HMS Ganges Association

The Laundry

Photograph kindly donated by Bert Ward <george.ward@ntlworld.com>

I bought the photograph from the photographers shop on the day that HMS Ganges closed. I do not know the mess or the date of the photo but it is typical of the laundry in 1938-39 which was my period. The civilian in charge of the laundry was known to us as Laundry Joe. He is sitting on the hydro, a spin dryer. Wet clothes were then hung on rails which pushed in to a wall behind which was a heated area. A drying space might be the best description. Some of the boys have a bandage round their left upper arm. They have recently been vaccinated so these boys cannot have been in Ganges very long as vaccination was done early on joining. The procedure was a jelly like substance was put on the arm and the skin then scratched. On boys who had not been vaccinated as a child this would develop into a suppurating hole in the arm taking about ten days to heal. That was my experience.