Washing

A clout is a Geordie expression for a rag or dishcloth. Probably a cloot in Scots is the same?

My grandma came from a huge family of girls was one remembered the buckets of bloodied strips kept in an outhouse -only this was not revealed to me until I was an adult .

My mother had sanitary towels .

They were kept in the airing cupboard .

I was in denial about starting my periods for about three months ( I just had a slight brown discharge at first ) until I realised what was happening and then used the sts kept in the cupboard .

No comment was made .
No acknowledgement .
The towels were replaced magically monthly .

I'd been given a booklet from some missionary neighbours about the importance of hygiene with no real reference to the biology .

I only recall lectures about boys not touching you .

Years later , I met women , who still have to make sanitary towels from strips of cloth and their mothers suffer even more from trying to keep themselves clean and fragrant when they have urinary incontinence .

We are so fortunate in this country .

henetha, my mum used torn up sheets, left in a bucket of bloodied salted water under the sink, it was a remaining horror to have discovered the bucket when I was around 7yrs old. Mum's name for these strips was 'clout' a word that has brought up interesting conversations on GN previously. For some reason they were never added to the weekly (Monday) wash, though bloodied knickers were.

I was one of those who used strips of old sheets for periods, from when I started at age 13 until I left school and started work at 15 so I could afford then to buy proper protection. And they were put to soak in a bucket with a lid and then I had to wash them and put them out on the line in the back garden. Oh the humiliation.
Times sure have changed.