Not for faint-hearted

Laurence Dingwall of Dundee has been in touch about the “pullashee” – a topic that has generated much discussion over the past week or so. “When I was a small boy,” he says, “we lived in a tenement at

1 Hilltown, which was demolished long ago. All the back gardens had a very long pole, like a telegraph pole only taller, embedded in the ground. Each house on each floor had a pulley outside the window which lined up with one on the long pole.

“The washing was attached to the line and then gradually pulled out until it was full and the washing was able to blow dry in the breeze. I can remember my father climbing the pole to fix the pulley if it had become stuck or something like that – not for the faint-hearted!”