Old-fashioned laundry method revived by air hostesses

It’s not very often that I get nostalgic for the old days.

I’m very much a class of a modern man, embedded in the here and now.

However, from time to time, there comes a reminder of the olden days, of days when you made do with what you had.

My missus, after returning home from a journey on Friday, had a wonderful story to tell.

She had been listening to Patricia Messenger on Cork’s very own C103, who had been discussing a very interesting topic.

In many ways a moving story, a story of making do in stressful times.

It seems that there is now a practice amongst air hostesses of boiling their knickers in hotel kettles.

And why, you might wonder, would they do such a thing, when perhaps boiling a kettle for a cup of tea might be much more productive.

Well, by all accounts, they lead busy lives and can be caught short, after the long haul.

These queens of the jetstream might have to be put up in a hotel without prior warning and, without wanting to go into detail, preparations for the following day’s flight could involve a kettle and a pair of knickers.

Suffice to say, they end up washing their knickers in a boiling hotel kettle, with the cover left ajar. ‘Clever thinking’ says you.

And I presume they then dry their knickers in a microwave, or perhaps toast them in a sandwich maker, who knows.

Either way, it’s what they do, and Patricia had her listeners agog with the saga.

And while some, I have no doubt, will be revulsed by the revelation, I’m certainly not. For, in many ways, it leads my mind to nothing more than nostalgia.

There is, I feel, no need to get any more knickers in a twist about the air hostesses, clearly there is enough of that being done already.

For me, the practice is nothing more than a throwback to yesteryear, of bringing back a tradition practiced in times gone by.

A bit like the threshing, or tea out in the field, the washing done by the air hostesses of today is nothing more than what was done by our ancestors before they had access to modern conveniences like twin tubs.

I remember as a young fellow, and you will too, of calling to houses where on the hob boiling nicely, merrily indeed, alongside a pot of spuds, or cabbage, would be granny’s old bloomers.

Hers would be the finest pot of all, with the stick popping out of it. All three pots boiling in harmony. No eyes being batted, no fuss being made.

The pot used for a granny’s underwear today, could be the pot used for the spuds tomorrow, or vice versa.

And I never heard of anyone dying from the practice.

And while I dare say, there is perhaps a slight difference between the undergarments of an air hostess and a granny’s bloomers of 40 years ago, the principle is still the same.

The task is to get your clothes back in order, and whether ’tis a kettle or a pot, it makes no odds.

Those ladies of the sky are doing nothing more than their ancestors did of old. Boiling and scalding impurities from their delicates.

So, my friend, should you find yourself in a hotel room gasping for a cup of tea, fear not.

Fill that kettle and don’t be too alarmed if a knickers comes tumbling out into your cup.

For you know now that ’tis a harmless old task was being done.

Something your granny probably did back in the good old days.