Jack Moffatt on scrubbing floors

Uncle Jack Moffat describes how the boys used to scrub the floors in  the dormitory in Cherbourg.

Jack Moffatt – scrubbing the Dormitory floors

Transcript

Jack: See we used to get down like this. We used to get down on our hands and knees. We’d have a bucket there with a scrubbing brush and soap in it. Water, and a cloth. Then we get it, and we scrub, like that… scrub, like that.

… and then we’d put the cloth in, get the water rinse it out, try and wipe it all over. ‘Cos this veranda here, we used to scrub. The people who used to live down there, they used to look after their own room. The people up there used to… then they have 2 boys might scrub the little veranda round there, the little veranda round there, and then we’d polish these three floors. Polish ‘em.   We’d get on our knees and we’d polish.

Director: show me how you used to do it

Jack: we used to polish. We might have a rag, and then we’d go like that, and we’d polish again. And there’d be about 7 or 8 of us, all doing it.

Director: and you used to talk or sing or what?

Jack: No, we used to just… oh, we’d probably talk…. And then we’d have to get all the wax off the thing. And we used to get a rag and we used to try to get it off. But then, like I told ya, we got sick and tired of it. We used to put people on a blanket, and run around with it. And we used to do it quickly. And then the boss would come in and examine it. If he thought it wasn’t good enough, we’d get down and do it again. It was all somethings like that, see? Because you had to do what you’re told. It was the boys’ home. And I thought there’s always a punishment for boys’ home. But yes, like I said, it learnt us a few things, y’know. See even those doorknobs, we had to polish them, and them little things on the window which used to lift up. We had to polish them, and little things on top of them, where you used to shut them. We used to polish all that. I don’t know why.