1956 views of Pentridge from the air

Argus, 8 May 1956

It's a pity this image is so dark, but at least the labels help you work out where everything is located. 

The reporter mentions the waves from the prisoners from the 'painfully tidy' grounds of Pentridge, but my attention was caught, too, by her description of the 'miles of washing - the housewife's banner - [that] billowed on the line.' 

Those were the days. I wonder how many of the lines were those new-fangled Hills Hoist, introduced a decade earlier. 

Or perhaps (and possibly more likely in the older areas) they were the old prop washing lines, strung out along the back yard.

Monday morning in New York City, 1904.

I had a prop washing line in my tiny miner's cottage backyard in Bendigo in the early 1980s and then again in the late 1990s when I moved to Brunswick. Now I just have drying racks that I move near the heating in the winter and put outside in the sun in the summer. Thank goodness I don't live in an area where hanging my clothes out to dry is controversial or illegal. Read about that here and here.