Washing line props

[PlasticAcrobat]

I don't care if they make my washing dry any quicker or not. Everyone should use them because they make washing on a line look so much more lovely. A saggy sad line looks slatternly, but shove it up with a prop and it instantly looks like something from a Ladybird Book childhood.

It even reminds me of my own, actual childhood. My mother was, in fact, a slattern but she did an ace washing line, boosted with an old grey wooden prop which, in my memory, was about 20 feet tall.

YANBU: Yes, props should be mandatory

YABU: Saggy and proud

My DP is erecting the 2nd pole of my ‘new’ washing line this week - canicule permitting. It’s going right across the front garden and I’m imagining my linen drying & freshening in the breeze. Then I shall be on the hunt for an authentic prop. I have some tall bamboos I cut down last year - I’ll start with those.

I had to replace my wooden props about 3 years ago. I'd only had them 40 years...

ETA: I've never heard of a canicule until today!

Look further up the post and there it is in all its glory!

I hate my inferior metal stupid hook thing prop now

Doh! I just googled canicule thinking that it was a nifty washing line device.

It definitely sounds like it should be. Some sort of specialist line widget

Would I sound too arsey if I said the beeswax polish was handmade by me using lavender from the garden and wax from my friend's hive YES, you poncey bugger

Methinks you need to be interviewed for next months edition of Country Living magazine.

I thought she was joking? 🫣

Did your mum have rules (inherited from her mother) as to how things should be hung on said washing line?
All shirts together, hung buy the shirt tails, tops and t shirts, together, hung by shoulder seam or in half, over the line and then pegged. All underwear together, wire three pegs between two pairs of pants, sheets in half with the open ends upwards to catch the wind, I could go on!

Of course using a proper gets your washing dried quicker! It hoists your clothes closer to the sun 🌞

I love using our wooden prop and making the washing lie really high.

Mine isn't fancy tho. It's about 3 metres tall with a 'v' cut out at the top. Not as fancy as @Gatekeeper

I've got prop envy 😀

*prop - not proper FFS

My absolute favourite part of putting out washing is putting the prop up, makes me smile every time!

Yes of course she was, and I didn't mean anything hostile! Should have put a on my comment to make that plain. Hope you didn't see me as hostile @Newrumpus !

I use my prop even if I’ve only got two or three things hanging out.

YANBU!!

(How could anyone be hostile among all this flapping fragrant sun-warmed washing and the army of props!)

I find that incredibly charming.

One of my biggest regrets is leaving my mother's THREE wooden wash props behind. My stupid metal props keep collapsing and my washing drags on the floor (or it falls on the sunbathing cat).

I NEED them back in my life 😭

I love my prop! Our line runs nearly the full length of our garden, about 100ft, and no way could I fill it without the prop (I have tried and snapped the line....)

Three!!!
Did anyone's mum also have a large pair of wooden tongs, (bleached by scalding water and detergent) that were used to hoik washing from one drum of a twin-tub washing machine to the other, ie from the washing tub to the spinning tub? Or am I older than you lot?

My grandma had one of these! Thanks for the memory!

Mine did. And because I’m really old, I can remember my mum having a single tub washing machine and a mangle.

What a lovely,nostalgic thread. My mum always had a line prop for her long line. I remember a man coming down the road shouting"Get yer line props!."
Unfortunately I only have space for a rotary drier. It's nowhere near as good.

I had to Google it too!

I've got a reasonably good vocabulary but I'd never heard canicule before.

MN really is an educational experience.

Yes we used to have those!

So did we! I bet my father still has them in the garage, waiting for a suitable new use!