The CBB :: View topic - Hygiene at the CS

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#1: Hygiene at the CS Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 5:14 pm
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I know we've had many discussions about this sort of thing before, but have you ever thought about how unhygienic life actually was there?

A few minutes, or less, of splashing in cold water in the morning is hardly going to get anyone clean, and we rarely hear about anyone washing their hair or having a hot bath, so how on earth does the CS back up its claim that health comes first?

ETA: if the girls are not allowed to drink the water in mountain areas, what sorts of bacteria are being left on their skins after the cold bath?

#2: Author: Fatima, Location: Sunny Qatar

Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 5:48 pm
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I'm not sure why, but somewhere along the lines I got the idea that the cold baths were for the morning, but in the evening they could have warm ones. Maybe it was just my overactive imagination that suggested this, but I can see them having an evening bath rota, too, although perhaps they didn't get more than one a week, and then they could wash their hair or whatever.

#3: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 6:06 pm
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Yes, they had a rota for hot baths in the evening. Lavender left the tap running and flooded the bathroom.They aren't mentioned much. We hear far more about the morning routine because of new girls.

#4: Author: champagnedrinker,

Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 10:17 pm
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WHen she was very small, the Robin got a warm bath in the morning. I'm surprised that no-one thought of leaping in after she'd got out (I think it was in a big bowl in the dormitory)

#5: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 5:49 am
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I suspect hot baths and hairwashing were once a week. In the winter, without central heating or hair dryers and the massively long thick hair all the girls seem to have drying the hair would be a major job.

Where I live, you can't drink the tap water (you have to buy drinking water), but it's fine to shower or wash dishes with. At least boiled water is safe, so you can use (cold) tap water to cook with, but there are parts of the country where you can't do that.

I think the lack of baths explains all those injunctions to wash behind your ears and the back of your neck that you see in earlier children's stories - if you only have a hot bath once a week, you'd have to wash more thoroughly in between.

#6: Author: Ally, Location: John Bettany's Cabin!

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 11:47 am
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I would have thought hairwashing would have been once a week too, and probably diferent forms or dormitories has different days. They then, in the Tyrol, must have spent the rest of before those warm stoves they always talk about, or towel drying it (eeks at the thought of the knots). As someone with long thick hair, it takes mind about three hours to dry naturally, and quite often closer to four when it's colder.

#7: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 12:02 pm
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I wonder if they ever actually wash it themselves. I haven't checked, but these are the only references to hair washing I can think of: Madge, Jo and Grizel in Innsbruck (holy water). Madge sent off to have a shampoo when Jo is ill. Washing the Middles' hair after the cornflower incident. Also someone in one of the Island books - Jean? - who had had her hair cut, [i]then the next time she had had it washed it had turned into a Bubbles' crop like Gay's. [/i]Anyone think of any others?

#8: Author: Alex, Location: Cambs, UK

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 2:20 pm
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Jennie wrote:

what sorts of bacteria are being left on their skins after the cold bath?

It is very hard for bacteria to actually get onto your skin due to various environmental factors (eg. pH), shedding of skin, the fact that your skin is actually dead and therefore not at all nutritious and of course the fact that it is already colonised by your own "friendly bacteria".

Last edited by Alex on Wed May 10, 2006 12:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

#9: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 2:23 pm
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That's a relief to know, thanks, Alex. It's just that I don't feel clean after a splash with cold water, and I wonder why the girls aren't allowed to have a hot shower in the mornings. As for getting hair dry, what's wrong with hairdryers? They were around in the fifties.

#10: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 3:08 pm
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Ah, Jennifer - you're thinking 21st-century again!

There were no showers in girls' boarding-schools until recently, not even in the swimming-bath (there was a cold tap so you could rinse out your swimming-costume, but the chlorine remained on your body and hair until next time!). Ours had showers installed in the "new" cloakroom (finished 1965 or so), but nobody used them - you did not expose yourself in front of other girls - you even dressed underneath your nightie or pyjamas, no cubicles in the boarding-house I was in.

The posh boarding-houses did have cubicles with private wash-basins for each girl, and I think personal hygiene was probably a little easier there, but even so, baths would have been limited to 3 a week, and hair-washing to once a week, maximum. At our boarding-house, there were no such luxuries, and the only washing people did, apart from the weekly hair-wash (and that was originally fortnightly until we got our parents to request that it should be weekly) was in the thrice-weekly bath, no more than one of which could be at bed-time!

