I was watching a television programme recently about batter, of all things, the coating that you get around fried fish in the UK. It was the findings in the programme that there are a lot of regional variations in taste for batter. Crispy batter, apparently is popular in the North of England and the further south of the country one went, the batter that was most in favour was soft. That did not include certain even more localised variations where, for instance, certain cities in the Midlands area liked spicy batter.

You might wonder what this has to do with the textile care industry and it is because the programme’s findings reminded me of a fascinating conversation that my Dad and I had with a wonderful drycleaning supply representative, Jack Carter, a real salt-of-the-earth type who served in the Royal Navy during World War Two on Arctic Convoy duties. He was a northerner, and the well-known chemical supply company that he worked for was also based in the North of England..

Jack informed us the company had to provide a special range of drycleaning soaps and detergents designed in house and with the ability to give drycleaned garments a whole raft of surface finishes from hard which was popular in the north of the country to a softer handle in the south.

One of the other interesting lessons that I learned about textile finishes was when a very nice customer of ours started making regular work trips to the USA.

It was the time of double denim being popular in the UK. Our customer came back from her trip having apparently gone clothes shopping, because when he brought in his usual large bundle of clothes for cleaning, among them were denim shirts with button down collars which I had not seen before and also quite stiff with starch.

This was as nothing, however, when I saw the Levis that he also had with him. He was quite serious with his instructions on the finish, and I remember him saying that he wanted them to be almost able to stand up by themselves, the starch was to be so heavy. Apparently, they wore these like this in the US in the late 1970s early 1980s. Can anyone confirm if this is correct, and it it was correct how could you sit down wearing jeans that would hardly bend?

Being taken to the cleaners

When one is trucking on a bit – like me – and have a history in the industry, there are not many surprises left when it comes to people having a swipe at the drycleaning industry. We are accused of being harmful to the climate and contributing to climate change – and always trying to rip customers off with our prices.

We are all familiar with the expression ‘being taken to the cleaners’, which is a term that has always niggled me, so I decided to do some research in order to find its origins.

It would seem, according to various sources that the phrase originated in North America at the turn of the 18/19 centuries. It seems likely to be from when someone had lost badly at gambling (nowadays it is used to describe any financial rip-off and is often used in sporting life, as in cricket, for example, where you might hear that Pakistan took England to the cleaners) and literally lost the shirt off their back.

But that doesn’t explain where the cleaners come into that scenario. Perhaps the owner had to take the garment to be cleansed before handing over. Feeling much aggrieved about the loss of clothing (and probably a lot colder, too) the poor loser might have complained about having been ‘taken to the cleaners’. But who really knows? (Answers on a postcard please, or you could email LCNi editor, Kathy,Bowry@laundryandcleaningnews. com, and she will pass your thoughts on to me.)

The phrase ties in well with ‘being cleaned out’ or ‘washed up’ with a loss and the happier expression of ‘cleaning up’ when you win. American thriller writer Dashiell Hammett used it in his novel ‘Red Harvest’ in 1929, and I quote: “That’s not the idea. These people you want taken to the cleaners were friends of yours yesterday. Maybe they will be friends again next week.”

Going to the cleaners nowadays, of course, as we all know, has only happy and positive associations.