Water dragged, pumped and carried: Fuelling future tourism Part III
“We washed up in cold water, that we had to get from the well, a long way down in the field.”
Water is our most precious resource, an essential of tourism. “The efficient use of water in the tourism sector, coupled with appropriate safety measures, wastewater management, pollution control and technology efficiency can be key to safeguarding our most precious resource.” [UN Sustainable Tourism goals]
Foul
Touring southern England in 1936, Hilary Hughes washed in cold water every day except once when she washed in a river “which ran through sluices with a delightful roaring sound, the water was wonderfully clean and clear and the force would have carried away the bucket if it had not been chained.” [1]
When she went swimming, the untreated river water in which she swam tasted foul. Clean water was a precious resource in England then.
She and her friend, Margaret, washed standing over enamel basins in their bedrooms. At some youth hostels men washed at troughs in the yard with water drawn by hand pumps.
Some job
When rooms were set aside for washing, women often had better facilities. They were deferential times.
Water was often lacking. Cicely Cole, at a rough farmhouse in Somerset, found her “only chance of a bath was a swim in sea or river” and she walked across fields to get it. At Bala in Wales, Berta Gough wrote “we had to go to the river for all the water for washing etc. Some job!” [2]
Pennant Hall opened as a youth hostel in time for Christmas 1930 but the “sanitation was most primitive”. [3] When it was found that drains from a farm ran into the river from which the hostel drew drinking water, the hostel had to be given up.
Pumped
Bridges in Shropshire was one of the first youth hostels to open in 1931. It’s still there today, privately owned. Drinking water came from a spring and washing water from a stream.
At others, water was pumped by hand. FJ Catley did his bit at an outside pump that supplied water for everybody at Steps Bridge in Devon.
Where there was no pump, distances travelled to fetch water could be long. Hartington Hall in Derbyshire gathered rainwater in tanks in the roof for washing but water for drinking and cooking was dragged up hill in a wheeled tank filled by hand with buckets from the village pump.
Water for the hostel at Gara Mill in Devon had to be carried up a steep and muddy path which some avoided by washing in the stream. At Parwich in Derbyshire “The wise traveller takes back plenty of water at night and thus has supplies for the morning.”[4]
Swimming
The 1936 youth hostel handbook indicated where river bathing was available at hostels but said nothing about showers or baths.
Maybe they were rare enough even in private homes and not expected in places as simple as youth hostels.
Even purpose built hostels like those at Malham, Maeshafn and Ewhurst Green seem to have been constructed without baths or showers.
Luxuries
Hot water was a luxury. Hilary had a hot bath at Winchester, her only wash in hot water after four days of cycling. She paid three pence for it and felt delightfully clean.
Jane Ash mentions no baths at all during her week walking in the hilly Peak District. But she was modest and said nothing about bathing or washing.
Cost and efficiency
Ignoring luxury in favour of saving money, a design thesis on youth hostels recommended that “hot water should be supplied [only] where it can be afforded… [5]
The same thesis recommended shower flows of one gallon a minute. Today’s green flows would be 4-6 litres a minute. [6] Whatever else, use of water in 1936 youth hostels was minimal and probably cost drove efficiency not any environmental concern.
Joined up
A public water supply serves almost all of Britain today. In 1936 things were very different, especially in rural areas.
The water industry was highly fragmented and had developed in response to growing demand from industry and urban development.
Even in 1945 more than 1,000 bodies supplied water. Most of these were local authorities working with little coordination. Few reached rural areas. [7]
Ducks and hens
Youth hostels had little choice in how they obtained water. Local conditions prevailed. It’s a reminder of how the essentials on which tourism relies are determined by local supply, as sustainable as the local community allows.
Primitive washing endured at youth hostels beyond the arrival of a mains water supply. By the time I arrived in 1979 at Steps Bridge the pump had gone. Water came up hill in a pipe.
But guests had no showers. They washed in plastic basins in washrooms without hot water which had to be fetched from a kitchen tap in jugs. Some people loved it but most were horrified because by then, mains water was the norm and hot water an essential for personal cleanliness.
Notes
Image of Jane Ash and friends fetching water for the youth hostel at Hartington Hall, Derbyshire, 1934, courtesy YHA Archive, at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.
1. Hilary Hughes diaries. Y691019-1936
2. 'A Diary of Seven Years with the YHA by Bertha [or Berta] Gough. Y610041
3. Ibid
4. Manchester Guardian, Thursday 13th April 1933
5. Horsfield, Alexander J, The Design and Equipment of Youth Hostels, 1940. Y629005-1.
6. Government Buying Standards for showers, taps, toilets and urinals
7. The Development of the Water Industry in England and Wales OFWAT. 27 January 2006.