In Camera

 From Facebook Archives

18 February 2025 at 16.44

My much loved little Sony digital camera, which is over ten years old, is malfunctioning. 

It's been making little graunchy noises when the lens telescopes for a little while. But now it's stuck on out even when the camera is off. And despite following the camera's request to turn it off and on again I can't get it back in.

The question is.

The nearest Jessops is in York but there is a camera repair shop listed in old Eldon Square (AMP). Is it worth making enquiries.

Or should I just bite the bullet and get a new one from Argos - a similar Canon would set me back £300+ a cheap AGFA £50odd.

Not having a camera is not an option.

Dulcima  I took a camera to the Old Eldon Square shop, many years ago.  I am surprised it's still there, if it's the same one! I think it was up several flights of stairs.  Worth investigating,  I would have thought.

Pink Shipskitchen  APM Camera Repairs are closed until the 21st according to their Facebook, but you could try ringing or emailing them for advice before making the trek into Newcastle!

You could also try the London Camera Exchange on Gosforth High Street either for a repair, or they do second hand cameras if you did need to replace it.  The current secondhand stock is on their website

Miss Doozer  Mine went the same way. It was the motor and a £200 repair. You can get a new camera for that, and the bobby basic ones nowadays are pretty fab.

📷📷📷  

I searched around the office and unearthed two brand new, still in their boxes, rather posh Lumix digital cameras which Fester bought some years ago when he started on his neverending list of pits.

He’d intended using one to photograph documents in museums to look at on-screen at home at his leisure, rather than spend time poring over them in situ restricted by opening hours.

“You work out how to work yours then you can show me.”

Many spouses will understand that, more often than not, teaching one another to do anything always ends in tears – or at the least a huge row and temper tantrum.

As a man with three degrees he's perfectly capable of working it out for himself, and less likely to ask me the same questions every time he used it.   

“Bugger that” I said “you can work it out for yourself” and acquired the simple little Sony from Argos.

However, I am now using one of the Lumix.

It’s four times bigger and heavier than the Sony, and has far too many functions for a point-and-shoot girl like me.

 

Washing Machines

1981

I come from a time before automatic washers when you filled the machine with hot water and soap powder and decided for yourself how long it would agitate the contents.  Then hauled them out into a sink (preferably Belfast) to rinse the suds out.

The first time I came across one of those knee high cylindrical spin-dryers was in the laundry room of Easton Hall of residence for lady students at Newcastle University in 1975.  This was in the bowels of the basement next to the boiler room; where there was some useful warm hanging and drying space. 

You would load your wet washing into the spin-dryer; it took very little and that had to be ‘balanced’.  However careful you were loading it the spin-dryer would still dance around the room after you switched it on. 

The Squireen had a twin tub which I used when we shared a flat in the early 1980s.  One tub washed, the other  rinsed and spinned (span? spun?).  Again the laundress decided how long either process went on for, and hauled wet washing from one side into the other.

I believe I first used an automatic front loader when I moved in with Phil in 1986.

Yesterday’s blog about washing days of yore elucidated this exchange of memories on Facebook

16 February 2026at 09.52

I've blogged https://bentonbag.blogspot.com/2026/02/washing-days.html

Half from archives and half from memory.

Drummerman  My English Grandma was dead posh in latter years - her washing machine had an electric mangle that sat on top of it and swung out of the way.   

It lived in the wash house next to what must have been an electrically heated poss tub.   

The washing machine was passed on to us (Sans long-dead mangle).  It didn’t last much longer: in the immortal words of Mike Harding “Bang, smoke, finito benito”.

Brenda M Boyd  Mum's (electric and/or hand powered) mangle sat above its own drainage slit into the washer, so no soapy water was wasted.  I did see it being used to wring big things like sheets but the rollers were so worn they had little effect.   

Our foremothers didn't need the gym with weekly weightlifting wet bedding into and out of the washer and onto the line.

Mother refused all efforts at persuading her to get a more modern washer, or even a twin-tub (luxury!). She did agree to inherit a spin dryer from her daughter-in-law's mother in 1977.  Father referred to it as Concorde because of the noise it made "taking off", and rumbling around the kitchen.

It also led to this memorable exchange with Middlesister that Christmas...

"Mum, Mrs P's spindryer, is it electric?"

"Yes" then a pause while the question sank in

 "What did you expect it to be?” 

then sarcastically “Gas?"

"No" haughtily with injured daughterly dignity "I thought it might be a wrangler."

 

Washing Days

On Mondays Mum would pull out the Hoover washing machine, fill it with hot water and do the washing.   

After soaking items in the sink she put them in the washer in order; first the whites and sheets, working her way down to the things requiring a cooler wash and finally whatever was dirtiest.  That way the water didn’t have to be changed until she’d finished.   The soak water for things going in became the rinse water for stuff coming out.  

Until she acquired a spin dryer in 1977 everything was wrung by hand and hung out on the line to dry.  There was a mangle but it was used so much that in a few years the rollers were too worn to be of much use.

Blodfa’s garden had been arranged partly with washing in mind.   

There was a T shaped washingline arrangement along and across the garden, with a cinder path alongside so wet ground didn’t matter.  

Washing went out in anything short of a downpour.  

Mum reckoned frost was good at killing germs and sometimes washing came back in as stiff as a board.   

Frosted and sun dried washing smells lovely once it’s dried and ironed.

Dad’s shed had originally been built 

(in 1926 before mains water arrived) as his grandmother’s washhouse.  Although it was mainly old railway sleepers and corrugated iron there was a brick fireplace and chimney where she used to boil the copper for hot water.   

In later years our Grandma used it to boil layer’s mash for the hens.

From Facebook archives

16 February 2014 at 09:46

The sun is out!

So is the washing!!

And I don't care if I've puddled the lawn putting it out as I'm the only bugger that uses our garden anyway.

Miss Fiddle  Mine's out too!

Dulcima  Wow! Sun!

Henlady  My hens are loving the sun, lying in it- on a dry spot !

Bentonbag  One of the nicest sounds in the world is a happy hen crooning in the sunshine.  At home we had some fir trees (leylandii) on the southern side of the shed/garage in the field/orchard/henrun.  It was almost always dry under there and it was their favourite place for dust baths.  After which they would stand on one leg and croon to themselves in the afternoon sunshine.

16 February 2023 at 08.48

Took the day off blogging yesterday and:-

    Put on a small load of washing (60⁰ whites and undies).

    Took Ferretfingers to the day centre.

    Popped into LDNE on the way home with something I'd signed as a trustee for 

        insurance.

    Phoned Middle Sister.

    Took down washing in loft and hung up load of washing.

    Put on a load of washing (40⁰ socks, tights, pyjamas, trousers, leggings, hoodie, 

        jumper).

    Did the washing up, which in my case includes doing all the pans, plastics for 

        recycling and worktops.

    Collected Ferretfingers from the Gary Mather Centre.

    Stopped off at the Rising Sun Earth & Fire bakers to collect bread.

    Took Ferretfingers to Molineux centre so the dental nurse could scrape his teeth.

    Came home and after tea, having forgotten it, hung up the second load of washing.

Today the plan is Sainsbury's with Thunderthighs and, possibly, some ironing.

One day I shall get to the sewing machine...

It's a great life if you don't weaken.