From my childhood, partly spent in Milan, I remember the ‘lavandaie’ or laundresses who would wash their and their clients’ clothes in the waters of the ‘navigli’, the old canals (now sadly largely filled in) which connected the city with major rivers like the Adda and the Po. It must have been back-breaking work to be a ‘lavandaia’, bent double with her heap of laundry on the towpath but camaraderie helped to alleviate a tedious occupation which stretched back into the mists of time.

Of course, there are no ‘lavandaie’ on the Milanese’ navigli’ today.  The coming, first of launderettes and then of affordable home washing machines, have spelled their end.  In the hill villages of Lucca province springs supplied instead the ‘lavanderie’ or communal wash-basins. There are some fine examples of these village ‘launderettes’ and interesting excursions can be made to visit them. For example, there is a sweet one at San Romano di Borgo a Mozzano. Here two covered basins are fed by four spouts. The larger basin was used to get the worst of the dirt off the clothes and the smaller to get them spotlessly clean. Woe betides if the wrong basin were used by a novice!

Just outside Trassilico and dating back to the 16^th century there is a delightful fountain with wash-house.

On its wall are some inscriptions. One of them (in translation) reads: “There’s no fire that burns more than a tongue that talks too much” which could, more idiomatically, be rendered as “dangerous talk costs lives” – it was inscribed by Spanish mercenaries quartered there in the 1500’s during a campaign between Lucca and the Estense army. (Was it a hint to loquacious washerwomen to keep their mouths shut I wonder?) The water tastes delicious.

Before the advent of modern detergents clothes were washed by hand with the use of ‘lisciva’ or a solution composed of ash and water. (Today modern detergents continue to have ash incorporated as part of their ingredients).  Laundry would also be boiled in a large pan with ‘lisciva’ before being rinsed at the lavanderia. I am suitably informed than this solution made whites dazzlingly white!

We are increasingly entering a society where communal activities are gradually being lost. Television and internet streaming are removing audiences from cinemas and launderettes are closing down now that washing machines are standard for so many homes. With the continuing pandemic home-working has become the norm for many employees and on-line shopping has expanded exponentially. We must lament the disappearance of those locations where one could meet neighbours and friends and exchange gossip and banter and never feel alone or isolated.