Elkie  I grew up in a house with a pulley and I had one myself in my last house and I fair miss it

Aw Grannyg, happy days  

Yeah, we had a pulley too, along with an outside wash house with a poss tub and stick and wringer/mangle   

Aww this reminds me too of my late brother,it's his fourth anniversary this month.He was only 53 when he died.
Any way when we were all younger my cousin who's now 44,used to come and stay at our house for dinner after school etc ,because her mum worked 'till 5.30.My mum was of the old school,if your husband worked ,you didn't.
Well she was about six and my brother picked her up and laid her along the pulley and pulled it up to the ceiling..cue screams all round,lol.
She still talks about it to this day with much laughter.,

They're the ones Brisket  ours was more like the one at the back

...with a sort of copper-coloured cone on the end?

Well I'm 54 and my late  mum said she did use a washboard years before.We had two sinks in the house,white ceramic ones.One for every day use and the deeper "Belfast" sink for the washing.Seems they are back in style now,lol.I always remember my mums  washing machine( A Goblin) it was a top loader with a big paddle to churn up the wash. You used big wooden tongs to lift the boiling hot wash(white cotton sheets etc) into the mangle ,it was an  electric one
 to squeeze  the water out of the clothes.

No, more the wooden one with the cut outs in it

I''m four years younger than you in January      We had a big cement boiler in the outside wash house which you had to light a fire under to boil the water (mostly for sheets and towels)  and steep clothes in overnight and then transfer with tongs to the poss tub where you did the washing the next day and put it through the manual wringer   We did eventually get a top loading washing machine and thought all our birthdays had come at once

Changed days indeed.Younger folk think we lived in the dark ages,it was only a generation away.I've got a new washing machine an  LG 8 kilo load(1600) spin.I got it for £200  second hand.It's only nine months old.My nieces fiance is a joiner.fitter and was doing up this blokes kitchen it's  a  grey machine and didn't fit his new colour scheme.It cost him over £400 quid..bargain.

Go you