Cabra History.Com

‘Years ago in Cabra West we only ever had two Tea Towels in our house and they were always wet. The one job that we all hated most of all was having to “Dry” after our dinner. But you see, the older ones were that little bit smarter than us little ones and as soon as they’d have the last gollop of dinner rammed down their gobs they’d let out a roar, “FLOOR”…”CLEARING”…”WASHING UP” and then with a smirk on their faces they’d point at me and the others and say “You’re on the drying and putting away”. Now, that meant that we had to dry up all of the plates, knives, forks, spoons, pots, pans, cups, saucers and everything else with two Tea Towels. One of the bigger ones got to clear off the table, another one had to sweep the floor and then another one had to do the washing up. And while they were all finished we were still going at it. Now with 15 of us and the Ma’ and Da’ there was loads of stuff to be dried. But before you even started sure the Tea Towels would be already wet from having the table wiped with them and maybe something spilled on the floor had to be soaked up with them too. We never had dry Tea Towels in our house. We had to dry all of the cups and saucers first and before we even had half of the plates done the Tea Towels would be soaking wet. And even after a few minutes sure the water in the sink was gone stone cold and looked like muck with lumps of food floating around on top of the water and a great big Scum Mark all around the edge of the sink. Then you’d have whoever was putting the things away shouting, “Ma’ this plate is still wet”. And then the Ma’ might say “Get one of Daddy’s shirts out of the washing pile under the stairs and use that instead”. And that’s how it went in our house all them years ago…’