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One of the memories of Mrs Kathleen Burdett (nee Hinde) who was born in London in 1940.
There was a horse's trough at the end of Popham Street to water the horses. The troughs were several streets apart, following the 'rounds' off the tradesmen. There was a horse trough at the end of Smithfield Market in Islington.
Another feature was the underpass at Kingsway. The buses used to go under the tunnel and come out the other end, that was always felt to be an adventure to us children, not to the people who used to travel the route every day for work I'm sure.
Just off of Popham Street, there was a small turning called Elder Walk. This turning housed the factory where they dyed wool. It was always warm when you walked past, sometimes if you were lucky, some man gave you some odd bits of wool.
There was the washhouse in Greenman Street, where my Nan used to go and do the washing. This was a sweathouse and how she used to stay round there I don't know, but all people did this, until 'Eureka' the Bag wash shop opened.
You would put your washing in a bag that you got from the shop and this would have a number inked into it. This was your bag and every week you would take your washing bag down to the shop, and a few days later it would come back, all still in the bag and all your washing in it. I believe they put the whole bag, as it was, into a giant washing machine. Everybody's went in together.
When you went to pick it up you gave your ticket over with your number on it. Our clothes never lasted very long, they went into shreds after a few washes, I think they used a lot of bleach. But, better that than the wash house!
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