Sitting in the kitchen the other day I heard one of those unpleasant sounds which makes most people's hearts sink - the thump, thump, rattle, rattle sound of a washing machine indicating it may possibly be considering taking early retirement.

Of course it could have been that someone had left small change in a pocket, or the odd toy car, but it's not a nice sound. The last washing machine I had which made that sound then proceeded to hold a whole drum full of my clothes to ransom and flatly refused to open. Oddly enough, after I had attacked it with a chisel and a few kicks it then worked fine for a couple more years. You have to show domestic appliances who is the boss.

I am sure most of us go into an unreasonable state of panic when such appliances stop playing ball because some of us have now forgotten the ancient art of washing without the aid of electricity.

Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, if we are going to produce lists of the great inventions of the last millennium, the washing machine will be top.

Can you remember the hell that used to be wash-day?

Wash day was called wash day because it took a whole day. And it was usually a Monday, perhaps because you needed two full days rest prior to getting down to doing the laundry.

It began at around 6am with the ceremonial lighting of the copper, a bad tempered pot bellied instrument of torture which heated the water so that the clothes could have a 'good boil'.

Our copper had its own ideas of co-operation, sometimes it would produce a bright hot fire in a few minutes, at other times it would sulk for hours.

If it was the latter a great grey cloud of depression would settle over the house as my mother or my grandmother stomped up and down with dry newspaper, wood shavings, tiny sticks or eventually, if it was my grandmother's turn to light it, a good splash of methylated spirits prior to which my mother and I would leave the room. (In the interests of public safety I should say now that this is not a recommended way of lighting anything - I know because I had a grandmother who rarely had her full set of eyebrows)

When it did light, water had to be added, followed by some form of soap powder (I seem to remember Rinso), then the 'whites', which were boiled for an hour or so, stirred with the 'copper stick' and eventually carefully removed for rinsing, the copper emptied and the whole thing done again.

Marks were removed with a scrubbing brush and Fairy Soap, plus elbow grease.

Anything considered delicate was washed by hand in soap flakes, unless my grandmother grabbed it first and gave it a good boil. Many a jumper ended up as a short sleeved bolero.

Whites usually had a little blue bag added to the rinsing water to give that blue white hue so beloved of proud washers. And anything that needed it was dipped in Robin starch, and quite often things that didn't need it.

After the washing came our version of the spin dryer - the mangle. We had a huge one with great big wooden rollers and a cast iron handle which took a great deal of strength to turn .

On fine days the washing was hung out of doors, on a rope line with the aid of those old fashioned clothes pegs which really were made and sold by gypsies.

Then the line was propped up and hopefully the washing would dry that day. If it didn't, and if the weather was bad, it was all hung on a wooden contraption in the kitchen and hoisted to the ceiling, so that every time you walked past you got slapped in the face by a wet sheet.

And even when the washing was dry it had to be aired, because mothers and grandmothers considered that wearing an un-aired vest was tantamount to inviting the angel of death to move in and sit on your chest.

By the end of wash-day the whole house was full of steam, everything you sat on felt damp, and food was definitely hurried and usually uncooked. And this happened EVERY week, come rain or shine.

So bless the inventors of firstly the electric boilers, followed by the first washing machines and now the wonderful fully automatic washing marvel which practically walks upstairs and sorts out your laundry for you. I don't care if they occasionally remove buttons or slightly reduce the life of your clothes (although I can hardly believe that being boiled, scrubbed and scrunched between heavy rollers did less damage than the modern automatic)

Those days were the good old days? I don't think so.