IS THE LAUNDERETTE WASHED UP?
With its numbers in steep decline, a new campaign to save the local coin- op is going to need a very good spin doctor...
Although the electric washing machine was invented in 1908, most families simply couldn’t afford one.
Spotting a niche in the market, American entrepreneur JF Cantrell bought four washing machines, installed them in a building in Fort Worth, Texas, in April 1934 and charged people by the hour to use them.
Fifteen years later in May 1949, the idea caught on in Britain when the fi rst self- service coinoperated launderette opened in Bayswater, west London.
At the time, few homes had washing machines and doing the laundry was backbreaking work. Most women had to heat the washing in a copper pan, wash it by hand and wring it out using a mangle.
According to a local news paper which reported on the new launderette: “All that housewives have to do is bring the washing, put it in the machine, and come back 30 minutes later.”
The same paper was at pains to point out that the launderette was on “a six- month trial” – 67 years on, Central Wash as it’s known, is still thriving. By the 1960s there was a launderette on every high street, and in the mid- 1980s the number peaked at 12,500.
But with washing machines becoming more affordable, families began to snap them up and the number of launderettes slowly started to decline. Our use of them is said to have fallen by three- quarters in the past 25 years.
According to the Offi ce for National Statistics, in 1972 66 per cent of households had a washing machine but that had risen to 96 per cent by 2011. Soap opera by name, soap opera by nature: small wonder that the fi ctional launderette in EastEnders has long been the backdrop for countless dramas, revelations, heart to hearts, rows and betrayed confi dences.
Under the watchful eye of Dot Cotton, and Pauline Fowler before her, if there is mucky washing to be aired in public, it might well happen while they’re sorting through the smalls in Albert Square’s Bridge Street launderette.
Launderettes have also taken centre stage in episodes of comedy shows such as Mr Bean and Some Mothers Do ’ Ave ’ Em. As the fi rst sultry beats of Marvin Gaye’s Heard It Through The Grapevine kick in, an exotic looking male model called Nick Kamen strolls into a fi ctitious 1950s launderette, all sun- kissed skin and rippling muscles.
The female customers in the launderette hold their breath as he coolly strips to his boxer shorts before loading his jeans into the washer.
Who could forget the 1985 TV advert for Levi’s 501s that catapulted Kamen to fame as heartthrob for an entire generation of teenage girls? Meanwhile, the previously ailing sales of Levi’s 501s rocketed by 800 per cent.
Kamen’s laundry antics also caught Madonna’s eye and he had a top 10 chart hit the following year with Each Time You Break My Heart, which she wrote for him. Daniel Day- Lewis also had the humble launderette to thank for turning him into a household name the same year as Kamen.
He had a starring role in one of 1985’ s most successful fi lms, the comedy- drama My Beautiful Launderette, which explored racism and sexuality during the Thatcher era, much of it set in the very ordinary surroundings of a south London launderette called, knowingly, “Churchill’s”. From 12,500 launderettes nationwide 30 years ago there are now just 3,000 left, with one in fi ve of them – around 600 – in London. The proposed introduction by the Government of so- called “permitted development rights” would do little to preserve them, allowing launderettes to be turned into housing or other shops.
Cue Green party mayoral candidate Sian Berry’s campaign to protect the capital’s remaining launderettes.
She told Radio 4’ s Today programme: “Almost everyone in London has one within walking distance which is really important if your own machine breaks down and also for the one in 20 households who don’t have a washing machine.” According to the National Association of the Launderette Industry ( NALI) launderettes are currently most used by students, recent immigrants too poor to buy a machine, wellheeled professionals who pay for an attendant to do their washing and drying, plus the elderly who enjoy a bit of company. Of course, many of us still use launderettes for those items such as duvets, quilts and throws that are too big for a domestic machine.
Meanwhile, NALI reports that in British seaside resorts it’s tourists who make up a large proportion of customers, especially daytrippers who’ve been caught in a downpour and need somewhere to dry their clothes. If you think that drying your washing outdoors means pegging it on the line, think again.
The fi rst ever self- service outdoor launderette – called Revolution 24 – was launched outside a convenience store in Bestwood, Nottingham, in May 2014.
Open round the clock, the two washing machines and drier are situated on the forecourt so that shoppers can do their washing while stocking up on groceries.
Detergent and softener are supplied by the machines which take loads of either 8kg ( 17.6lb) or 18kg ( 39.6lb). ASKED which Tory politician would make “the best Star Wars villain” on Radio 5 Live yesterday, Conservative MP for South Leicestershire Alberto Costa had little hesitation in replying: “John Redwood.”
Costa, part of the 2015 intake of new MPs, should beware – the former Welsh Secretary and still MP for Wokingham has never taken kindly to previously being nicknamed “The Vulcan” over his supposed resemblance to Star Trek’s Mr Spock.
“I think it’s got very boring,” he once observed of those who revelled in his inter- galactic label. “If that’s the best they can do, it tells you something about them.”
AND on the subject of things inter- galactic... Kim Wilde, pictured, claims she once saw a UFO in her back garden. The singer, 55, says: “It was the day after Michael Jackson died in 2009 and I thought: ‘ He is coming back to haunt me!’ [ Wilde was support act on Jackson’s 1988 Bad tour].
“I saw two lights in the sky that were static and silent. I stood watching them above my garden from about 11pm to 1am. It had a profound effect on me. It makes me think somebody is looking after us.” And of course, Jacko once had a hit with You Are Not Alone. Spooky!