Making beds, then and now

I love changing and washing the linen every Sunday so that our bed is all nice and smooth and clean for the new week. I don’t iron my linen, but I do tumble dry them so they are not wrinkled if I take them out quickly. If I were rich, one of the first things I would do would be to have clean fresh linen daily or at least every second day. And of course I would probably have someone to do that for me. One can dream, eh?

We have a very wide bed, so we each have our own duvet (light for my husband, heavier for me) and cover. We have a fitted sheet and each have two pillows (though I only use one, or none). If it is cold I have either a winter duvet (heavier) or a fluffy blanket. I don’t iron anything but I do make the bed every morning, and air it every week.

My mother never knew any of that when she was alive. Above it my teenage bedroom. I had those stripey Marvelaire sheets (flannel in winter, cotton in summer), two woollen blankets with satin edging top and bottom (a real pain to wash because they were soooooo heavy when wet, and we only had a twin tub machine), all neatly folded over with the sheet. If it was cold, I had a feather eiderdown. All of this was covered in a candlewick bedspread.

On Sundays I would move my top sheet to the bottom, and put on a new top one. The corners of the bottom sheet were folded into hospital corners. My mother would wash the bottom one for washday (Mondays). She ironed the sheets and pillowcases. My pyjamas went under my pillow or into a pyjama holder on my bed. The bed base had springs. My mother used to tuck me in tight every night when I was little, and I still like that feeling. I don’t suppose people are literally ‘tucked in’ anymore.