Mayo memories: A makeshift shower in the 1960s
By Tom Gillespie
WHEN I was a youngster, many decades ago, the Saturday evening bath was mandatory. You had to look your best for Sunday morning Mass. Back in those days it was a bath and not a shower.
There were three children in the Gillespie household in Marian Row in Castlebar.
The hot water for the bath came from a big tank in the kitchen, located in a hot press next to the Jubilee which had to be fired up for hours to heat the required amount of hot water.
The downside of the bathing was that just one bath full of hot water was filled so the first in it could lounge in the steamy, hot luxury for a few minutes. The second in had a less hot encounter while the third was lucky if the water was even lukewarm.
The upside, however, was that we took the ‘hot’ bath in turns each week so you were guaranteed a hot soak every three weeks.
From my point of view I preferred to go in second. The reason being that I spent Saturdays in the outdoors, climbing trees, tramping through fields and exploring hidden locations. Back then all the young boys wore short trousers, which resulted in scrapes and stings on the uncovered legs. So being immersed in hot water was torture, so the cooler water was preferable.
Pictured is a copy of the first shower hoses I installed in our bathroom. There was a hook high on the wall on which you attached the shower head.
However, before you could do that it was necessary to get the proper mix from the cold and hot taps to have the temperature right, and then, and only then, you put the shower head in the hook.
This, of course, took a bit of skill, as you had to position the shower head so that the water sprayed into the bath and not onto the floor of the bathroom. No such thing as shower curtains back then. Also you had to be careful one of the hoses did not have a kink in it, and if there was you were liable to get a shot of either freezing cold or steaming hot water. Not a pleasant experience, which usually resulted in the drenching of the bathroom floor as you attempted to rectify it.
The beauty of the ‘new’ shower, however, resulted in all of us having a hot scrub.
Staying in the bathroom, how many of you remember the big old fashioned, solid toilet seats on the loo. They were a curse to sit on as they were always freezing cold and it took some time for them to warm up before you could do your business.
The 24 houses in Marian Row had a scullery or pantry just off the kitchen - a dark room with two tiny windows with frosted glass. No fridges then so all foods were stored in the pantry. We did eventually get a fridge, from Kilkelly’s, I think. The scullery then became redundant and the shelves in that small room attracted all kinds of unwanted articles and soon became cluttered.
We didn’t get our first rented black and white television from Kilkelly TV, which was positioned on top of the fridge in the kitchen. But not for the entire year.
Traditionally at Christmas the TV was moved, with great ceremony, to our sitting room at the front of the house, and returned to the kitchen on January 7, once the Christmas tree and decorations were taken down for another year.
My most vivid memory of the TV in the kitchen was the lunar module from Apollo II landing on the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969.
Another TV related memory, going back even further, was of a Tuesday evening when I returned from study at St. Gerald’s College to discover that my grandmother, Sarah Fahey, who resided with us, had passed away.
One of the programmes on the one channel RTÉ then was the Western spoof series ‘F-Troop’, with Forrest Tucker as Sergeant Morgan O’Rourke, and it aired on Tuesday evenings. But not that evening in our house.
As a mark of respect to the dear departed the TV was switched off until after her funeral, a solemn tradition back then in all households.
In the 1960s there was no need to lock your front or back doors. They were left unlocked 24/7 while the more cautious householder had the front door key tied onto a piece of string which hung inside the letterbox and could be retrieved by putting your hand in the letterbox.
Likewise, when visiting neighbours or next door school pals there was no need to knock. You just opened the back door and entered the kitchen as if you were one of the family.
The back door was most common in use while the front door was reserved for more important visitors. And certainly if there was a knock on the front door - no bells then - it had to be someone important.
Very few, if any, had a telephone. The best way of communications then was your mother calling you from the front door. If you didn’t hear her you can be sure one of our neighbours did, and you eventually got the message to go home - for your dinner, at lunchtime and teatime, then, was in the evening, which often consisted of scrambled eggs or beans on toast. As a treat we occasionally got a slice of a batch loaf with butter and raspberry or strawberry jam.
Ah, those were the days!