This week my sister has been bemoaning that fact that she's run out of washing up liquid so the dishes have been stacking in her sink. "Try shampoo", I suggested. "Would some hand washing powder do the trick?" she responded.
"Do you remember Dreft?" I asked her.
In My Day
As I may have before mentioned, washing up was a major feature in our lives as children. There were six family members, three meals a day and no labour saving devices. The big vitreous enamel sink was at the end of our teensy-weensy kitchen. We had an enamel washing up bowl. Hot water was supplied by a gas-fired Ascot heater which was very temperamental and of which I was rather frightened.
I much preferred washing to drying and could dream away a fair bit of time with my hands in the suds. Here I am, at the age of four, engaged in this activity (Chris is, apparently, making cakes).The suds were provided by Dreft washing powder. Actually this was a delicates and woollens washing powder, so I'm not entirely sure why we used it for washing up. It can't have been cheap. It came in green boxes with the name "Dreft" stylishly slung across the packet. I think that Daddy had some idea that if we used soap we'd need to rinse everything whereas, he said, we didn't have to do this with Dreft. I don't know if this is true; certainly, if you left the drying up too long, the china developed streaks, so maybe this was just rubbish. Maybe we just got used to everything having a slightly soapy taste, and thought it was normal.
I can't remember when washing-up liquids took over.
Anyway, as I pointed out to Beatrice, she has a Tesco Express about a hundred paces from her front door which is open early and late and which offers a wide range of cleaning products, although I don't know about Dreft, so she really has no excuse!