And at that, we were better off than the generation before. We had three baths a week, and our bowel movements were our own concern. We were supposed to "sign the book" when we had the curse, but we only ever remembered if we wanted to be "off swimming"! And we had 2 clean shirts a week, and 2 clean cotton-frocks in the summer.... and underarm deodorants had, thankfully, been invented!

#11: Author: alicat, Location: Wiltshire

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 11:44 am
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I'm, glad I'm not the only person who remembers this!
We only washed hair once a week (usually Sunday evening, afternoon if it took a long time to dry). As for clean clothes, you were expected to make a skirt or pinafore dress last all week, woe betide those who got filthy on Tuesday Embarassed

Blouses had to last two days and so did bras, although knickers were fresh every day. Sheets were chnged once a week, which was also when you got a fresh towel (probably thats why we washed our hair on Sunday, as the launcdry was done on Monday)
There is a theory that some of the allergies/skin problems/asthma people suffer from more these days is due to too much washing.....wish I had known this at 12
As for school showers, well we had them in our PE block, they were a jungle run arrangement and always cold, the very idea of running nude through them was horrific to all of us, if forcd by an enthusiastic (or sadistic) PE mistress we would do it but with hands clasped over our bits, top and bottom, very modestly...one person even used to shower in her knickers and bring a fresh pair to wear home, this was regarded as being a bit over-modest and even posh.... Embarassed

#12: Author: Tiffany, Location: madthesispanicargh

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 1:20 pm
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alicat wrote:

As for school showers, well we had them in our PE block, they were a jungle run arrangement and always cold, the very idea of running nude through them was horrific to all of us, if forcd by an enthusiastic (or sadistic) PE mistress we would do it but with hands clasped over our bits, top and bottom, very modestly...one person even used to shower in her knickers and bring a fresh pair to wear home, this was regarded as being a bit over-modest and even posh.... Embarassed

We had school showers like that too - the showerheads were at about waist height, too, so you had to be a contortionist or a dwarf as well as an exhibitionist to wash in them. We used to just skive off the showers when we could and go round covered in sweat and mud all day. This idea gives me the heeby-jeebies now, but aged 14 it seemed perfectly reasonable...

I get the impression that hair-washing was an optional sort of thing - if your hair is used to not being washed, then it doesn't need it, and it doesn't get all greasy and manky. My friend's grandmother allegedly NEVER washed her hair, and it was alwasy soft and silky etc...

#13: Author: Lolly, Location: London

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 1:46 pm
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Mrs Redboots wrote:

Ah, Jennifer - you're thinking 21st-century again!

There were no showers in girls' boarding-schools until recently, not even in the swimming-bath

Very true. I remember when we got showers in the girl's quarters in 1994!!! (Mind you they had had them in the boys part of the house for years - presumably on the grounds that boys are dirtier!) Before that we had a bathroom with two baths, 4 basins and no lock on the door.

#14: Author: Róisín,

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 3:48 pm
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Tiffany wrote:

the showerheads were at about waist height, too, so you had to be a contortionist or a dwarf as well as an exhibitionist to wash in them.

*rofl*

Tiffany wrote:

I get the impression that hair-washing was an optional sort of thing - if your hair is used to not being washed, then it doesn't need it, and it doesn't get all greasy and manky. My friend's grandmother allegedly NEVER washed her hair, and it was alwasy soft and silky etc...

Ruey says at one point, doesn't she, that she couldn't do a thing with her hair after a really good wash that Con gave it (I think she'd spilt something in it) because it was too soft? And that she couldn't do anything with it for a least a week.

#15: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 3:57 pm
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Róisín wrote:

Yes, I remember from my days of weekly hairwashing that it was always difficult to tie back tidily the first day it was clean. I'd forgotten that!

I was talking about this with my mother on the phone last night - she was at a school that was normally in Switzerland but during the war had been evacuated to South Wales (sound familiar?). She said they only had 2 baths a week because of not enough hot water, so what you did was to chum up with a friend and share the bath-water - you had it first twice, and friend had it first twice, so you ended up with 4 baths a week! Wouldn't have done at my place....

