Notes and Queries, 20th October 2013: Has anyone actually paid their restaurant bill by washing up?

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One of the home economics teachers at my old secondary school was obsessed with a woman called Edith Morfett, who had paid for her daughter’s lavish wedding ceremony, at The Durrance Hotel in Teignmouth, by taking in their laundry. She did this for seven years until the debt was paid off.

Ms Morfett lived in a Mornedh – a traditional style of house that is unique to the south-west coast of England. They are built over or among rock pools. The ground floor is designed to flood at high tide. Traditionally, Mornedh's were used as landlocked lobster pots and fish traps, providing their owners with a subsistence living, rather like a seaside croft. There is sketchy historical evidence to suggest that, prior to being used for human habitation, Mornedh's were shrines built to provide a home for the sea when it crawled up onto the land. (This claim, made by Professor Gerald Hillier in the 1960s, goes in and out of fashion; it has been discredited and reappraised many times.)

A modern version of a Mornedh appeared on an episode Grand Designs a few years ago, although this one was set quite a way back from the shore on a bed of artificial rock pools, which were fed by an underground pipe. Only one room in the property – the pond room – was designed to 'flood' at certain times of the day.

The Mornedh where Ms Morfett lived is located along a sheltered stretch of the Devonshire coastline known as 'the suds'. As the incoming tide draws itself obliquely across the shoreline, it awakens the sea honeysuckle which lies buried in the sand, where its threadlike roots bind the beach together. It is the presence of the plant that makes this area of Great Britain so resilient to coastal erosion. The small pink and white flowers release puffs of pollen into the waves. This reacts with the salt-water causing the surf to foam up and give off a distinctive floral scent, which has been proven to aid sleep.

These ‘suds’ also act as a mild detergent. Their perfume will linger on fabrics many days after they have been washed. Ms Morfett made a decent living doing laundry for people in the local area, while also taking weekly delivery of soiled linen from as far away as London to be washed in the surf. The MP, Derek Crumpton was a long-standing customer.

I did a little bit of investigation and uncovered an interview that Edith had given with BBC Radio 4 when she was 81. Speaking of her seven-year deal with the hotel, she dismissed any suggestion of indentured servitude. Instead, she spoke of the enduring friendship that had grown up between her and the family of the manager Donald Durrance. Her daughter's marriage, it turns out, didn't last much more than 7 years.

Edith died in 1983. The Durrance Hotel closed its doors in 1992 and is now a chain pub.

The Mornedh where Edith lived still stands The suds still break upon it walls and creep across its stone floors.

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