My mum’s only concession to modernity prior to our arrival here in 1956 was a coffee bean grinder and one of the earliest washing machines imaginable. The coffee grinder was bolted onto the wall and was operated by turning a small handle. The ground coffee ended up in square glass container which needed to be pulled away from the grinder when full. Instant coffee was unheard off. Even if it had been available, no normal Dutchman would be seen dead drinking it. Forty three beans per cup! Yuk
The washing machine was far more complicated. It had a large electric motor which would drive the propeller inside the wooden oak barrel which was the heart of the machine. Backwards and forwards it would grunt and rumble, for hours on end in Revesby. My parents had shipped the washing machine over! A good move, most people were still using boilers and mangles. The barrel was made of oak slats and held together with steel bands. Very much like the wine barrels. Above this oak barrel was the wringer. It was also operated electrically and belt driven. You still had to feed in the items but the rollers would do the rolling and wringing. A release mechanism was on top in case your tie would get picked up by the wringer strangling you to death. The water could only be put into this machine by bucket and emptying was in the same manner.
All the above reminiscing after yet another trip to Aldi. They have a never-ending stream of electric gadgets, week in week out. The sort of gadgets that are not hand-held but in need of bench space and electrical power points. Where do people find the space for; mixers, water coolers, food processors, milk shakers, pop-corn poppers, toasters, chainsaw sharpeners,waffle irons,electric knives, pancake makers,salami slicers, yogurt makers, bread makers?
It is a far cry from just a coffee grinder.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Gez, yeah look me too. I’ve had it with gadgets, I mean I had to throw out my sieve the other day, it was leaking.
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You could stick your finger in it Hung.
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I could but I wooden have any fingers left
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Vibrates?
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Gosh, Hung! It’s like bums on seats. You never have enough as a stop gap sometimes. 🙂
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“Braking Down.” Ha ,ha, ha.
For a few days I have been staring at ‘braking down’ and felt something wasn’t right. Could not put my finger on it. Couldn’t imagine ‘breking or briking, bruking, broking, bryking.
This morning, the big brake through like a flash. “Breaking.”
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You ne’er mentioned ‘braiking’ like in ‘prison braike’. 🙂
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My first knowledge of ‘gadget’ was from ‘The Gadget Man’ at the Agriculutral Show in Cairns where my father steered the family to watch the selling style of the showman, not underestimating his gadgetry. He was florid of face and spat voluminous amounts of frothed saliva and sputum across the microphone tied to him somehow I just don’t remember. Perspiration poured off him until his shirt hung wet against the money he stuffed into its front. My father’s prized possession was the narrow elongated beaker with a plunger that, just fitting the diameter of the beaker, was manipulated up and down rapidly to perfectly whip egg whites stiff. It was packed into my father’s suitcase when he went ‘to conference’ and he ‘made the boys breakfast’, those ‘boys’ being adult male sugar cane technologists who were treated to French Omelette breakfasts in divers barracks-accompanied by random (heavily Scots-accented) swearing and risque (bad) jokes.
The washing machine was a two-tone exterior baked enamel jiver. When the wringer escaped its catch if the user did not secure it, the spindle gyrated a casing of rollers around and ’round, throwing the machine off kilter and it ‘danced’-it seemed-on its rollers until it rocked – in increasingly wider circles, (almost) roll-l-l-l-i-n.g. I inherited this machine when I had my first baby and saved her from its path when it lurched one day towards where she was playing. It was about that episode of time I bought a National blender that had a clever stainless steel attachment for especially grinding spices and coffee. 🙂
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‘Shoe, thank you for these memories. I recall with less certainty my Aunt had one of those wringer machines with rubber-coated rollers for squeezing the water out of sheets etc. They were an OH&S nightmare, but they had a safety device where, if a hand went in with the clothes, they would suddenly spring open, gape wide and still keep turning. The roller gears used to then make an attempt at one’s life on their own account.
When the jaws sprung open, the machine DID in fact overbalance and if one escaped the maw of the wringer, one then had to deal with the dancing machine and it’s contents.
Diabolical !
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Hahaha! You have it in one! An OH&S nightmare! You can imagine the state of mind of the barely 20-something skinny mother with her eyes standing out of her head like alarmed storks at the sight of this dancer. You likely anticipated her anti-social rage spewed up later at the thought the same almost killed her child and she saw the great industrial-‘machine’ so to speak-as a great ass.
Diabolism, indeed! Well appreciated!
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‘shoe, I inherited a 1960’s National Electric blender, sans coffee attachment, some years ago. It still delivers me a banana smoothie every morning, although is down to two, out of eight speeds. They don’t make ’em like they used to!
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That National model I had was early 70s Big M. Likely the same beautiful machining as the one you have. It was a relatively light-weight advance on anything available in my experience since-but I did love the attachment (sigh!). That was a shallow bowl (lidded!)that fitted snugly onto the machine base in place of the jug. The racket of noise as beans went flying every which way being smashed to delicious smelling smithereens was … exciting. 🙂
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The master of all gadgetmen was ‘Joe ,The Gadget Man’ who used to be a huge hit from the very day television was introduced. He did a show whereby he produced gadgets that were sold by Nock and Kirby’s. ‘Bring your money with you’ was his favourite catch cry.
One of the first products he showed was some kind of cleaning cream and you were given a free saucepan to go with it. He became an ikon. He couldn’t believe his luck with having a permanent wife with daughters and grandkids for which he said you never needed any gadgets.
