Dear Fiona: what's so wrong with hanging my washing outside?

Dear Fiona,

My mother-in-law – or maybe my grandmother-in-law - has got a bee in her bonnet about how I dry my washing – which, in the summer, is on a washing line in the garden.  She also dries her washing outside, incidentally – but she has got a walled garden where this happens out of view of anybody.  Our washing line, on the other hand, is in our front garden, so anybody walking down the street can see it.  This is because we don’t have a back garden – it’s an odd peccadillo of our area’s street layout.

Anyway, this came up because my husband’s grandmother (my mother-in-law’s mother-in-law) is due to come and visit us and our new baby and my mother-in-law texted me asking if – even if it’s a good drying day - I could try to make sure that I’ve brought the washing in before she arrives.  I mentioned this to my husband, who confessed that my mother-in-law has previously asked him if he doesn’t find it a bit embarrassing that I hang everything up “so publicly".

Well, firstly – my husband is as likely as me to have been the person to hang up the laundry.  Secondly, we don’t have a tumble drier, for environmental reasons.  When the weather isn’t right we use indoor drying racks, but they’re a faff and take up space and everything dries more slowly etc. Thirdly, I’ve now got three children under five, which generates a phenomenal quantity of laundry – so relentless that I often feel like an old-fashioned washerwoman – I need every good drying day that comes my way!  Are outdoor washing lines really so bad?  Please tell me that they’re not – and give me something that my husband can feed back to his mother?  Or, if they are, please tell me what I’m meant to do instead? (Now that I’m thinking about it I’ve noticed that, actually, not many of my neighbours seem to dry their washing outside.)

Thank you!

Love, a Muddled Washerwoman

Dear Muddled

Thank you for your letter – which raises a fascinating question that, to be honest, I had never previously given much consideration.  I’m currently looking out of my kitchen window at my own laundry which is basking in the June sunshine – and is visible to my next-door neighbours, who, incidentally, have also got their washing strung out. However, your mother-in-law (or maybe her mother-in-law) is not alone in her distaste for the habit:  a quick google revealed various private new-build estates in Scotland and England where the hanging of washing outside is specifically and firmly not allowed.  But that’s nothing in comparison to the US, where it’s estimated that the majority of the country’s 60 million inhabitants are forbidden from using outside clothes lines. It's a far cry from past eras, when rather than its illegality being enshrined in title laws, its practice was essentially enshrined in our culture: laundry fluttering in the breeze was a regular subject matter for Impressionist painters including Gustave Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot and Edgar Degas, alongside are songs about hanging out washing, poems devoted to the subject (some have been collected together in an anthology) – and more.  We know we’re not meant to air dirty linen in public – but what, you might wonder, has happened to make clean linen seem so very unacceptable, by what appears to be a significant proportion of the population?  And is it that it’s thought common – or is it down to general aesthetics? Which is the reason given by those estates that have banned it - and arguably it’s a more palatable excuse in this age of supposed egalitarianism. Finally – even though the practice has waned in recent years (there have been issues with people stealing clothes off lines) - is outlawing it not total madness?

Let’s rewind, to a time when alternatives to exterior solutions were thin on the ground - electricity not having been invented, let alone the tumble dryer - and everybody dried their washing outside (although, it is perhaps worth remembering that people did rather less washing than they do now.)  There were variations in the how and where: most made use of public fields and drying greens (often, wet clothes were laid on the ground or draped in trees and bushes, there weren’t even lines), those who had gardens used those, and the wealthier either delegated to a laundress, or had an in-house laundry service and – possibly – a walled area of the garden where everything could be hung up out of sight (as your mother-in-law has).  Of course, for roughly half the year it’s too cold and damp in this country to even consider attempting to dry clothes outside; then, wet things were draped on an indoor rack in front of a fire, or – in larger houses – arranged in the drying room.  This all gives some credence to the concept that it might once have been considered ‘common’ to dry clothes publicly– if by ‘common’ you read ‘not in possession of a fortune and a large house.’

But, house prices and the cost-of-living being what they are, most of us have moved away from judging such income-related discrepancies, and, as I suggested earlier, the term ‘common’ is hardly the last word in woke - when Nicky Haslam employs it it’s with a knowing wink.  So I wonder if there is more to your mother-in-law’s dislike than she is spelling out – specifically to do with your taste?  Is it possible that describing hanging out your washing as ‘common’ is the lesser of two evils?  For, having variously consulted interiors industry insiders who are also mothers and mothers-in-law, and fathers and fathers-in-law (there’s no gender stereotyping here) – some of whom have requested anonymity on account of their own children’s and children’s spouses’ habits (who knew it would be this contentious?) - I have a few points to put to you from the side of the line-drying objectors. They all pertain to the aesthetics, for it would seem there’s laundry, and laundry – not to mention a host of assumptions that are made - and you might want to buckle up, as nobody’s pulling their punches.

