Use your bus pass if you want a bath

For some reason I found myself wondering where the term slipper bath came from.

Slipper baths were provided as a service by local councils up & down the country in the days before constant hot water & internal bathrooms became a standard feature of every home. For a small fee you could have a proper, probably weekly, (timed) scrub & soak in a hot bath tub; for a few pennies more the council might even provide you with soap & the hire of a towel.

Caribbean friends shook their heads in horror at this further evidence of English casual attitudes to personal hygiene.

According to the OED the phrase originally described ‘a partially covered bath shaped somewhat like a slipper’ – ie one which presumably covered the bather’s modesty. In more modern times usage was reserved for ‘single baths of the modern domestic style installed for hire at public baths’, doubtless reflecting the fact that in earlier times true slipper baths would have been provided, grouped in a more communal setting.

I was surprised to see that the OED has a quote, from The Times, referring to the closure of municipal slipper baths as late as 1981.

Tracing this back to the original article in The Times of 25 February 1981 revealed – protests over cuts in public expenditure! In this case the Thatcher government’s attempts to rein in profligate local councils which culminated, before the decade was out, in attempts to make everybody pay their fair share for these services through the doomed poll tax.

Pensioners from Wandsworth in particular were protesting about cuts in the services which they most valued, including public libraries & lunch clubs. But the council’s insensitive response to protests over the closure of the local slipper bath led them to demand a meeting with Secretary of State, Michael Heseltine.

Their case was that slipper baths were essential, not only for any pensioner who lived in a bed sitter but also for those who were afraid of running up bills to heat enough water for baths at home (‘fuel poverty’ had not yet been invented).

They were told that they could use their free bus passes to go to another borough where the slipper baths remained open …

File this under plus ca change.

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