He died aged 89. He claimed,like George Burns, his last few years were spent reading the obituary pages and would only proceed to have breakfast if his name wasn’t in it.
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It prompted me to think of writing a piece on Joe, Gez. Here’s a URL that resonates :
http://www.televisionau.com/tv190861.htm
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How wonderful Gerard (and Emmjay!). I hoped to find something about him by writing to his credit. Yes, I had forgotten he spoke about family. You have recalled him to my mind saying down on the flat-away from the elevated stand that was his performance place-he had every reason to be grateful to the gadgets for giving him a living he thought others would not guess. I wonder if I am right his telling Father their family home was in Sydney and looked out onto the harbour. He was a likeable man either way with an undeniable friendliness of attitude far and above his duties to his performance-and responsibility to praise gadgets.
Yes (laughter) I recall a catch cry to do with money. Luv-a-duck, you have reminded me he called out in his flow of information why you needed to buy a gadget, to effect ‘No matter how big the money. You can give it to me (stuffing money in his shirt betimes) because it’s never too big to go in here.’
What a showman. 🙂
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The morning entertainment was great on ABN2 Emmjay, Test pattern, music at 10am followed by Close at 12pm. Race roundup followed by cartoon time looks like fun also.
I note “Sing along with mitch” was prime Saturday night entertainment on ATN7 as well though it had to go head to head with the “Graeme Kennedy Channel Nine show” on TCN9.
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Thanks to all for reminding me about ‘Joe’. I was fascinated by his show (I was only a little kid!). All of the gadgets seemed to be good quality products that did the intended job. Of course, you could go into Nock & Kirby’s and physically examine the product, rather than mail, or now, internet order, some piece of rubbish for which they won’t give you a refund if it fails. Them were the days.
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What happened to the washing machine, Gez. The PowerHouse Museum would kill for one of those.
Me too, Big M. I remember Nan’s copper boiler and mangle over a wood fire. Pop used to do casual work for the local fruiterer and he got the packing cases for fuel for free. He referred to the wood as “deal”, but I think it was a low resin kind of pine. Light in colour and weight and not in the same league as a bit of hardwood for a decent fire.
When we moved to East Hills, mum washed everything by hand in two concrete laundry tubs (that were still there in 2007 when I sold the house). As soon as she could, Mum bought a big Simpson – that stayed in working order for about 30 years. It was a huge luxury – our neighbours – all with bigger families than ours – had those Hoover Twin tub beasts that spun the load at a million rpm, but were flat out coping with a pair of socks, a towel and a singlet. Mum referred to one as the “Hoover knot-o-matic” when she was helping out across the road.
Real coffee came much later – after I left home in 1973. Nescafe was a big improvement on that tarry wartime and post war Chicory stuff, though.
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Emm,
Not sure what happened to the old washing machine. I know it was rumbling in Revesby for many, many happy years. Its greatest danger was getting fingers caught in the wringer while feeding bed sheets which was a two handed job. I think the rubber rollers might finally have shrivelled up. In any case it certainly did not find its way back to Holland when my parents returned in 1976.
Of course, the kerosene fridge was another item of impossible sophistication. It even made ice cream! Every three or four weeks on a Sunday after church my mum used to empty this fridge and dad then turned it upside down. It weighed a ton, but the turning upside down ritual was part of safeguarding it from breaking down and not freeze anymore. We all had a vested interest in this fridge continuing its work because it froze the home made ice-cream.
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My parents used one of those hand turned metal coffee grinders above a wooden drawer, nothing as modern looking as the one in the photo, although probably a similar vintage. It’s amazing how far ahead American washing machines were in those days. Obviously they were booming back then.
I dislike most kitchen gadgets but my food processor makes life a lot easier, as does the microwave. I really like my lettuce spinner as well (hand powered by pulling a cord). My silly little indulgence is a battery powered and lit pepper grinder. The whole family makes fun of it.
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I love my lettuce spinner, it beats wrapping the the lettuce in tea- towels to dry.
Years ago when we spent three years in Holland they had a program on Dutch TV where useless gadgets were put under the train, they did this to the lettuce spinner: how wrong they were !
When moving from the farm, I gave my food (word?) processor to our son, I never used it, yet I love my streamlined ,easy to clean juice extractor to bits.
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Zyliss ? Good, isn’t it !
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Did you mean food?
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My most beloved gadget was the ‘power pack’. It starts anything with a flat battery. I used it for starting the tractor, the lawnmower, the car. Also to run the electric pump for kids bikes, soccer and rugby balls.
I haven’t found any use for it in the kitchen or bedroom but am working on it.
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Mrs M bought an antique coffee grinder some years back. It only takes 20 minutes to grind enough coffee foe two cups, hence it occupies a ceremonial role!
I do remember an old ‘copper’ and an ancient, not as old as the ‘Oostermatic’, machine that was replaced with a modern ‘twintub’. Still had to fill from a telescopic tap that swung out across the tubs and the new machine, and had to lift clothes from the paddle operated washing side to the spin tub.
Now we get cranky if the front loader can’t think about all of this all by itself!
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I like the coffee grinder, bolted to wall it did not clutter your kitchen bench. The washing machine looks more like something you brew beer or even wine in, well oaked Chardonney, here we come…
The letter DE on the grinder must be short of DouweEgberts ( spelling?)
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Yes, that’s right. Not only coffee but also tobacco. My dad used to roll his from Douwe Egberts Shag. I always used to prefer to roll a shag with Helvi.
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🙂
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I’m with Emmjay!
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lol
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