Which is the idler’s preferred ablution method? asks Tom Hodgkinson

In March I took a trip to New York and found it to be no place for an idler. Of course there’s the dashing about, the sirens, the fury, the aggression, the soup lines and the sad, sad people you see on the streets, the crazies, broken people pushing shopping trolleys, often with a great sense of purpose, as if they’re still hanging on to the American dream.

But there’s also the lack of baths. There are only showers, at least where I stayed. And this reminded me of a letter I recently received on the subject from the great Simon Fairlie, Cobbettesque champion of small farmers, magazine editor, seller of scythes, maker of cheese and keeper of pigs.

Fairlie looked back to an earlier writer:

“Nearly 50 years ago, a certain writer praised baths. ‘Turning the tap with one’s toes’, he wrote, ‘is the mark of the true bather, and few sensations are more pleasurable than, when one’s bath has become a little tepid, feeling the new hot water slowly lap up one’s body and once again one is wrapped in it.’

“The writer in question, who happened to be my father [Henry Fairlie], went on to explain that he did not encounter the shower until he first visited America. He reckoned American’s incessant showering had a lot to do with their being “always on the go, never able to take things quietly”, leading them to seek compensation through self-actualization therapies and the like. ‘Only a nation that showers instead of taking baths would have to pay money to be taught how to meditate and relax.’”

Sylvia Plath was another literary bath fan. “There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them,” she said, famously. “Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: ‘I’ll go take a hot bath.’”

Baths were big in the Middle Ages. A 15th century manual on household matters offered tips for servants on how to prepare the ideal bath for the master. It all sounds a bit like a wellness ritual from the head of Gwyneth Paltrow:

“Hang sheets, round the roof, every one full of flowers and sweet green herbs, and have five or six sponges to sit or lean upon, and see that you have one big sponge to sit upon, and a sheet over so that he may bathe there for a while, and have a sponge also for under his feet, if there be any to spare, and always be careful that the door is shut. Have a basin full of hot fresh herbs and wash his body with a soft sponge, rinse him with fair warm rose-water, and throw it over him.”

The public bathhouses in the medieval city, of which there were many, doubled up as restaurants and sex retreats. Historian Virginia Smith, in her book Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity, says couples and groups had baths together and were served food while sitting in the water (see our picture above):

“Bath feasting in many town bathhouses seems to have been as common as going out to a restaurant was to become four centuries later. German bath etchings from the fifteenth century often feature the town bathhouse, with a long row of bathing couples eating a meal naked in bathtubs, often several to a tub, while other couples are seen smiling in beds in the mid-distance.”

Sounds like fun. But I have to confess that I rarely take baths these days. I enjoy the morning shower. I realise that I am setting a bad example to idlers. I’m sorry.

What about you? Where do you stand on the bath versus shower debate? Let’s hear your comments.

PS Check out the line-up for our new season of “A Drink with the Idler”, starting 27 April. Eleanor Catton, Tristan Gooley and Isabella Tree are among the guests. Click here to find out more.

SELECTED COMMENTS

These comments were mailed to us after an earlier version of this piece was sent out as a newsletter. We like to publish a selection and reserve the right to edit them for clarity. Feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts.

Sir: I actually prefer a shower to a bath. Plus, when I’m in Stockholm for business, I stay in a nice hotel and go down for a 6.30am sauna, sweating for 20 to 30 minutes (and drinking water), then having a clean-up hot shower followed by an ice-cold one. Wow, it gets the blood and energy flowing for a 79-year-old like me.
Clive Loveless

Sir: Baths? Humbug! Here’s my anti-washing article in Seed from nearly 50 years ago.
Craig Sams

Sir: Why choose? An invigorating morning shower and a relaxing evening bath is the way to go. I guess one has to opt for one or the other for environmental and financial reasons, but whatever you do – stay clean! A bath is all very well, as long as it isn’t a weekly one, and as for the Victorian shower aka flanelling by the sink like great-granddad: that’s only acceptable if you have a broken limb.
Sister Chain

