OT: scrubbing the doorstep

[Bruce]

There is a good explanation here:

to earlier in the thread)

Red raddle and Cardinal Red were two different things. Red raddle was a traditional ochre pigment mixed with limewash. It gave a matt (dull) red finish.

Cardinal Red was a branded polish (wax- or oil-based) intended for use on quarry tiles but often used on Lancashire brick. It gave a high gloss finish when polished.

You can make red raddle yourself. Cardinal Red is difficult if not impossible to obtain.

I used to live in Salford too. :-(

[Tim S]

Bruce coughed up some electrons that declared:

Ooh - I remember Cardinal Red - and my mother used it, in Surrey, on the front door step. I reckon the early 70's was the last era that doorstep cleaning was considered important by anyone down that way.

Tableau Polish seems to be touted as a substitute:

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In this Victorian area many people still effectively do - and the tiled path leading up to it. It's one of the 'must haves' these days - a pretty tiled path etc.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Rod saying something like:

They were fairly dirty buggers in the 1700s anyway.

[Rod]

Currently re-reading The Baroque Cycle - which is largely set around then. Indeed aspects sound pretty horrible. Especially the rat catchers/catching/rats. :-)

The earlier post just made me imagine that between Christams 1799 and New Year 1800, someone suddenly jumped up and scrubbed their doorstep - alighting a fashion trend that was to last the best part of three centuries.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Dee saying something like:

I recall that from the late 50s - I was but a snotty kid watching my grandmother do it. I think it was dying out then as I don't remember seeing it much after that at all. Many years later, on visiting various parts of the UK with traditional small terrace houses it was obvious the tradition still lived on in some areas - more accurately, some households, for most in the street showed no evidence of it.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember petek saying something like:

I can just about smell that shop. There were stores like it all over the place where I grew up.

Near me, up until about 4 years ago, there was a hardware store (actually, a farmers' supply shop) just like that - you could be sure of finding the most amazing things by poking about the back shelves, it being largely self-service. The owners moved to new, larger premises where everything is on easy display (still self-service) but in the move they threw out a load of stuff they thought would never be needed. Turns out a lot of the stuff I've needed recently is the kind of thing they used to have and no easy place to find it.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher saying something like:

Aye, and if you tell that to t' kids today, they wouldn't believe you.

[Stephen Howard]

Same here!