Washing Line - Why the Scottish Love Them

The canny Scot is an international image, which has been carried to all corners of the globe by Scots emigrants who left their nature land for foreign shores, adventure and to seek their fortune.

Doing the washing has never been a favourite chore and the history books give little mention as to the habits of William Wallace or Robert the Bruce except they seemed famed for fighting battles. In fact nothing in our Scottish history books refers to the washing lines that came to be a feature of every back garden throughout the land.

These accompanied by the wooden folding clothes horses combined to provide a fall back eco friendly natural drying system in times of wet or stormy weather or during a dull grey winter where any damp clothes hung on the line soon froze into a fixed display of frozen scarecrows clothes.

In a world of costly energy where every Scots household is fully aware of the monthly bills the drying costs are under close examination "How on earth did we run up a bill so high?" is a regular question and often the culprit turns out to be the tumble dryer. When invented it seemed to be the answer to everyone's needs. An instant solution to drying the laundry.

However a solution often brings with it a new set of problems, such as last item drying – the sensor tumble dryer will only shut down when the last item is dry so items that have already dried during the cycle will simply be dried over and over again. Fluff collection – fluff is really the loose fibres of a garment. The violent action of the tumble dryer throws the clothes around damaging the fibres and reducing the life of each garment.

Hanging clothes on a natural drying washing line or clotheshorses of various kinds does not have any of these problems. Clothes dry at their own pace each item may be removed from the clothes drying rack when dry without waiting for the whole load to dry. Of course drying racks do not attack or bash the laundry but simply provide a rack for it to lie on or hang from to allow the natural drying cycle to take place.

I can hardly fail to admire the old Scots housewife with her natural drying system of washing lines and clothes horses, and wonder at how things go in cycles taking us back to the natural way. Maybe if we all grow to love this natural way we can all make a difference.