Different jobs 

As young children there were not the opportunities to earn any money, but there was always plenty of things to do. It is probably thanks to several members of the family (my mother for working, or having to, as well as my older sisters), that not only did we learn to ‘do the dishes’ (that means washing AND drying, not loading an automatic dishwasher), we also learnt to cook. This has been a skill that has stayed with me for my life and, even today has been an enormous benefit in maintaining any independence. It has made a lot of people happy, and prior to the need for licences, even allowed me to walk in cold to a restaurant and hold down a job as a chef. (of sorts, but more on that in a later blog)

(And yes, I know by all these sidetrack stories (religion, Inquisition and toffee apples) and issues, I am delaying the end of the kite saga and the punishment I was to receive, but I can’t believe that any of you are only hanging out to hear of the suffering I went through. Doesn’t anyone care?)

It was always interesting in our house when it was time to do the dishes. There were often arguments over who would do what. There was of course the stacking of plates and pans, the washing, the drying and the putting away. The person who had to dry tended to have to be there the longest. The person stacking and putting away could be there at the start, then have a break and come back last. The person washing was generally first away from the sink. Of course they would often be called back to finish wiping down the bench (only on the side the plates and such were stacked on. The other side was the job of persons drying).

I often thought it was the stacking of dishes that was sometimes most important. Also scraping the plates after a roast sometimes had its’ bonuses (don’t tell me you never picked at a piece of crispy potato edge or skin from the roast that someone hadn’t eaten, when scraping the plates? mmmm).

However, as a result of the fluctuating times for the different duties, most of us wanted to wash, but that also depended on age and pain tolerance. For the large number of plates and pans we had, you needed to wash in ‘very’ hot soapy water. The sink I remember most was when I was around eight years of age, where the washing was a single sink for washing and rinsing. So if you filled the sink too full you couldn’t rinse the plates before drying. It was important when organising the space for washing, making sure you wouldn’t have to change the water and suds more than once. Making sure the glasses were first through. Even today I hear the voice of my mother, “Make sure you wash the glasses first in the hot clean water”. It worked. I still do.

(continued tomorrow)