Hot Desking*

In our home education was king. Sitting on that particular throne - when winter gales howled and low cloud settled on the rooftops chucking down rain like a fireman’s hose - was the Flatley.

The Flatley clothes dryer arrived amid great excitement in our house in 1960. Deliveries, other than bills in small brown cellophane-windowed envelopes and the garishly wrapped Christmas present delivery from my Aunty Peggy in Chicago were very rare indeed. So the arrival of O’Farrell’s Household and Electrical Goods’ beige coloured van at our door was definitely an occasion. Excitement was further heightened when the driver’s mate proceeded to wheel in a large corrugated cardboard box almost five feet tall. Our excitement had to be put on hold however as Ma was quick to make clear that on no condition was the box to be opened until our father got home.

In those days it was our custom – my two older brothers, my sister Emma and I – to wait at the 22A bus stop on the South Circular Road and greet our Da on his return from work. We did so with even greater enthusiasm that evening. He had scarcely placed his right foot on the footpath before the badgering began.

“Da! Da! We got a big box!” I blurted out

“What’s that, son?” my Da asked as his left foot found the footpath and the bus pulled off.

Putting her two hands about my waist and lifting my five year old frame without difficulty, Emma planked me on the footpath behind Shane and Tony.

“Don’t mind him Da! It’s a delivery. A delivery from O’Farrell’s,” she sang out in her Big Sisterly way.

Deferred gratification is not something that comes easily to four young children that’s for sure. Finally, when my Da had had his dinner and we children had had our tea, Da took his small tobacco knife from his pocket and slowly opened the longest blade and just as slowly snipped one by one the small pieces of tape that held the box closed. He had one quick look inside and realised this was going to be a bigger job. Big jobs we knew always involved Da in removing his jacket.

While Shane, my eldest brother, held the jacket carefully by the loop inside the collar, being sure to keep it clear of the linoleum floor, Da set to work.

Having decided that the job was taking too long Da changed tack. Gripping the body of the old tobacco knife tightly and waving us all back for our own safety; he began to attack the four vertical faces of the box.

“For God’s sake Tommy, don’t scratch it! It’s not even out of the box yet, cried Ma.

At last our curiosity was satisfied. At exactly that same moment our enthusiasm for the task in hand was as deflated as a four-wheeled bicycle with no tyres.

It was not a television set.

Mind you, how we had ever thought a box that size would have been necessary to house a TV in 1960 I will never know.

The following afternoon the Flatley, plugged in and ready to go, took pride of place in the living room just inside the door that that led to the kitchen.

The Flatley dryer was as simple as it was ingenious. It consisted of a metal box, large and white and with four coiled electrical elements at the bottom and nine thin wooden dowels across its top. The clothes to be dried, having been passed through the hand wringer in the backyard were hung from these and a smooth white metal lid was placed on top.

Scarcely had the first batch of clothes been hung in the dryer and the lid secured than Da had a brainwave.

“There y’are now,” he beamed, picking up a small leather-seated wooden chair which had been standing by the living room wall and placing it triumphantly in front of the now warm dryer.

“You’ll be the first ones in Hamilton Park to have your own desk to do your school exercise. And it’s heated!” he announced while at the same moment and with a sweeping movement of both arms pointing  at the Flatley.

*The term hot desking is thought to be derived from the naval practice, called hot racking where sailors on different shifts share bunks.