Bath Routines

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Bathing Routines

This is an extract from a reminiscence session at the College of Adult Education, Lancaster on October 16th 1987. In it 3 former residents of the Royal Albert Hospital recall the bathing routines. The memories of Frank Cochrane and Harry Oldham may well relate to the 1920s or 30s and when they were on Dawson Ward, a residence for the older boys and younger men. Very briefly Peggy Palmer refers to her experience arriving at the hospital in the 1950s. (The recording is 4' 33)



Harry: Mind you they did all the bathing on the, on the Basement… then, at time round by the, round by where the canteen is.
Frank: 6 patients in one bath of water
Harry: On right hand side, round by where the canteen is, staff canteen.
SC: So you said 6 patients used a bath at once – I mean not at once but they used the same water one after the other presumably, is that right?
Frank: Yes, yes.
SC: How many people – was it a huge great bath house or what…
Frank: Yes, yes it was fairly big…
Harry: Yes it was a big bathroom.
Frank: About 6 baths in weren’t there?
Harry: … 6 baths: 3 on each side I think.
Frank: Yes. And a channel, you know, all the way round –
Harry: Running round all the way…
NI: Could you take as long as you wanted over a bath or were you sort of told to get out after a certain time?
Frank: No you was told to get out after you had been in for so long. And then another lad’d get in.
NI: And the water would be the same?
Frank: In the same water. There would be about six in one lot of water.
Harry: They never used to change the water.
Frank: There was many a time when it was right  -  dirty
Harry: Same water.
Frank: Smell.
SC: … How many of you were down in the bathroom at one time then? I mean you said you went in one after the other… one person got in the bath after the next one but how many of you were in the same room at the same time?
Frank: Oh there’d be about twenty wouldn’t there Harry?…
Harry: they used to bath about a half a dozen at a time say. About a half a dozen. And then when they’ve bathed half a dozen then they used to draw fresh -
Frank: Fresh water.
Harry: - fresh water again you know.
Frank: Every half dozen draw fresh water.
Harry: Every half dozen.
SC: So there’d be some people waiting would there?
Frank: Yes.
SC: And some people in the bath?
Frank: That’s right.
SC: And some people drying themselves - ?
Frank: Yes.
SC: Yeah. I see… What happened about your clothes?
Frank: They was put in a place near the bathroom.
Harry: I used to get stripped off in the wash place and walk from the wash place into the bathroom. And it used to be opposite from it.
SC: And was it warm or cold down there in the basement?…
Frank: Very hot on the basement.
SC: It was all nice and warm?
Frank: With all them steam pipes.
SC: Yeah. So it was at least warm down there.
Frank: Yeah. Yes.
SC: I suppose they did it dwom there because all the boilers were there.
Frank: That’s right, yes. The boilers weren’t far away.
SC: But that’s why they would have done it there because it would have been the warmest place to do it I suppose. Yes, yes. What happened for the women then Peg? You say that you didn’t do this did you?
Peggy: No I never did though. I never did go on the basement at all.
SC: So where did you used to have baths when you first came.
Peggy: Oh it was on Douglas Ward. I was only on Henderson a few days when I first – they put me on Douglas, a few years I was on there. Oh it was on Douglas Ward. I was only on Henderson a few days when I first came, they put me on to Douglas, a few years I was on there, a couple of years.
SC: So did Douglas Ward have its own bathrooms then?
Peggy: Yes I think they did do: I think they did do.
SC: So you used to just have a bath on the ward?
Peggy: Yeah they did do. I never used to go down there at all.
SC: Well of course this was the fifties wasn’t it?
Peggy: Yeah it was I first come.
SC: Where this was probably about the thirties or twenties.