Mayhem in the laundry

Author Bill Miller was a speaker on board.

Agatha Christie has been mentioned on this site and there is plenty of scope for a novel on the Queen Victoria.
I have mentioned the positioning of the single ladies for the 6 dance hosts, one lady places her water bottle on the chair in the front row, she always occupies, about 1 hour prior to the start of the dancing. She does get a lot of dances.

Then there is the laundry.

This ship has a laundry on most decks, a narrow room about 7 metres long with an ironing board, an iron wired into the wall with a timer, 3 washing machines and 3 dryers above. There are 2 chairs and a small hand washing basin.

Many stories exist about mayhem in the laundries which I thought were urban myths as I had heard the stories more than once. But apparently not.

Rex Harrison

Gregory Peck

No doubt the stars on previous liners did not frequent the laundry.

Today I had a small number of items, not suitable for my hand basin so I arrived to find 3 ladies and one couple there. All machines were in use, the couple using 2 machines, one lady was next in queue for a machine and I was told I would be next if I waited for 35 minutes. I collected my camera to download photos and waited using the iron board as a base.

The couple, English, were authorities on ship laundries. The husband, taking up a large amount of room, commandeered a dryer in readiness for when their washing finished and said that he had actually been told by one woman that using more than one machine at a time was not permitted. He explained the woman was ‘Rude. She was an American of course’. He then proceeded to commandeer a second dryer.

A quiet lady then said that she had been on the Queen Mary 2 when a woman had thrown the iron at another woman. The thrower had been off loaded in Hawaii and was last seen by most of the ship’s passengers standing on the wharf with her luggage. The irons have since been wired into the wall so now harder to throw and apparently because many would remove them from the laundry to their cabins.

Brittania Dinning Room

Another story from the commandeered of 2 driers was that some people locked the doors so that no one else could enter.

Yesterday I heard that one woman had struck another with her walking stick because the victim had removed the attacker’s washing from the drier and placed in a basket when the washing was finished.

Then I was told that one woman had placed a piece of chocolate into a drier with another’s clothes in retaliation to another incident in the laundry.

It was suggested that such incidents only happen on long voyages not on shorter cruises.

Clearly a potential area for a crime but not for Hercule Poirot, he would not know about laundries and certainly never enter one. Miss Marple would be able to observe all suspects, engage people in conversation but would need to assemble all in the library as the laundry is much too small.

Human nature is curious.

Stairs to Grand Lobby

Stair rail