YESTERDAY'S housewives reckon this generation have it all very easy when it comes to cleaning.

For how many of us have ever 'donkey stoned' the front step as our grandmothers used to do in decades past?

It was good old fashioned cleanliness that lay behind the custom of scrubbing doorsteps with a donkey stone -- a briquette that left its colour behind -- and let others in the street know just how house-proud you were. In the terraced streets of East Lancashire, many women would clean their step for the weekend, scrubbing until the stone shone like marble -- and then swill clean the flags outside with water and soda.

There have been several theories as to why they were called donkey stones -- one is that they were named after the Donkey brand hearthstones sold at the time. Another is that, as most housewives got theirs from the old-time rag and bone men, the name came about because many of them had donkey carts.

Nor was donkey stoning a case of a show just being put on at the front of the house.

Usually all along the back streets were stoned -- with steps, ledges, lintels, portals and anywhere where bare stone showed all coming in for the treatment -- as well as the outside lavatories.