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Ray Gosling, ever observant, knows there's far more to washing-up than meets the eye...

I've been barred, banned, banished from washing up from the kitchen at my father's house. And I think I know the reason. When my mother died, my father re-married. I was best man at my father's wedding only a few years back to a very nice lady he met sequence dancing. She can't be my mother of course, but jolly jolly good she is at looking after my dad and likes to show me so when I call. She'll lay on a lovely lunch; pork chops and two veg - piles on plate and a choice of sweet, after which they let me make the tea. And I like doing that. I like doing my bit. Then Florrie will say "Now, you sit down Raymond and we'll do the washing up."

They did once let me do the washing up, but I took too long, used too much hot water. "What ARE you doing in there," my father shouted. But I think she thought I was spying, and she was right. You see, my father has now probably forgotten now he's got this life with her at 80, but when young, my hero, one of the family heroes was Nobby Clarke. He were a curate on the days when every parish church had a battery of curates who'd called by invitation and unannounced on parishioners. He gave me a golden rule - a rule of thumb I later used in my political work in the slums. "When calling," Nobby said, "on souls at home, you can gauge if there's troubles in that home, and with care, things you can help them with. And if you take tea," said Nobby, "Always afterwards, try to help with the washing up. And have your eyes peeled, be alert, on the look out for a little scum, old skin from old lips on the rim of a cup. Examine a handle where it meets the cup. Is it clean? And the bottom of the cup? Clean it for them. And the stains of tannin inside. They may you see, be losing their sight."

Joseph Rowntree the Quaker and cocoa and chocolate manufacturer had a similar philosophy. He devised a little calendar of excuses that'd get his rent collectors - they were more like welfare workers - get them deep into the home - so his staff could see, the state of the scullery, drains, and spot families in trouble early on.

Snooping. That's what I think my father's lady, the new Mrs G. suspected. That's how I got barred from doing their washing up. How stupid, stupid of me! I stayed too long that time in their kitchen. Looking back I think I heard her, before my dad shouted "What ARE you doing in there!" I heard her, whisper to him, "Raymond is a long time in our kitchen."

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