Window Cleaning Girl Power

Women window cleaners, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, 1917. These women worked for the City and Suburban Window Cleaning Company. George Webster, whose name is over the door (right), is listed in Kelly's 1916 Directory as ladder maker and manager of the Robin Hood Window Cleaning Company (premises on Peachey Street and Currant Street).

How girl power got Cambridge through the war years: The 100th anniversary of the First World War continues to yield many stories of the life and death struggle of men in the trenches – but it was pretty tough for women too, trying to keep everything going back home. With thousands of men fighting at the front, women were left to do not only their own work, but the men's work too.

Window cleaners set off to work in Piccadilly, London during World War I.

Females already made up a large part of the general workforce, although they were employed mostly in the textile industry, and in schools and hospitals. When war came, many worked in munitions factories. Some also joined the Women's Patrols, a female police force that went on the beat in public areas such as railway stations, streets, parks and public houses.

Note the women window cleaners in the centre image - click to enlarge.

And they became part of the armed forces as well. The War Office realised many of the tasks undertaken by soldiers in France could easily be done by women, so the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps was established in December 1916. A year later, the Women's Royal Naval Service was formed, and a year after that, the Women's Royal Air Force (later the Women's Auxiliary Air Force) was set up. In total, more than 100,000 women joined Britain's armed forces during the war.

The "Scavengers"

In Cambridge, as in London and other cities, two very obvious jobs once done only by men became the preserve of women. One was street sweeping. The women cleaners were known as 'scavengers' and went into action in 1918, although as our photo here of women working in Cambridge in 1918 shows, their clothing wasn't initially very suitable. Dustcarts were generally pulled by horses, but since many of them had been sent off to war too, Cambridge's corporation spent £3,000 on what the News reported were “two large electric motor vehicles and two small petrol motor vehicles for the collection of household refuse."

Click to enlarge.

Another task was window-cleaning. The News reported in 1916: “The Cambridge Window Cleaning Company, owing to a shortage of male labour, have instituted a service of lady cleaners. And jolly smart they look too in their khaki uniform, high gaiters and caps, relieved by red wrist and cap bands. Ladder climbing causes them no qualms and they are quite expert at the work. They are causing no small amount of interest not to say admiration."

A female worker of the Mayfair Window Cleaning Company, London. Circa 1916.

Henry VIII & The Window Cleaner

Mystery of Trinity chair leg revealed - Varsity reveals why the statue of Henry VIII on the Trinity College Great Gate carries a chair leg: The secret behind one of Cambridge’s oddest mysteries was uncovered by Varsity this week.

Over the years, students and tourists alike have wondered why the statue of Henry VIII in the Trinity College Great Gate holds a chair leg. The answer, as it turns out, is even more unlikely than might be expected. The statue of Henry dates from around 1615, and originally showed the king resplendent with a golden orb and sword. Legend has it that the sword was swapped for the chair leg sometime in the nineteenth century by an irreverent student.

However, Varsity was recently tipped-off by Stephen Halliday, a Cambridge city guide and Pembroke alumnus, who advised that it was not a Victorian prankster but a window-cleaner who had armed the statue with the wooden pin. Halliday followed the trail to Peter Binge, a retired employee of the Chesterton Window Cleaning Company, who graciously agreed to talk about the episode.

Mr Binge explained that he had been cleaning the windows of the Great Gate thirty or so years ago when he noticed that the statue of was missing something in its hand.

He thought that the Cambridge Night Climbers, a shadowy group of students known for scrabbling up the University’s buildings, must have removed whatever the statue had been holding many years earlier.

He recalls, "So, just for a laugh, I said to my friend [who was holding the ladder]: ‘hold on a minute, I’m going to go inside.’" Mr Binge was a familiar face in College at the time and was friendly with the porters.

"I went up the staircase and found an old broken chair which the bedders had put out on the landing. So, I took a leg off and leaned out the window with my friend holding onto me and plonked it in the hand. "I thought to myself: ‘that looks a treat,’ but I didn’t think anything more about it," he remembers.

