bathtime

My Russian teacher at school once wrote “какая сибаритка!” (“what a sybarite!”) in the margins of a sixth-form essay on my dream house. Not knowing what a sybarite was, I went to the dictionary and discovered he was not wrong. I’d been found out. The scale of my sybaritism, though, was pretty tame: all I wanted was a huge bath.

Nude in the Bath and Small Dog 1941-46 Carnegie, Pittsburgh

I adore having a bath, and to me it is still the height of daily luxury. I wouldn’t want to be without one. I read recently that not having a bath can decrease value of house by 2% (allegedly) and that the absence of one could potentially sway a sale depending on the buyers’ personal preferences. Too right.

"Baths seem to be a peculiarly British thing,” says a Winkworth estate agent. But I disagree. They weren’t in Degas’ or Bonnard’s time, or indeed in the homes and studios of many artists whose gaze has been attracted to women in baths/getting in an out of baths/bending over a bath/undressing before a bath/drying themselves after a bath. What stood out the most for me in Tate Modern’s Bonnard exhibition in 2019 was the sheer number of paintings of Marthe, his wife, in a bath. The colours, the patterns, the tiles, the length of the baths were all fabulous, but often looked more like watery coffins than sybaritic tubs.

[‘Femme dans son bain s'épongeant la jambe’ (c1883), Edgar Degas]

Unlike this lovely slipper bath in which I can totally imagine myself soaping my leg (provided someone was on hand to top up the hot water).

[“At his bungalow in Palm Springs, Steve McQueen and wife Neile Adams enjoy a sulphur bath” (1963), photo by John Dominis]

As a lifelong bathing sybarite, I once wrote a proposal for a book on ‘which wine when’ with the title Burgundy in the Bathtub. It didn’t go ahead. but if it had, I’d have liked this photo on the cover. If you ignore the facts that a sulphur bath would be a terrible match with wine and that smoking kills your tastebuds, it would be perfect.

[‘Bathing the Baby’ (c1913-14), Harry Linley Richardson]

But seriously, how do people with only showers manage? How do you bath a baby or keep children amused and get them clean at the same time (never mind the educational aspects of the pouring, measuring, floating, sinking, volume, surfactants, surface tension on bubbles…). Where else can wallowers and thinkers like Diogenes and Archimedes spend time allowing their minds to wander and come up with brilliant new ideas and concepts? I can’t imagine many people these days want to get out a tin bath (and anyway, these days they are mostly in gardens, full of bulbs and plants) and boil kettle after kettle to fill it. Although the painting above does support my argument that babies and children love baths (mostly - I know there are some toddler refusniks.)

[Leaf Street Baths (1860) in Hulme, Manchester]

And nowadays there aren’t the public baths which were so crucial to the healthy development of towns and cities from the mid-C19 (interesting article here). Most of the old slipper baths are long gone, although those in Bedminster in Bristol are still in place (but unused) and one of the reasons for the Grade II listing. (Btw I still talk about going to the ‘swimming baths’ rather than ‘pool’, a hangover from the baths - with a very flat ‘a’, if you please '- in Stockport, Reddish, and Withington.)

[Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis in ‘Some Like It Hot’ (1959)]

But let’s get back to warm water, frivolity, and clouds of bubbles which protect your modesty (and allow Tony Curtis to get away with his disguise). Extravagant bubble baths became my Saturday night luxury when I was a teenager, partly to drown my sorrows about life passing me by/being on the shelf at the age of 14, and partly to allow full rein to my passion for bath products.

[Ava Gardner, 1940s]

Bath hats (not that I ever achieved Ava Gardner levels of glamour in the bath), bubble bath, bath oil, bath cubes, soaps on a rope, I loved them all. But I truly adored Aqua Manda, the packaging, the brown glass bottles, the perfume which left me smelling like an orange simmered with cloves. I wanted everything in the range, even the bath oil which left a terrible ring on the side of the bath and made me slip underwater every time I moved.

[Julia Roberts in ‘Pretty Woman’ (1990]

If Pretty Woman had been out, it would have been perfect for practicing a Julia Roberts move when my Richard Gere saved me from my sad life of fish and chip shop shifts and Latin homework.

Or maybe a sybaritic bath buddy like Rock Hudson would have improved my lot (not that anyone ever had a phone in a bathroom in Stockport - do they even now?). My guess is YES. (Fab article on Rock Hudson).

[Doris Day’s and Rock Hudson’s legs in ‘Pillow Talk’ (1959)]

The quite daring (at the time) and very clever split-screen bath scene in Pillow Talk (1959) would be the template for our chats. It’s all wonderfully funny, and very clean. Rather like Paul McCartney’s “ very clean” grandfather played by Wilfrid Bramble in A Hard Day’s Night (a reference to him being a dirty old man in Steptoe and

Although John Lennon is actually the one in the bath. Having a lot of fun.

I have a bath most days, not before bed, but earlier in the early evening, a habit formed when the children were at home. It’s now a natural break in the day, and in fact a good time to have a bath according to The Art of Rest (2022). Claudia Hammond explains that it’s better for the body to cool down in order to go to sleep easily, so a hot bath just before bedtime isn’t ideal.

Every bath I have is lovely. I never get in without thanking my lucky stars, because I’ve been in plenty of not-so-nice baths, the worst being in hostels in the Soviet Union, and the old-fashioned porcelain Sitzbad I was forced to endure after I’d given birth to twins in Germany. The best baths ever were the first proper baths at home after giving birth to twins,

and the bath in Winsford Cottage Hospital (huge, powerful taps, brilliant water pressure - the Landmark Trust can always be relied on for fantastic baths).

[“George Best and Manchester United team-mates enjoy a cup of tea in the bath at the 'Cliff' training ground”, c1964]

Claudia Hammond’s book includes a chapter on ‘A Nice Hot Bath’. I had hoped it would be followed by ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’,

but, for this self-confessed sybarite, a magazine and a martini would do nicely.

Happy Sunday!