It stood sentinel in the back garden for endless seasons. Its central pillar had the strength of a battleship's flagpole and its four radial struts could have been deck railings from the same craft. They used to build clotheslines to last.
Silent for decades, it occasionally emitted a low industrial whine when a breeze might set it turning lazily, which I fixed with a squirt of oil in its main shaft's intake valve. You couldn't wind it up or down any more because its winder had seized up years ago.
Eventually it developed a slight list, to the north-west, after the drought of 2010 broke. I thought the extra water had allowed movement in the subterranean concrete block in which it was set.
Eventually the slight list became a noticeable slant, and by earlier this year, it was like a sinking steamship in its death throes. I dug down to the concrete block, but three inches below the surface of the earth the mast was a brown, flaky mess. Rust. At 40 degrees from perpendicular it could break and fall at any time and hit someone. So I put five decades of sterling service out of its wilting misery. I pushed it over. The ring-bark of rust gave way with a slow, crunching death rattle and the clothesline sank to the ground. I lifted it to remove the struts. It weighed a ton. They say a fly on a wall could tell a few tales; but a clothesline, having borne changing fashions since the flower power era, must have seen it all.
I went to Bunnings. They have those fold-up clotheslines made from plastic and powder-coated aluminium guaranteed to hold five wet handkerchiefs, a running singlet and a pair of football socks. Try putting a set of queen-size flannelette sheets, six bath towels and two pairs of denim jeans on one and you may as well lay them on the ground to dry because that's where they'll be.
So I rang a place in Fairfield, the old industrial part up near Preston. After a while someone answered. Yes, they installed heavy-duty clotheslines, the someone said. Yes, they had them on display. Yes, they were open now. I drove over, parked in busy Grange Road and went into the showroom, which was a large shed with two clotheslines and the kind of dimly-lit office full of old chairs and a table strewn with paper junk you find in every factory and warehouse in the world.
The clothes-line man came out the following week with a bunch of steel poles and a bag of cement on the back of a truck. A couple of hours later four shiny struts were turning lazily in the sunshine, just like the old one. Give it twenty-four hours to set before you load it up, the man said, and drove away with the old rusted battleship, in pieces, on the back of the truck.
I gave it forty-eight, just to be sure.
*
Cooper's Clotheslines
174 Grange Road, Fairfield
Silent for decades, it occasionally emitted a low industrial whine when a breeze might set it turning lazily, which I fixed with a squirt of oil in its main shaft's intake valve. You couldn't wind it up or down any more because its winder had seized up years ago.
Eventually it developed a slight list, to the north-west, after the drought of 2010 broke. I thought the extra water had allowed movement in the subterranean concrete block in which it was set.
Eventually the slight list became a noticeable slant, and by earlier this year, it was like a sinking steamship in its death throes. I dug down to the concrete block, but three inches below the surface of the earth the mast was a brown, flaky mess. Rust. At 40 degrees from perpendicular it could break and fall at any time and hit someone. So I put five decades of sterling service out of its wilting misery. I pushed it over. The ring-bark of rust gave way with a slow, crunching death rattle and the clothesline sank to the ground. I lifted it to remove the struts. It weighed a ton. They say a fly on a wall could tell a few tales; but a clothesline, having borne changing fashions since the flower power era, must have seen it all.
I went to Bunnings. They have those fold-up clotheslines made from plastic and powder-coated aluminium guaranteed to hold five wet handkerchiefs, a running singlet and a pair of football socks. Try putting a set of queen-size flannelette sheets, six bath towels and two pairs of denim jeans on one and you may as well lay them on the ground to dry because that's where they'll be.
So I rang a place in Fairfield, the old industrial part up near Preston. After a while someone answered. Yes, they installed heavy-duty clotheslines, the someone said. Yes, they had them on display. Yes, they were open now. I drove over, parked in busy Grange Road and went into the showroom, which was a large shed with two clotheslines and the kind of dimly-lit office full of old chairs and a table strewn with paper junk you find in every factory and warehouse in the world.
The clothes-line man came out the following week with a bunch of steel poles and a bag of cement on the back of a truck. A couple of hours later four shiny struts were turning lazily in the sunshine, just like the old one. Give it twenty-four hours to set before you load it up, the man said, and drove away with the old rusted battleship, in pieces, on the back of the truck.
I gave it forty-eight, just to be sure.
*
Cooper's Clotheslines
174 Grange Road, Fairfield
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