The word Wanker springs to mind

[Huge]

None of you people heard of laundry marks? Quite a lot of my "business" shirts have them in from hotel laundries.

[charles]

Cash's name tapes - still available

[Andrew Mawson]

Cash's Name Tags were the thing in my school days - all uniform, shirts, underwear, blankets etc had to have them affixed before term started and trunks were packed and sent 'PLA' (passenger luggage in advance) to the boarding house. Usually this invoked a period of intense activity at the end of the holidays while things were gathered and checked.

Something similar is still available I see:

Andrew

[michael adams]

Cash's woven name tapes. They're still on sale.

They came and maybe still do came is a variety of typefaces.

Those were the days when you couldn't simply buy school clothes in places like Tesco but possibly had to pay top dollar to an authorised school supplier. Being an innocent at the time the idea that other kids might be tempted to nick your stuff or that the supplier or school were getting backhanders simply didn't arise. ISTR most of the stuff had labels which could be marked with a fountain pen as an alternative.

michael adams

...

[Huge]

Come to think of it, we had to sew these into all my M-I-L's stuff when she went into The Home. Not that is stopped her from getting random stuff back from the laundry.

[michael adams]

It wasn't my own Gran but a friend's who I was visiting. The thing I most remeber about it, apart from the boiler being painted white

- or what passed for white, was her using two irons. One heating up while the other was being used. As they probably all did. ISTR her testing the iron or doing something after taking it off the heat but can't remember what that was. Although as the irons were all in one piece with iron handles I doubt you could scorch anything if you could pick one up. But then again maybe they used a cloth around the handle.

michael adams

...

[michael adams]

Er, according to Google images most had wooden handles.

Which having been in use for maybe 2000 years maybe isn't all that surprising. Given the superiority of a wooden handle to a piece of cloth.

michael adams

...

[spuorgelgoog]

In my granny's case I inherited sheets that she'd embroidered with her name for the laundry - not fancy monogramming embroidery; stitches that looked a bit like making letters on a 7-segment display

In mother's case, little tags sewn into the hems, or possibly iron-on ones later.

Owain

[Ash Burton]

It was not just the middle classes but many people who did not have any washing facilities in their houses also sent their washing to the laundries, indeed the laundries would mostly collect and deliver but AFAICR you had to put the washing in a specially supplied fabric bag hence the term 'bagwash'.

[Graeme]

In message , Andrew Mawson writes

Yes! That is what I remembered, but not the name. Thank you.

[Harry Bloomfield]

michael adams presented the following explanation :

I think the usual trick was to spit on the iron, the sizzle gave an idea of the temperature. My very early days, but I can just about remember my mother's irons had metal handles and she used a cloth to pick them up. Our first home had a small chimney in a corner, which had been closed off obviously what remained of a copper for heating water. I remember she at first used a tub, with a washboard. Those were soon replaced by a single tub English Electric and an electric iron.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Ash Burton was thinking very hard :

I think I remember those too. They were a white, wide mesh bag. I think the idea was they just popped the bag and contents into an industrial sized washer, then returned them washed, but maybe still wet.

[whisky-dave]

Well I have to make sure my students don't grab the perminent markers for use on the white board, otherwise it takea lot longer to clean of the board.

[Ash Burton]

Yes that was how it worked but i only remember the washing coming back dried although i imagine you could have a choice of dry or wet.