Distant Baths

Late night memories…

Unable to sleep, I am up at 4.30 am and typing while the kettle starts to hiss in the kitchen.

I was soaking in the bath on Monday, off sick with some sort of flu, and I floated back to days when I was a very young boy, sharing a bath with my older brother, Rob. There’s a strange thing about memories because as time passes, things meld and become composite memories and sometimes when they’re analysed the component parts can be broken out. I had this memory of mum rinsing my hair, I was a fussy little boy and to calm me down she’d always lean my head back and pour the water over me head with a plastic jug, carefully avoiding splashing any in my eyes. This wasn’t good enough for me as I’d always be scared that some water would drip down, so I’d hold a flannel over my eyes.

As I lay in the bath with the water drizzling down the overflow, I was transported back to a specific Sunday evening bath time, I was probably 13 years old and wallowing in an almost overflowing tub with “Top of the Pops” on the radio, there are two number one songs that stick in my mind, specifically listened to while my toes and fingers crinkled. “Without You” by Nillson and “American Pie” by Don Mclean. From those two songs I could find out the exact nights these memories relate to.

Returning to the composite memories, I pictured me and Rob, in the bath and I was playing with the multicolored plastic plane, it had detachable floats. We also had a solid rubber ring (quoit?) that was a bath toy. Of course, it then occurred to me that this wasn’t the same bath tub, although the memory appeared to play out in the Pottery Lane tub, this wasn’t so. I was around 11 years old when we moved to Whiston and I don’t think the pair of us ever shared a bath there.

So the bath was in Botanic Road, but I have no clear picture in my mind what that bathroom was like. The house was three stories tall and our bedroom was on the first floor, I suppose the bathroom was on the same floor. I have particular earlier memories of bathing in front of the fire, downstairs, in a tin tub I believe. Mum would put our pajamas in the cubby holes of the cast iron fireplace to warm, she’d have pans of water on the gas stove in the kitchen and would fill the “Creda” electric boiler. This was a wall mounted glass appliance that was to the left of the kitchen sink, it was filled using a rubber hose that connected to the tap and had it’s own chromed pipe and tap to empty it after it boiled.

We’d actually both be sitting in this tin tub, facing each other and the last of the water would be poured in between us, often the backwash would almost “burn our willies” so to avoid this we’d cover our “teapots” with our hands. The water would be very hot to start and would quickly cool, then one at a time we’d be whisked out of the bath into a big towel and rubbed. With a swish of talc we’d be in our little warmed pajama’s and red dressing gowns (with the tassles) and be ready for some Ovaltine and toast.

The pair of us would sometimes sing “We are siamese, if you please” the cat song from the Walt Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, both parading naked in front of the fire much to the delight of mum, I would have been around three years old, Rob six.

So, back to the flannel, in the upstairs bathroom in Botanic road, mum would wash my hair, probably with baby shampoo but possibly with fairy liquid, then rinse my head carefully holding my head back at an angle. This would then signal the end of bathtime and the Rob and I would go through the motions of emptying out all the toys which had filled with water, the plug would then be pulled but I’d always want to stay in the bath until it was drained. Mum had a method where she’d say “You’ll go down the plughole!” which I partially believed, so I’d wait until the last few pints of water were gurgling out before having my panic and into the big towel, (most towels are big when you’re only three foot tall).

All this in a bathroom I can’t remember!.