Mr. Binge’s role in the plant has never been a particularly well-kept secret. He was profiled in a 1988 edition of the Cambridge Daily News and and likes retelling his story to friends and curious tourists as he passes Trinity. He finds it "quite funny" that the leg hasn’t been removed. "I guess it was my famous five minutes," he says.

Winda's & How To Clean 'em

Alan Pencavel's new book was all inspired by backing into a swimming pool on a New Zealands cold winter morning in June. Being a one man band, this started Alan on thinking about how to compile all his experiences into a book. It's a humorous account of all the up's & down's & window cleaners exploits he has encountered. Alan from Cambridge, on the North Island of New Zealand wrote this book which also includes a beginner's guide to how to clean glass panes. An expatriate Englishman, Alan has been window cleaning for some 16 years & business is booming to a point he has to turn down work!

The unfortunate on-the-job incident that spawned the idea for "Winda's & how to clean them" was when Alan actually fell into a customer's swimming pool – not intentionally, and it was mid-June, so it was freezing." "I'd finished the job, and I was doing a final `lap of honour' to check for smears. I was looking up at the high windows and forgot there was a little kidney-shaped pool. He fell in, "and the blue cover over the pool didn't support my weight and that of my bucket". "I was absolutely freezing. I said to my customer: `If I do too many more things like this, I'll have to write a book about it'."



The book - his first published writing - contains small sketches of the happenings on the job & small poetry offerings. The film "Confessions of a Window Cleaner" inspired some of his work with mishaps & notes of his tales. Although the 1974 has sexual annotations, Alan admits he's happily married & never followed the exploits shown in the film. "Once or twice I have inadvertently caught people naked, and that certainly gets a mention in the book." "In all honesty, I have to pretend I haven't seen them, and just move on to the next window." "I only look at the glass, not through it".

Initially, Alan ran his own local campaign, which started the publicity to advertise the book, which is full of anecdotes of (and admissions to) things that have occurred over the last sixteen years of him being a full time 'TEF' (Transparency Enhancement Facilitator'). His book covers such topics as awkward clients & a general guide to window cleaning. The characters in the book are real people however their names have been changed, although he reckons that local people would be able to guess who was who. You can contact Alan to get a copy of the book "Windas ... and how to clean 'em" by sending an email to: pencavel@xnet.co.nz.

Window Cleaning News Round-Up

A WINDOW cleaner cheated death when he fell 10ft from his ladder and brushed spiked railings at a Cambridge hotel, UK. The 42-year-old suffered a flesh wound to his leg but an ambulance worker said: "If he had fallen at a different angle it could have been a lot more serious. "The man was working as a sub-contractor cleaning windows at the De Vere University Arms Hotel when he appears to have slipped from his ladder. "He was awake and alert but complaining of numbness in his legs. "A spokesman for the hotel said: "We are investigating what happened and will be working closely with environmental health. "We have all the necessary risk assessments in place, and are satisfied it was a genuine accident." "We will also be speaking to the person who was injured and the company he works for to ensure they also had the correct safety procedures, such as non-slip shoes, in place." Note: This event was reported to have occured in Regent Street, London (incorrect).

In Virginia, USA: One side of a window-washing rig slipped from its anchoring near the top of a downtown Richmond office building this morning. The worker in the rig was able to right it and lower himself to safety. Richmond firefighters were called to an 11-story building at the James Center complex at Ninth and East Cary streets shortly before 10 a.m. for a report of a rig dangling near the roof. Firefighters closed off a portion of Ninth Street while the worker righted the misaligned side of the rig and slowly lowered himself to the sixth floor, a process that took about 30 minutes. At that point, the worker left the rig behind and rappelled safely to the ground. The worker was identified as Alejandro Alvarado, an employee of Universal Building Services.
LONG BEACH - As if leading the government of the fifth-largest city in California weren't enough, Mayor Bob Foster now does windows, too. On Monday morning in the lobby of City Hall, Foster demonstrated the use of new environmentally friendly cleaning products that soon could be used in all city buildings. Pictured: Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster cleans a City Hall window with a Sun Valley Green cleaning product under the eye of company founder Teresa Cochran. Foster announced a pilot program to give the firm's green cleaning products a trial.

And finally, monks in Bangkok, Thailand were reported to have cottoned on to the benefits of using water fed poles.....