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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: morris.merryweather on Wednesday 06 December 23 09:42 GMT (UK)
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From a 1868 diary entry - any idea's for the work after wash ?
'some thief stole some linning [assume means linen] out of the wash _______ at the back door.'
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The nearest that I can think of is a 'poncher', with various spellings. Maybe written as pounchore or similar here.
I've always thought it was a plunger type of tool rather than a container for clothes/washing. My mother had one in the 1940s!
http://www.oldandinteresting.com/laundry-ponches-punches.aspx
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Could it be something..store, where the washing was kept?
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I think the word might be panshon (what looks like an 're' at the end of the word is actually a rather elongated 'n').
A panshon/pancheon was an earthenware vessel, often used in the dairy, but also used for other purposes.
Various usages are listed in the Dialect Dictionary here https://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi04wrig/page/416/mode/2up?view=theater
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I withdraw my suggestion, just realised no bar on the letter I took to be a t :)
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I'll go with misspelled "pancheon".
A zinc wash pancheon was one of the prizes in a celery and vegetable show in Sheepshed in 1883 (for 15th place in the Three Sticks of Celery class):
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Assuming it's a vessel in which dirty clothes were washed or soaked, I'd say a tin (zinc coated iron) bath or wooden tub is most likely, earthenware being rather fragile. The word meant is probably pancheon, as others have said.
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Mr G has images for pancheons!!
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Pancheon seems much better than my earlier attempt!
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My Grandma had a Pancheon that she used for baking bread, she would prove it in the oven in the Black Range.
Carol
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Compare the word Puncheon which is a size of large beer barrel. I think you could get a lot of clothes in that.
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Yes, my mother used the word pancheon, for a big earthenware container, used it to put the things that needed Dolly Blue ( it made white things look whiter, and was put in the starching water, an optical illusion.)
In Shropshire it was a wooden handled sort of pan but not flat bottomed,used to scoop water from the rainwater butt.
Viktoria.
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Let's face it. It could have been anything that the house used for it's washing. I presume before the time of terrifying copper sticks :'( Which would have been out in the yard at night because the process needed more time.
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Yes,I seem to remember our pancheon had originally been my maternal grandma’s - used to prove bread dough ,they were a large family .
Why were copper sticks terrifying ?
Viktoria.
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I have to admit that I’d never heard the word ‘pancheon’ until a few years ago, when I read the actor Tom Courtenay’s delightful book ‘Dear Tom’. In this he describes his early life in Hull, and mentions his mother making bread in a pancheon.
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Thanks for the replies. I'll go with pancheon, although in an entry 9 years earlier he used the correct spelling for pancheon...
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That looks like pancheon to me.
I wish I knew why copper sticks were terrifying!
Do you mean the wooden sticks used to stir and move around the clothes in the copper boiler?
Were they used for a punishment - or just threats.?
Viktoria.
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Sorry Victoria. Yes, I was threatened with the copper stick in my early years. Terrifying was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. They were strong enough to poke down boiling sheets and bleached through use. The holder was flushed with wash day exertion which could be interpreted as fury by a teeny. I can't remember which Nan, or if it was even Mum, who might have nurtured this fear. Maybe there was an earlier use for punishment, but I certainly didn't any have fractures or bruising.
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Thanks,I was smacked rarely , and never by the kind people with whom I lived as an evacuee for those years, Mum occasionally and Dad very occasionally but my sister was handy !
She had not lived with nice people after we left family and were split up, I was very lucky and still go back to visit she never will.
Mind you she had been spoilt at home and did not like being second fiddle to the little girl of that family,whereas I was with another family and their only daughter was nine years older than me so I had three mothers ,one in Manchester who came on visits occasionally ,the Lady if the house my “ auntie” and her daughter nine years older than me .
I was lucky.
Viktoria.
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I’m sure I have seen these for sale for a pretty penny in antique/reclamation yards.
A good sized zinc barrel with a ridged inside now being repurposed for trendy garden planters !
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If a pancheon was used for washing did it become known as a dollytub/dolly tub in later years to be used in conjunction with a dolly peg?
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If a pancheon was used for washing did it become known as a dollytub/dolly tub in later years to be used in conjunction with a dolly peg?
Large corrugated metal Dolly Tubs were used for laundering clothes. My mother used to fill hers with hot water , then mix in some soap suds, then add the whites. The laundry was swished around using a "dolly Stick" which consisted of a long pole with three wooden legs at the bottom and two wooden handles at the top. After the laundry was suitably swished around my mother then repeatedly used the "posser", this was a stick with a large upturned metal cup shape at one end. this cup shape had holes in it so that when it was forced down in the water the holes would allow part of the pressure force to dissipate.
the wringing wet items would be offered to a large "mangle" which consisted of two heavy rubber rollers that squeezed excess water from the laundry. Once the soapy water had been squeezed from the laundry it would be rinsed with clean water in the kitchen sink In those days there was no such thing as a Flatley Drier, or a spin drier, or tumble drier. All wet laundry were either hung on a washing line outside, or hung on a clothes horse in front of a coal fire.
My mother's washing line was strung between a hook on the back garden wooden fence and a heavy post near our back door. One Monday the post was missing - it had been taken to add to somebody's Guy Fawkes bonfire.
The clothes horse had more than one use, it was also used as a tent with a large curtain slung over it, which my brother and I used to sleep out under the stars on warm summer nights.
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Hmmmmm??
Malky
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pumistone = surely every household has a piece?
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pumistone = surely every household has a piece?
But pumice stone was used on skin, not clothes :)
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pumistone = surely every household has a piece?
But pumice stone was used on skin, not clothes :)
When people had baths in their kitchen, then it's possible that a piece of pumice stone could be found amongst the pots and pans?
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I didn't think of that, Rena. I remember that my grandparents had a bath in the kitchen!!!!
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I didn't think of that, Rena. I remember that my grandparents had a bath in the kitchen!!!!
Was it covered with a "table" that was covered in old fashioned oil cloth table cloth? My paternal grandmother and one of her sons lived next door to each other. One had a tin bath hung up on a nail outside and the other had an oil cloth on a wooden worktop covering the bath. We were posh, we had a cast iron bath (very cold on your derrier in winter)
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I’m sure I have seen these for sale for a pretty penny in antique/reclamation yards.
A good sized zinc barrel with a ridged inside now being repurposed for trendy garden planters !
I'm not surprised and I bet they're sold for a pretty penny.
When my mother and we children were sent out of Hull ( due to bombing)
we went to live with my mother's aunt and cousins in Brierfield, Lancashire. Bath time for us children was standing in the zinc dolly tub in front of the coal fire, which was half filled with warm water.
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Panstore, if they forgot to cross the "t"
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The zinc washtubs had vertical corrugated sides and one side was higher so the washerwoman could rub the washing against the corrugations ( horizontal in that place ) which helped to get the washing clean.
Men thought if everything for women to labour with didn’t they.!
Viktoria.