#16: Author: Rosie, Location: Huntingdonshire/Bangor

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 5:25 pm
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At my secondary schools (linked - you went from the lower to the upper) there were showers for after PE, but NO one used them. Ever. There was rarely time - lessons were only 55 mins (later an hour) and by the time the PE staff got everyone outside they barely had any time to teach. You just ran off to the next lesson - or to catch the bus - sweaty/muddy/grass stained. The only time we showered was after swimming and even that was to rinse out the chlorine, rather than actual shampooing. There was barely time to get dry and dressed anyway, and it used to take me all day to untangle my hair (which I never used to plait, only bung in a pony-tail, so perhaps there's a link there...)!

#17: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 10:38 am
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I can remember the great excitement when we got a Sports Hall (this would be about 1965 or so) at secondary school and it actually had showers in that we could use, we used them once, they were freezing and not private, so we never used them again.

The joy of getting our first shower, at home, in the 1980s was wonderful and soon led to a daily shower and hair wash. Modern machines have changed life a lot.

I remember school uniform having to last a week the only things clean every day were socks and knickers. Heaven help us if we got them really dirty - drying school uniform on the fireguard (pre -central heating days) before an open fire was not good.

#18: Author: Katya, Location: Mostly Bradford

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 11:08 am
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Even the house I lived in my first year at Durham (1996-7) only had two showers between about forty people - the rest of the bathrooms only had baths, though there were plenty of them. By the time I was there in final year, one of the showers had been taken out because it was above the library and had started leaking through the floor. Fortunately, since I had mostly nine o'clocks and the rest of the house were first years who didn't tend to get up before noon, there wasn't usually too much of a queue in the mornings for the one and only shower!

#19: Author: Chris, Location: Nottingham

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 11:20 am
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My daughter went to Liverpool University last September, and one of the biggest halls (and the oldest) only had baths - fortunately she wasn't sent there! When we asked about fitting those hose things to the taps for washing hair, the accommodation office said it wasn't allowed - but wouldn't say why!

#20: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 11:26 am
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Chris wrote:

My daughter went to Liverpool University last September, and one of the biggest halls (and the oldest) only had baths - fortunately she wasn't sent there! When we asked about fitting those hose things to the taps for washing hair, the accommodation office said it wasn't allowed - but wouldn't say why!

We were allowed to use those hose things in the sinks in halls of residence in Birmingham (although we did have showers as well as baths).

Until the plugholes got clogged up with people's hair and they had to get a plumber in to clear them out!

That's possibly why they don't like them - pretty stupid of them not to just say so though!!

#21: Author: little_sarah, Location: Liverpool/Manchester

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 12:25 pm
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Chris wrote:

Which halls? I was in halls last year (Lady Mountford at Carnatic), and we had lovely showers Very Happy

We all refused to use the bath because it was in the bathroom on the boys floor (why?) and they had a very disturbing tendency to use it as a toilet when they were drunk. They also occasionally shaved their heads into it for some bizarre reason....

#22: Author: meerium, Location: belfast, northern ireland

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 12:32 pm
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i was wondering which liverpool uni hall too! i was in roscoe & gladstone as an undergraduate (bath on our floor, shower through a fire door onto the lads corridor next block over), and i was a tutor in salisbury for a couple of years when it was still all girls - i had a bath in my flat, but there were showers on the corridor.

i suspect that if she just hid the shower attachment thingy between uses, the accommodation office (and the cleaners) would be none the wiser!

worst incident of my tutoring days was when one of my students knocked on my door on a sunday morning to inform me that someone had, erm..... pooed in the bath on the floor. that was pleasant.

#23: Author: Changnoi, Location: in transit, midwest USA

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 2:08 pm
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All showers! All the time! I love showers! I love baths! I love hot water!

When I went to university, there were a couple of dorms in which each room had its own bathroom with its own bath/shower. Since I dreaded shared bathrooms--and still do!--I made sure to live in one of those dorms. But in the dorms that had shared bathrooms, some of them were all showers and no baths; some had perhaps one bath and mostly showers? I remember hearing that someone had gotten drunk and urinated in the bath once and that no one wanted to use it after that...

