortunately. I had to push my hand forwards and back, forwards and back, ad infinitum, which moved the bottom part of
the agitator through the clothes, churning them hither and thither. After less than five minutes, my right arm was so sore that I had to turn round and use my left arm, and so on until the slave
mistress deemed that the clothes would be clean enough and I could stop.
    But this wasn’t the end! Oh, dear me, no! With a pair of wooden tongs, white with so much immersion in water, I had to take out each article, let it drip for a few