Hot under the collar

TWENTY years ago, like a retired pony ridden only sporadically by visiting grandchildren, a veteran piece of machinery in a Bournemouth laundry was pressed into action for a few hours once a week. Today, that machine operates full time. At least 80 years old, mechanically straightforward and sturdy, it consists at heart of a spinning barrel. The layman would struggle to identify it, but this is the wonder tool that, in Britain’s largest surviving domestic laundry, Barker Laundry, irons and polishes up to 2,000 stiff collars a week. How it experienced