Tonight I am performing an unnatural act. Ironing. As I’m smoothing the sleeve of my husband’s shirt I think about how people don’t iron anymore. Not in the way that they used to anyway. Well, apart from my mother-in-law who irons sheets, socks and even underwear. My sister doesn’t even own an iron. God it’s hard to iron shirt sleeves. I’m already bored of the idea of being a model wife and surprising my husband when he comes home.
I wonder who invented the ironing board? It’s a ridiculous shape. It should be much wider. By the time I’ve ironed one bit it’s hanging over the edge getting creased again.
When I was younger and lived with my mum, she had an ironing basket which lived under the kitchen counter. All of the clean washing went into the ironing basket (along with the cat when he wanted somewhere quiet to sleep) and once a week my mum would stand in our front room, working her way through the basket, ironing creases and putting everything on hangers. And then there were those things that ‘lived’ in the basket. A cotton blouse and other ridiculously hard to iron items. I have similar items that live in my washing basket – hand wash only garments. Some of them have been there for years.
Yes, the art of ironing has definitely passed. Next time I’ll be super organised, take them to a professional ironing company and then pass them off as all my own work.
Thanks so much
I also don’t iron. Even my husband doesn’t bother with ironing his work shirts anymore. I don’t mind ironing – if I have time, if the ironing board isn’t rickety, if the cord doesn’t get tangled around itself. I love the smell of the clean clothes under the steam. As a teenager, I did a lot of the ironing in our house – lived being away in the laundry with the radio on and the rhythm of the ironing.
I love the smell of the scented steam too.
Yes, the ironing board should be wider – bit it could also do with having as standard those little mini-ironing-boards for doing sleeve and narrow trouser legs on. Having said that, I iron about once a year and generally have a policy of never buying clothes which might need ironing.
My mum, though, made ironing into a great bit of women’s lib during the late 80s. Having missed out on most of said movement by marrying me Dad, as far as I can remember she spent most of the early years of their divorce doing massive piles of ironing in her room with the door closed and her newly-acquired Bruce Springsteen albums on ear-splittingly loud. After a year or two she emerged, did an OU women’s studies course and then a women’s history MA at Royal Holloway, and gave up on men. I don’t think ironing and Springsteen are well known for that effect…