May Sisters’ Challenge; Marigold(s)

This is for everyone who feels totally overwhelmed by housework. Or the plethora of cleaning aids and products that we’re constantly bombarded with. Quentin Crisp never cleaned his apartment in New York; “after 4 years you don’t notice the dust”.

Unfortunately both Anniemay and I have mothers who would notice the dust. My mum was in service during the 2nd World War, a young Scots lassie far from home, working in a Big House in London. She knew all about cleaning.

As for Anniemay’s mum …… I don’t know if this will translate for anyone outside the North of England, but she used to donkeystone her front door step. This is not a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a mild and generally placid, quadruped. It was a type of stone that she would use to polish the entrance to her house. All her neighbours did this. Or if they didn’t, they would be subjected to the harsh judgement that only a group of women in curlers, with folded arms and tutting can possibly inflict.

Anniemay and her sisters were not allowed to set foot on the step once it had been donkey stoned and would either have to jump over it, or stand on each other's shoulders and climb in through an upstairs window.

We have this joke in the family that every time she flies off to see Mollymay in Australia, she would donkeystone the steps of the aircraft first.

Those outside the UK, with time on their hands and an interest in the history of cleaning door steps, could do worse than spend a few minutes googling donkeystone. Manchester Metropolitan University have made a useful and somewhat humorous video on the subject, here, including archive film of Northern women engaged in the above mentioned practice.

For us, we rarely don the Marigolds now; housework and blip are totally incompatible until a visit from said mother is imminent.