HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[Stanley]

It's a good thing occasionally to completely fill the sink with water and let it go to flush the waste pipe. If all is well as it finally empties the waste pipe will suck on the water in the trap and you'll hear a gulping noise. If it doesn't do this it may be a good idea to clean the pipe with a hot soda solution or something similar. Too late when you find you have a blockage!

[Cathy]

But Stanley isn't that what happens everytime you wash-up anyway??

[Stanley]

It is with some people Cathy but others like me never use a sink full of water because I never have a big wash up. If you get the gurgle as it empties you are OK, the pipes are clear. In the days of the old stone slopstones they were just that, a way of catching the slops or splashes from the container you were using to hold the washing up water. That and the narrow lead waste pipes meant that you soon got a slow drainer. The lead had another draw-back, it tended to collect fat on the walls by a physical action that I don't quite understand.

[chinatyke]

The lead had another draw-back, it tended to collect fat on the walls by a physical action that I don't quite understand.

Wasn't this property used at Esholt Waste water works to collect on lead plates some of the wool grease from the influent?

[Stanley]

That's right China and as far as I know it still is. The fat was used for making margarine during WW2. When you think about it it's the only way you can recover lanolin. Used mainly in cosmetics and soaps of course.....
My father was a great fan of sewage sludge for the garden. One thing I noted was that there were always tomato plants growing out of the heap as it sat at the top of the garden. The tomato seeds are so tough they survive the purification process and burst into life again.
Another surprising use for crap was the use of the dry litter from deep litter broiler houses as an additive in animal feed, it was very high in protein. I wonder whether that still happens?

[Stanley]

When everyone had a coal fire the main defence against slugs in the garden was to scrape soot off the fire-back and make a ring round vulnerable plants. The slugs hated crawling over the soot.

[Cathy]

Heard two strange household tips yesterday... don't know maybe they aren't really strange...
No 1 . When heating your pies in the microwave, turn the pie upsidedown so as not to get a 'soggy bottom'.
No 2 . Instead of paying a high cost for dental floss, use a good quality sewing cotton (reel) used for clothes sewing/ machines etc.
Haven't tried either, what do you think??

[Stanley]

I suppose it depends on the pies. If the pastry is old fashioned hot water pastry it won't go soggy whichever way up the pie is. If they are upside down the jelly will melt out of them. Having said that, the Australian meat pie is a slightly different beast than the traditional British ones.
As for the dental floss, I don't use it on my pot gobblers but totally feasible particularly if you put some tooth paste on the cotton.

[Cathy]

I think I am talking Balfours or Villies pies Stanley, both mass-made and bought not home-made, and come to think of it you probably wouldn't know Villies but do you remember Balfours?? They are definately an Adelaide icon. What sort of pastry are they, I don't know (jeez) ... pie pastry and not flaky

[Stanley]

Don't worry about it too much Cathy. I have survived having a soggy bottom many a time!
During the coal shortages after WW2 we could only get 'Nutty Slack' which was the dross that used to be thrown away and tipped on what people insist on calling 'slag heaps' but which are actually 'spoil heaps'. (Slag heaps are the mountains of dross from the furnaces produced during iron-smelting and steel-making). We soon leaned that if you got a bright coke fire going and put the nutty slack on sparingly we could burn it. Another trick was to bed a piece of cast iron in the centre of the fire, once you had got that red hot it coked the slack and it burned reasonably well.
That reminds me of the cast iron cheek pieces you could buy. One on each side of the fire cut down on the grate size and meant you used less coal.

[Stanley]

I looked up cast iron coal savers and you can still get them online! Quite amazing how they have survived.
The other essential element of the domestic fire was the copper back boiler. The front face was always exposed to the fire but there was an alternative flue that went under the boiler, up the back and into the flue at a higher level than a cast iron hinged damper in the throat of the flue. If you wanted more hot water you closed the damper and the fire roared under the boiler. The water was held in a copper cylinder upstairs, usually in the bathroom. It heated the room and the cupboard was always known as 'the airing cupboard' because ironed washing was stored in there until it was perfectly dry. You had to work for your comfort in those days!

[Stanley]

Sometimes on a cold night with a big fire the water in the back boiler started boiling which wasn't good for it or the lead pipes in the flue. The cure was to go and turn the hot tap on and let it run to waste until enough cold water had got into the system to stop the boil. Exciting stuff!

[Stanley]

We sometimes forget how we had to rely on ourselves 70 years ago. I was thinking about the amount of time that was spent making sure the fire-grate was clean and raking ash and coals out of the space under the back boiler to maximise efficiency. Then there was bringing the coal in and taking the ashes out. Nowadays we have a gas engineer check the boiler for safety and efficiency once a year. Question is, what do we do with the time this saves?

[Cathy]

We go on the internet Stanley...

[Stanley]

I have nothing against that as it means we keep in touch. However watching TV where people are encouraged to fight each other leaves me stone cold....Have you ever kept a minute by minute time log of a day and studied it afterwards? It can be a fascinating exercise....

[Cathy]

Ha! No I haven't Stanley, I think it would do my head in . But at the end of each day I do go thru all the things I am grateful for.

[Stanley]

That's a good habit Cathy. When I was a lad things were a bit dodgy of course because of the war in general and the bombing in particular and my mother was always telling me to 'Count your blessings'. Another common phrase when something was scarce or missing or went wrong was 'What do you expect? There's a war on!'. A bit like the excuses we get today 'The computer is down'. It covered a multitude of sins.

[Stanley]

Soot from the open fire made a good if abrasive tooth whitener. There may have been some chemical effect as well. Not recommended.

[Stanley]

There used to be a pink paste cleaner called Chemico which had abrasive in it and was good for cleaning pans etc. It was also used as a hand cleaner and was savage stuff! I've just looked it up on the web and it is still available.

[Stanley]

Cut holes in the bottoms of the internal doors so your cat can have free range round the house to catch mice. I first saw this in the Old Toll House at Pendle heritage where I had an office.

[LizG]

Leave the doors open??

A friend of mine had a mouse or rat running around the inside of the walls. He got home from work and his wife had cut a hole in the plaster to let it out - didn't work!

[Stanley]

They need a good mouser or a Jack Russell Liz!

[chinatyke]

We sometimes forget how we had to rely on ourselves 70 years ago. I was thinking about the amount of time that was spent making sure the fire-grate was clean and raking ash and coals out of the space under the back boiler to maximise efficiency.

Sorry for the late reply. That brought back memories from my childhood. We used a coal rake but it was always pronounced colrake and I thought that was the real name of this implement. We used nutty slack to bank up the fire and keep it slowly burning all night.

[Stanley]

We had one as well China and my mother soon got me into cleaning the back flue out for her when the grate was cold. The implements for the system of flues round the oven on the old fashioned range was even more complicated. Little cast iron doors had to be lifted off and ell the flues kept clean. Those ovens were lovely for baking, a very even slow heat.

[Stanley]

A 'cottage range' at Newbiggin in 1979. A smaller and more modern version of the big range above but same principle apart from the fact that this one had a back boiler. It was in the house of a family that were still getting concessionary coal from the NCB and so saw a lot of use. Easier to clean, no black leading or polished steel. Porcelain enamel was the modern way.