Bedtime

A strong and reassuring childhood memory, reinforcing the love of parents that brought up me and my four siblings, was being firmly tucked up in bed. There had to be a routine to get us all to a stage of readiness for sleep. At our most dependant the five of us ranged in age from new born to 14 years so there were logistical considerations for use of the bathroom and the availability of sufficient hot water. We of course shared the bath water in the days when a copper cylinder had to be pre-heated for only a finite depth of bath water. This was not a problem although in the process of play and making waves the bath contents were mainly emptied onto the floor rather than via the plug hole. If afforded the relative luxury of a solo bathing I would enjoy holding on to the side hand rails and, sliding back and forth, generating a bow and tidal wave that would smack the tap end before rolling back, slapping me in the face and cascading over the side. The move to a new house with a shower cubicle was quite a culture shock. I would liken the introduction of stand up washing in a modern house to the revolution in Victorian times of the work of Thomas Crapper in proviiding a toilet that flushed. The availability of a shower must have saved an hour on the bathtime regimen although possibly using more water than the conventional bath. After all it was a new thing and we did not know what we were doing. There is a nice feeling about being clean, dry and in fresh pyjamas. If all at this stage, those of us with teeth and self-mobility, were allowed downstairs for a cup of drinking chocolate and access to the tin of  biscuits. TV between 8pm and bedtime was confined to such programmes as The Waltons on a monday followed by The Goodies, The Onedin Line or that racy Poldark on a sunday night, Alias Smith and Jones on a tuesday, Panorama (we were multi-cultured) and later in the week, That's Life and if we were good, Match of the Day on a saturday night. In a style reminiscent of the Von Trapp children we would ascend the staircase taking comfort in the sounds of our parents tidying up and washing up before getting a short time for their own thoughts after what must have seemed like very long days indeed. We were fortunate to live in a four bedroomed house, a squat neo-georgian detached being the last for some years at the end of a cul de sac before further expansion of the town punched through the hammerhead and down the hill to the main road, leaving us subsequently in the middle of a large estate. I shared a bedroom with my younger brother. The twin beds just left enough room to move around although my bed was pushed up against the radiator. We would wait for our parents to come upstairs to tuck us in. This was in the days of bedsheets and blankets so to make a bed was in itself another household task. No wonder it took all of monday for my mother to get through the washing, line drying and ironing operations. The tucking in involved parents pulling up the outer edge of the mattress and securing the bedsheets on that side before repeating the same operation on the inner side. The result was a central mattress trench, confined and cosy with a taut sheet just under chin height. This was a lovely safe, secure and warm feeling and we would slowly drift off into sleep shortly after. Our world was soon to be rocked and we would be thrown out of our comfort zone by the introduction of the continental quilt. I am not sure where my parents got to hear about this lifestyle item. It was the fashion accessory of the mid 1970's. The actual time and labour saving benefits for laundry day were massive. The old bedding was confined to the airing cupboard to appear over the coming years as a ready supply of spare linen, cleaning cloths and dust sheets. Tucking in however, was never the same. The quilt, apparently rated in density and warmth by a Tog factor, whilst cosy, just sat on top of you. It was entirely possible for a leg or arm to protrude into the cold of the night. Sometimes the quilt just slipped and feel off into the gap between the beds. This was terrible in the winter but quite acceptable on a hot and humid summer night. My parents would attempt to undertake the tucking in but it was more like a wrapping up and soon relinquished its sausage roll type grip. I do not lay blame on my parents for the continental quilt phenomena. I was, with my brothers and sisters, still loved and tended for. I saw the whole thing, much later in my life, as another example of the sacrifices of my parents to the bettering of young lives in a fast developing modern world.