Chang

#24: Author: francesn, Location: away with the faeries

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 7:52 pm
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I know what you mean Chang! I hate shared bathrooms too....ahhh..,..ensuite....

#25: Author: Sarah_L, Location: Leeds

Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 8:44 pm
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When I was at Oxford, there was only one bath in the college quad I lived on in my second and third years. When you consider the quad had six staircases, with between two and twelve rooms per staircase, there were a lot of people sharing that bath! Actually, it wasn't used that much. My room was next door to it in the second year and there were never queues. I think people on the other staircases didn't like having to go outside to get to the bath. We had showers instead, but even then there was only one shower between four or more people.

#26: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 4:45 am
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Mrs Redboots wrote:

Ah, Jennifer - you're thinking 21st-century again!

Actually, more Taiwanese than 21st century. I love bathtubs and a nice hot bath with a good book and a pot of tea, but bathtubs are just not common here - I share a four bedroom apartment which just has two showers. The hot springs help, but take more planning.

Of course, in the past week I've started taking cold showers when I get home as a quick cool-down.

#27: Author: Polly, Location: Essex

Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 8:12 am
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The showers were put in, in my hall of residence the summer I moved out! We had huge old baths up until that point, which were freezing cold unless you left them for ages to warm up once the water was in (by which time the water was lukewarm at best!), but we were allowed the shower head things. The flat I moved into also had no shower and the flat I rented before I bought my first place at the end of 2002 also had not shower (the water tank wasn;t high enough apparantly). In fact, when I moved in to my SLOC's flat (inbetween selling mine and us moving into our lovely new house), I had to manage with only a shower attachment thing again - and I really missed my amazing shower from my flat. That was hard! Rolling Eyes

#28: Author: Chris, Location: Nottingham

Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 8:51 pm
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Liverpool Uni-
It was Dale Hall = she is living in Salisbury at the moment, for another couple of weeks, and the showers are fine there. The advantage of Dale was that there was one bath and toilet for 2 rooms, whereas the showers in Salisbury are 2 per floor, but she says this isn't a problem (works out at 1 shower per 6 people).

#29: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 3:58 pm
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I was thinking of this thread this morning, as the hot water is out in our block of flats (long, sad story!) and we are reduced to boiling water on the stove and "managing" by standing in the bath and pouring water from the basin over ourselves.

And rinsing conditioner out of one's hair is not easy in such circumstances! I reckoned the Chalet School girls were wise not to wash their hair very often (not that they had conditioner before about the late 1960s), especially as, in the early days, they didn't have running water either, and had to cart their hot water about in jugs and basins.

#30: Author: Maisie, Location: St Albans, Herts, UK

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 4:28 pm
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I was at Edinburgh uni about 15 years ago and the flat I shared in my first year just had a bath (between 4 of us) - it was a real pain, we had the tap-shower thingy too but it was pretty hopeless.

#31: Author: Rosie, Location: Huntingdonshire/Bangor

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 5:11 pm
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Mrs Redboots wrote:

And rinsing conditioner out of one's hair is not easy in such circumstances!

I do recall one night in December whenI was driven across the village in my dressing gown to rinse the conditioner from my hair using a friend's shower because our water had gone off at just the wrong moment...

#32: Author: little_sarah, Location: Liverpool/Manchester

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 6:25 pm
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Chris wrote:

Liverpool Uni-
It was Dale Hall = she is living in Salisbury at the moment, for another couple of weeks, and the showers are fine there. The advantage of Dale was that there was one bath and toilet for 2 rooms, whereas the showers in Salisbury are 2 per floor, but she says this isn't a problem (works out at 1 shower per 6 people).

Salisbury's nice, had friends in there last year. I work at Carnatic in the bar, wouldn't it be weird if I knew your daughter!

#33: Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans

Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 8:57 pm
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I was just rather forcibly reminded of this thread, our shower has broken and I had to wash my hair in the bath and as it's getting rather long it ended with me having to call for Mum to have to rinse it as I just couldn't get the top without the ends trailing in the soapy water! Suddenly the idea of going to a hairdresser for a shampoo makes a lot more sense Very Happy

#34: Author: Chris, Location: Nottingham

Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 1:09 pm
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Yes it would be weird little Sarah, especially as she doesn't read the Chalet books. She read one or two a few years ago, but isn't into them at all.

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