Coin-op Blues
At 184 Queensway,
Bayswater, London, on 9 May 1949, Britain got its first launderette.
Forty years on, Nick Baker marks this momentous occasion by taking a look at some of the more notable launderettes and the uses they've been put to - like selling jeans, forming the backdrop to a British film and providing lyric writers with the opportunity for couplets like 'Her escape was so urgent, she dropped her detergent'.
Producer NICK CLARKE BBC Manchester. Stereo