Firstly – “how good are you at separating your whites?” asks A.  “A line of white sheets and baby clothes can look very appealing, a line of the same, but greying, just looks sad, and I’ve noticed that millennials are very bad at this. Also, how long do you leave it out? Because neglectful housekeeping isn’t invisible to your neighbours.”  Next, says B, “all dark-coloured sheets are naff – maybe you’ve got those and your mother-in-law is too polite to say anything?  And children’s cartoon-themed sheets – if they’re hung out too often, we can only assume that there’s a lot of bedwetting going on, which is revolting.”  Thirdly, ordains C, “nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to see their daughter-in-law’s knickers – ever.  We don’t want to see them if they’re racy, we don’t want to see them if they’re an M&S 5 pack, and we especially don’t want to see them if they have seen better days.  Sorry.”  There’s more, some of it quite particular: for instance, A maintains a surprising vitriol for pegs left on the line, and D complains about gym wear “so unattractive, and urgh, it makes me think of sweat.”

But perhaps these are completely unfounded accusations, all your sheets come from Cologne & Cotton, and - like me - you never hang underwear on the outside line, or, in the manner of one of my colleagues, you strategize with a rotary washing line and cleverly arrange more intimate items on the inside so that they’re visually screened.  And if this is the case then I honestly don’t know why your mother-in-law is worried – because I’m with you, in that the alternatives to outside line drying aren’t great.

Yes, there’s a tumble dryer - but when we’re all trying to reduce our carbon footprint, their output is far from ideal; they’re responsible for a disproportionate 6% of domestic energy use in the country (a washing machine, in comparison, ranks at 1% - and know that there are far more washing machines in use than tumble dryers.)  Indoor racks are, as you’ve noted, a faff, especially if you don’t have a dedicated well-ventilated room (which those houses on those new build private estates claim to have) – and often you’re going to need either a heated rail, or to use a dehumidifier, which takes us back to excess energy consumption.  There’s also the fact that, depending on where you place the racks, visitors are still going to encounter your underwear, and “on the balance, I’d much rather the knickers were on the line outside than festooned over a radiator inside,” says C – who, incidentally, reckons the absolute worst place to hang them is the “the kitchen. There is nothing more repulsive than knickers on a Pulley Maid over the AGA. I know it’s illogical, but I think that they infect the food, and I suppose that works the other way too.  Who wants their clothes to smell of bacon?”  (My Pulley Maid is over the bath in the children’s bathroom, which theoretically only they use - but I’ve only had that luxury since we left London.) Incidentally, C reckons that she’s okay seeing her contemporaries’ underwear; “it’s when it’s cross-generational that it’s so embarrassing.”

So we’re back to the great outdoors, and the conclusion that the sun, being both free and effective, is hands down the greatest aid to drying clothes we’ve got at our disposal. What’s more, it’s a natural stain remover, and the wind can do a pretty good job of ironing if you hang things in the right way.  There are further side benefits: a friend has worked out how to hang up her sheets so she can sunbathe naked behind them, D (who had complained about gym wear) recognises that sheets on washing lines can be a good burglar get-away deterrent (presumably, so long as the burglar didn’t start by stealing the washing) while for me, seeing washing on the line gives me a sense of achievement, in line with having appropriate post-school snacks for the children.  And quite frankly, when you’ve got small children – or if you’re juggling work and home and everything in between - you’ve got to grasp tight to every winning feeling that comes your way.

And all that is doubtlessly why there are political movements in the US to revive, restore and return the rights to line drying. And maybe one day the famous Drying Green in Glasgow will again see use, along with the washing lines in the gardens of the Arts & Crafts Millbank Estate, next to Tate Britain – which I long to see gainfully strung, and this is important, with anything the residents wish to dry.  For unlike A,B, C & D, I am not offended by the sight of discoloured pillow cases (though they don’t have to stay discoloured, there are tips for righting them here), Batman duvet covers, or even knickers. I am perfectly capable of averting my gaze on behalf of preserving our planet – so even if you are committing the apparent crimes listed in a previous paragraph, please don’t stop using your outside washing line, for there are many (I’d go so far to say most, even) who really aren’t going to mind pegs left out or seeing gym kit. And that includes a number of industry insiders who I haven’t quoted, for they too reckon that line drying is not only fine, but the ideal.

But . . . we go out of our way for people we love.  And that’s why, despite everything that I’ve said, I’m going to suggest that you do try to bring your washing in before your mother-in-law, or your grandmother-in-law, visit.  See it as akin to baking a cake, or putting flowers on the table, or whatever else you do for visitors.  Yes, it’s irritating – but in the grand scheme of things it’s a tiny irritant, and it will make them happy.

I hope this helps – and here’s to many more good drying days this summer, for us both –

With love,

Fiona XX