These boys certainly look like they’re having a good time, aren’t they? We certainly don’t find kids jumping into a tin tub to beat the heat these days. Usually, we just run for a cool shower, or if we’re lucky, take a dip in the pool.
Those aren’t bath tubs, however – they were used for doing the laundry! However, as a kid Derek remembers using them to cool off from the Singapore heat. There was also another use for such tin tubs (other than laundry and baths):
There’s one other thing I can remember that the baths were used for. Around the estates, there were always chickens and ducks roaming about. I’m not sure if they were wild or to be, unfortunately, used for someone’s dinner! This meant that there were many unhatched eggs around and all the kids would go back patiently, day after day, to see if they’d hatched out. Some of the eggs would be laid in our gardens and some of the ducklings from them would be put in the tin bath so they could have a good swim about.
Talk about playing with your food! Read more about those tin bathtub days in Derek’s Sampans, Banyans and Rambutans.
6 Responses
Haha, those guys seem to be having so much fun!
I don’t think that one can even buy tin baths nowadays. Showers have pretty much seen the demise of the good old bath!
Posted on May 1st, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Oh! I just remembered that my mother used to wash me in the kitchen sink! How times change, eh?
Posted on May 1st, 2010 at 8:46 pm
i remember my grandmother used to sometimes put me and my cousins in the red plastic pail which she has in her bathroom,she’ll thn fill the pail with warm water and let us sit thr awhile…i used to love it:)
Posted on November 14th, 2010 at 4:39 am
i remember my grandmother used to sometimes put me and my cousins in the red plastic pail which she has in her bathroom,
Posted on December 30th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
My grandma used to put my cousins,brother and myself in a red pail she had in her bathroom too:)
Posted on February 19th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
In 70′s, I had ever soak myself both in the oval, aluminium pail and tall plastic pail for a bath. Fun! Water is plentiful in those days.
Posted on March 25th, 2011 at 11:42 am
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