It all started with an essay that’s due….

Languishing in a hot bath last night surrounded by the heady smell of lavender I confess to being in heaven.  We have a HUGE old bath – one of those ones on legs that I think must have been designed to accommodate an elephant.  You have to climb into it and when I lie down my feet don’t touch the end.  I just float about in steamy lavender bliss.

My favourite room

As I lay there  I felt the trials and tribulations of the day the day disappear – except that is for my studies.  Gearing up to writing my first essay for my next Open University (OU) course I could feel the tell-tale signs of it beginning to form in my head.

I’ve learnt that when I study I don’t just do it in front of the books or the laptop.  It kind of whirs around in my head forming all sorts of pictures and making all sorts of connections. On one hand it’s very comforting to know that my brain is actually processing what I’m reading.  Worryingly I haven’t yet discovered successfully how to switch this off!

Dunking my head under the hot water my Public Health reading stubbornly refused to dissipate so I just had to give in to it and let my thoughts about what I’ve been reading recently take whatever shape they felt necessary.

For some reason I recalled my mum talking about growing up in Glasgow after the war.  She lived with my grandmother and grandfather and her brother in a small tenement, which was effectively a room and kitchen.  It had no bathroom.

Back in those days to have a bath you actually had to go to the public baths.  It was a weekly outing for families and in addition to being able to have a bath or a shower (or sprays as they were known in Glasgow) you swim in a pool.

I remember swimming pools just like this when I was wee

These big old public baths with their swimming pool and baths/showers they also had what was affectionately known as ‘steamies’ where people could do their laundry. As people by and large didn’t have such amenities in their home by 1915 public baths and wash-houses could be found in nearly every British town.

The introduction of these public amenities provides a useful way of understanding the changing priorities of public health professionals of the time and also the changing attitudes of the working class.  The connection between personal cleanliness and disease had evolved and these wash-houses were I guess a response influenced by the sanitary reform campaign.

It was the Steamies (laundry) at these public baths that intrigued me and one that I used to ask my grandmother and mum to tell me stories about.  Laundry was ‘women’s work’ and so Steamies were places where women gathered.

Back in the day - a typical Glasgow steamie

So in line with public health priorities the demand for laundry grew out of the awareness of the link between dirt and disease.  Clean clothes were a sign of social superiority.  The women would gather at the steamie to do the washing (and also ‘take in’ washing for more affluent households to earn a bit of money) while the husbands and the kids went swimming and to the baths. (That’s why people of a certain age from Glasgow still say ‘I’m going to the baths’ when they go swimming).

Steamies were important places and despite the fact that it was clearly hard work my grandmother loved the steamie.  You see your friends were there – this is where you talked to you pals.  After all, in trying to cope with your lot in life, it was your pals that stuck with you and got you through it – and that was her experience.

So for all this being a focus on public health for my grandmother and her pals it was a necessary part of life.  The kids, husband and the clothes got clean and women benefitted from spending time with their pals – all women coping with the same things.

There have been plays and books written about this and with my mind drawn to the public health side of it I can’t help wondering whether communities gained a lot more than just better health as a result of the public baths.

I have no desire to return to this era but it just shows you how much community and health has changed and what influences us today.

I can stick the washing machine on while I’m running a bath.  I don’t have to buy a ticket and leave my clothes in a cubicle and I don’t have a limited period of time to enjoy the hot water.  I also have a little hand sanitizer bottle in the bottom of my handbag – changed days eh!

So all that started for me with a hot bath, an abundance of public health reading material and some memories.  Who said study wasn’t fun