Sir: Baths every time. Main problem with showers is that no one cleans them (except me). Younger folk step out and leave all the gubbins behind. Nasty mouldy gunky places – in addition Rob Dunn in his book Never Home Alone Robert Dunn (biologist) – see Wikipedia – has a chapter about what lurks in the shower head and pipes (think Legionnaire’s Disease). It is very unwise of humans to spray hot (clear but not “clean” filled with chemicals) water into our faces and to inhale steam with goodness knows what in the mix. (Novel respiratory conditions may arise.) Not something we have evolved to deal with whereas baths, hot springs and the aquatic ape theory Elaine Morgan – see Wikipedia – points to bathing and being by water as an intrinsic part of our evolution.
Emma Hodgson

Sir: I’ve been forced to take showers as my partner, in whose house I reside, has a roll top bath with the taps in the middle. No turning them on with your toes, no warming up the bath when tepid due to the risk of scalding one’s vital areas. The potential of a pipe/tap move is a daily thought.
Paul Crowe

Sir: Arriving at a small city late at night, an intrepid traveller finally finds a hotel with a room for the night.
Receptionist: “You’re in luck. We have two rooms left – one with a shower and one with a bath.”
Traveller: “Oh good. What’s the difference?” [i.e. in price].
Receptionist: “Well, you stand up in the shower and sit down in the bath.”
Prof Tom Spencer (toes on the tap man)

Sir: I’m a fan of showering for a couple of reasons: the jets of water hitting my skin feel invigorating, and standing under flowing water seems to free up creative thoughts – I invariably get ideas in the shower.
Shaz

Sir: I never bathe in the summer, spring or autumn because it’s far too hot here on the east coast of South Africa. But winter is around the corner for us in the southern hemisphere and I often have a bath with my smelly oils and bubbles.
Tyron

Sir: After marinating in a bath, I follow up with a massaging shower that body washes and rinses away all residue.
Michael

Sir: Regarding the matter of baths or showers, I remember once hearing the response attributed to a member of the clergy, that “if the good Lord had meant us to take showers, he would have given us armpits that faced upwards”.
Chris Bramhall

Sir: I don’t think you can compare baths with showers because they perform completely different functions. If you need to get clean quickly, by all means have a shower. If you want a decadently enjoyable experience, only a bath will do.
David Hood

Sir: The question is well framed as yes indeed you do have to stand if you take a shower rather than a bath. So by definition the shower is far less meditative and far less relaxing than the blessed immersion offered by the bathtub. I quite accept that many of us need to energise ourselves before work with a quick shower but that’s a necessity of fast-paced modern life and not because we truly prefer it. Where possible, a bath has many advantages – water doesn’t get in your eyes, the entire room and all your clothes don’t get soaked and your private parts are cleansed more naturally and easily. But the greatest plus is that you’re not deafened by the sound of rushing water and can therefore listen to the radio or audible book of your choice. All I can think of in the shower is that ghastly bathroom stabbing scene from Psycho – a very good reason to return to the tub, from where you can hear, see and converse.
Julia Barrow

Usually I have a shower except when my partner decides she needs a bath – being 4ft 11in she finds a conventional bath too long so when we could finally afford a new bathroom (after 25 years of the previous owners’ advocado nightmare) she selected a “slipper bath”. Being shorter and deeper than a standard bath, it means that once she’s had good soak in scalding water, I can get in afterwards with my current book and either a cocktail or a good strong beer, and lay in the still-steaming water for at least half an hour knowing I have nowhere else to go. “Ah, is this not happiness?”
Gary Finch

I haven’t had a tub bath in about 13 years. Long story but I’m fine with showers. Wastes less water if you don’t linger.
Beth Chiles

Sir: It’s like the difference between running and walking. Running water for people in a hurry. Still water for contemplation.
Michael Palin

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