hi does any one remember the lune laundry i think thats how you spell it, by the mystery park and is there any old pictures of it.
thanks
debbie

hi does any one remember the lune laundry i think thats how you spell it, by the mystery park and is there any old pictures of it.
thanks
debbie

Hello Debbie

You have spelled the name of the laundry correctly. It looks as if the Record Office could help with a photograph or information on the Lune Laundry since a nationwide archives listing (http://www.a2a.org.uk/about/contributors/1072-list.asp) shows:

Merseyside Record Office: Lune Laundry, Lawrence Road, Wavertree, Liverpool [1925-1925] ref. M380LUL

Also check out this Google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Lune+Laundry%22) where one person on a genealogical site mentions an illustration of the laundry in a Holt School magazine for 1925.

The Spinners song "Liverpool Lullaby" has a couple of lines about the Lune:

Liverpool Lullaby
Author: Stan Kelly

Oh you are a mucky kid,
Dirty as a dustbin lid
When he finds out the things you did
You'll get a belt from your da
Oh you have your father's nose
So crimson in the dark, it glows
If you're not asleep when the boozers close
You'll get a belt from your da

You look so scruffy lying there
Strawberry jam tufts in your hair
Though in the world you haven't a care
And I have got so many
It's quite a struggle everyday
Living on your father's pay
‘cause the bugger drinks it all away
And leaves me without any

Although we have no silver spoon
Better days are coming soon
Now Nellie's working at the Lune
And she gets paid on Friday
Perhaps one day we'll have a bash
When Littlewoods provide the cash
We'll get a house in Knotty Ash
And buy your dad a brewery

Oh you are a mucky kid,
Dirty as a dustbin lid
When he finds out the things you did
You'll get a belt from your da
Oh you have your father's face
You're growing up a real hard case
But there's no one can take your place
Go fast asleep for Mammy


Chris

Here's a poem on the Liverpool 800 Poems Site (http://www.poem800.com/liver.php?poem=796)

The Lune Laundry

The Lune laundry lay long a low
next to the Army Barracks off Wavertree road.
Rows of small high-up windows like weaving mills
gave it an institutional air as you could never see in
so imagining a sort of washerwoman’s Hades.

Vans cream, sometimes green, roared in and out
with regimented precision carrying massive,
varnished, wicker basket’s so heavy
the driver and his mate staggered low carrying them in
continuing the same routine on the way out
but now they were tagged with large white luggage labels.

The Lune catered for every need,
collars starched so stiff
they could be worn for maybe three days
the first being purgatory,
cutting at the neck like a razorblade
making conversation a quizzical exercise between men
with their with head’s held painfully to one side.

Sheets boiled in huge vats were mangled onto long tables
and deftly flicked by white turbaned women
into manageable size before being strung up on
monster drying rails.

Then as the hooter signalled the end of the day,
they rushed out into the road,
pink, parboiled and smelling as if they had just
emerged from a hot soapy bath.

Worse, the surrounding area had the same smell
... anathema to us kids.


By H. Macbryde

You dug them out didn't you Chris, well done.

I sent a patterned shirt there once. The patten came off.

chris thats excellent thank you so much in finding all that info/ my mum worked there when she left school, round about my daughters age now. and that is where she used to meet my dad outside. awwwwwww

thanks again
debbie

sorry about your t.shirt waterways it was,nt me mum lolol

hi does any one remember the lune laundry i think thats how you spell it, by the mystery park and is there any old pictures of it.
thanks
debbie

Hi Debbie,

I have a story about the Lune Laundry that still tends to bring a tear to my eyes. I was stationed in Germany as a serving soldier in the late sixties and was engaged to a girl who lived at Old Swan. She was a really lovely lady.

I received a letter from her breaking off the engagement(a dear John) and I later learned that she had married either a manager, or the manager from the same Lune laundry in Lawrence Road.

About three years ago(2003) my nephew told me that he worked in the same office as her and after my mother passed away in the late 90's I found the engagement ring that I had given to her in my mothers treasures. The lady is often in my thoughts but I have not seen her since the late 60's.

You can imagine how surprised I was having just joined this website to once again be reminded of my lost lady because of the Lune laundry.

John

aah, a poignant story. Welcome to the forum :)

hi does any one remember the lune laundry i think thats how you spell it, by the mystery park and is there any old pictures of it.
thanks
debbie

I remember the adverts inside the corpy buses for the LUNE LAUNDRY!

Rob

i worked there for a summer season prior to going to university (June to Sept 67)


it was there i was taught "how to press" by one of the "washerwomen"

i used to work on the woolens tumble driers and "re-fluffer" machine

it was mainly bed linen from ships and hotels we dealt with

health and safety would freak if they were still in business now, (a two ton spin drier is a sight to behold)

the smell from the dry-cleaning rooms "upstairs" lives with me still and the high voltage static shocks from the tumble driers are still making my nerves tingle... and the **** big cockroaches first thing in the morning...........

it wasn't all hot and sweaty indoor stuff.. i got a promotion to delivering clean bedlinen etc to the ships down the docks... a rare treat... out in the fresh air and sunshine.......

just to think this was in 1967!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! clocking on by card on an ancient victorian machine was still "normal"

seems a life time ago.... oh ...SHIRT .... IT IS !!!!!!!!!