It was dipping my arms into the sink of hot water that recalled the memories.

We were a blue collar family.  We lived in a semi-detached council house with an outside toilet.  There was no central heating in my younger years, we kept warm with a coal fire in the living room and a paraffin heater as required elsewhere.

The bathroom was heated by the paraffin heater, an appliance that seemed efficacious if you stood within eighteen inches of it, but that otherwise barely took the chill off the air.

On winter mornings or evenings immersing my arms in the water in the washbasin seemed a moment of warmth that contrasted with the temperature of the room.  To have complained would have brought a reminder that there were many people in 1960s England who had no bathroom at all.

The cold would have been endured in mornings and in evenings because my mother would have required that we washed at the beginning and the end of the day.  (Except for a weekly bath on a Sunday, baths required that the immersion heater be switched on for an inordinate amount of time, the number of coins necessary for the electric meter were a reflection of how much hot water cost).

It would have been unthinkable for us not to wash, everyone washed, it was just everyday culture.  Working men may have had frayed collars and cuffs on their shirts, but the neck and wrists within would have been scrubbed.  If there is a smell that recalls those childhood ablutions, it is that of Wright’s Coal Tar Soap.

Walking around a local out of town Tesco, seeking items not available elsewhere, a couple in their twenties walked in front of me.  Beneath her coat, there were visible pink pyjamas and slippers. He was unshaven, his hair unkempt, and wore a hoodie and joggers.  These were not the marks of poverty, a car was necessary to reach the store, they were the marks of an attitude that said there was no need to bother.

Some people seem almost to have given up, if they cannot match the absurd images with which they are bombarded by social media, they seem to feel the effort to look their best is not worth it.

As someone who struggles with depression, one of the most important routines has become the daily time in the bathroom.  To look clean and tidy seems important to a sense of self-dignity.

At a time when mental health issues are rising problem, maybe a basin of hot water would raise the spirits.