Turns out that there are twice as many diapers on The Blob as there are nappies. One way of characterising The Blob is "his entire life in 2 millions words or 4,000 anecdotes" because whatever I'm reporting on, I try to come at it from my own experience rather than rechurning links I am delivered by Metafilter. And having raised three (3) childer to continence, I've had to deal with a lot of diapers: on dit que a child will go through 4,000 diaper changes before they stop having accidents and start using the jacks on the reg'lar.
When I was a nipper, diapers were made of terrycloth cotton towelling. When soiled, the solids made it down the t'ilet, the nappies were dumped in a bucket of dilute bleach until wash-day when they were rinsed, washed and hung out to dry. Sunlight, and a fresh breeze helped sanitize the white cotton squares, so baby rearing was a lot easier in the Summer. Winter or wet-weather added a world of pain to the housework: pain in the arse actually because when washing diapers is so time-consuming the carer was surely tempted to let the baby steep in its own fluid for a little longer.
Disposable nappies came on the market in 1976 or 77 at the tail end of The Boy's years of incontinence. As we chose to live in and out of a Citroën Dyane for the Summer of 1977, disposable diapers were The Biz! You need a real secure lid for the nappy-bucket. We started the Summer in terry-cloth and then discovered loss-leader new-product-push disposables in Yorkshire: game changer.
To Be Cont.
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