Do it yourself repairs

Number 234 is at the Flemington road end of Errol street in North Melbourne. In February of 1973 I made the decision to leave home permanently. Three names were listed on the lease. Mine, Michael my partner and Soph our mutual friend.

Rarely was there only the 3 of us in the house. A hotchpot of characters found spaces on the floor some for a night, one traveler stayed too long and Soph packed his suitcase, put it on the tessellated front verandah and locked the heavy wooden door.

Maybe if he had not been so boring he could have stayed longer.

Soph’s boyfriend Ken stayed several nights a week. In the bedroom outside during the day Jenny, a critical care midwife who worked night shifts slept in Meryl’s bed while Meryl was at college. Although not on the lease they became permanent residents.

The bathroom was the next room past the outside bedroom and through the last door after the bathroom sat a double concrete laundry trough and the “ wringer.” I believe to be a Speed Queen. She sat in all her glory washing our clothes and squeezing the life out of them after the swishing of water was finished.

One Saturday morning the droning sound of the twisting of the washing machine barrel ground to a halt. Caught up in a tangle, almost a mangle sat wrangler jeans and t shirts and my netball skirt. The bottom of the jeans wedged into a crevasse.

The machine belonged to the landlord and despite Michael driving to his office in the shopping centre of Errol street and asking for help he shrugged his shoulders and said no.

This is a job for the gang. The kettle boiled on the gas stove ready to make endless pots of tea.

Word spread we needed help. Wise people arrived with screwdrivers and wrenches matched only with their wild ideas on how to solve this problem without destroying the jeans, t-shirt and my netball skirt.

The washer is unplugged and walked out into the back yard.

Piece by piece we dismantled the wringer laying each piece in order on the ground. Being the teacher I had my chalk and drew around the shapes much to the mirth of the others until Pat arrived and so amused seeing the activity and not noticing the organized chaos kicked some of the parts all over the place. Honors in science does not always make you smart.

Dismantled, jeans removed, assorted debris cleaned out and the machine is reassembled. Soph has handed steaming mugs of tea to each of us so we could sip as we admired our work.

Soph is observant, she is philosophical, which is where her name comes from, although she felt being a boarder at the Star of the Sea it was best to have an alias so she could get on with things, her words.

Unlike Pat Soph notices things such as the extra parts still circled with chalk on the ground.

With a grin she points and asks

“ What about these”

We all laugh and shrug. Where would they go?

We , well Ken, Mick and Pat push the wringer into the doorway of the laundry, plug it in and turn it on.

Ken is still in the laundry when the wringer part begins spinning in circles on the top. As a bit of bad luck would have it he had stepped away from the PowerPoint when the wild swinging began and could not reach to turn it off.

The giggling became hysterical when we realised we had no way of turning the machine off, this was like something out of Space Odessey or One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest.

Ken was trapped inside the laundry. We cant even pass him a cup of tea or his rollie cigarettes and now because he can’t get out wants to go to the loo and says he is hungry.

We cannot stop laughing at the absurdity.

Jenny and I are the only two without a private school education and a university degree. We are the working class they are the elite slumming it, yet we are levelled here with an out of control washing machine swinging wildly enough to appear to be dancing in the doorway.

A head pokes over the fence. It is Ros who calls she would love to help but as she is a separationist lesbian she cannot enter the property while the men are there. Well, she just says she can’t come over while the men are there, but we know why.

She suggests the boys belly crawl into the laundry entering the other side of the machine to Ken.

They don’t fit, they are hopeless at crawling on concrete.

It is then Jenny and I make our way to the front of the house, find the power box and switch the power off.

Cheers could be heard from the backyard.