'The women were clannish. There were certain ones who ruled the roost': inside the real Steamies

Take this scene for example. Magrit has just turned towards the audience. Her hair is piled up in a head-scarf, her cheeks are red from the heat and the steam, her arms are folded defiantly across her bosom. She's talking about what it's really like to live her life and this is what she says:

"Isn't it wonderful to be a woman? You get up at the crack of dawn, you get the breakfast ready, you get the weans ready and oot the hoose looking as respectable as you can afford and you wash the dishes, finish the ironing, maybe give the floor a skite over, and then you're away to yer ain wee job, maybe cleaning offices or serving in a shop or washing stairs. You finish your work and back in your hoose to mair work. What are we? We're skivvies. Unpaid skivvies."

It's a memorable scene, that spiky little speech about hard work, although it's not the whole story of The Steamie: the play is also about nostalgia, and wet clothes piled up in prams; it's about gossip and mutual support and about the network of women that would provide an arm around the shoulder (even if the hand sometimes contained a knife). And it's about the hot, busy atmosphere of those extraordinary places that were everywhere in Scotland in the 1950s but have slowly disappeared.

When Roper first had the idea of doing a play about those places in the 1980s, no one had ever written about the steamies, but audiences immediately related to the warmth, sentimentality and couthiness of the play and the people. Now, the 25th anniversary is a chance not only to celebrate the play's success with a new tour but also speak to the real women – and one or two men – who inspired it.

I'm meeting some of them in an old school in Anniesland in Glasgow that's now a day centre run by Glasgow Old People's Welfare Association and I think I've found a real Magrit. She's also called Margaret – Margaret Grant – and recognises the reality of that speech by Dorothy Paul about those long hours because that was the life she used to lead. Margaret, from Yoker, was in her 20s in the 1950s when The Steamie is set – she's 75 now – and her routine was tough. She was up around 5am every morning to do her first shift cleaning; then it was home to get her children ready for school before doing her housework and getting the family's lunch. Then it was back to school to do another cleaning shift from 3pm til 7pm before going home to get dinner ready. It was a daily circle of housework, cooking and cleaning. "I did it because I needed the money," says Margaret. "But it was hard."

Margaret's friend, 81-year-old May Burchill, also recognises this hard way of life. "There was no time for anything but work," she says.

Was there ever time for herself? "Do you mean to sit down and relax?" she laughs. "I don't remember that. But you didn't question, that was your way of life. You just accepted this was women's work."

In the middle of this tough routine, both Margaret and May, who lived in the Gorbals, saw the weekly visit to the steamie as in some ways an escape even though it meant more work. "It broke up your day," says Margaret. "You could have a blether."

Both of them think the reality of the steamie was close to the play. All the women would take their washing to and from the steamie either piled up in a pram or wrapped in a sheet and carried on their backs. The building itself was divided into stalls which were hired by the hour and all the work was done by hand. Often, the building was connected to a pool which meant you could have a swim as well (sometimes there were private baths as well so you could have a wash). As for drying the clothes, the women could hire the huge dryers which would slide out of the wall on rollers or, in some of the bigger steamies, you could dry your wash outside – it's still a scene many people remember: the rows of sheets flapping in the wind on Glasgow Green.

All of that talk can make you think the steamies were wonderful places, but it wasn't all warm and fluffy – there was also division and rivalry and you had to look out for your interests. "There was always someone trying to dip in front of you in the queue," says May. May's friend and neighbour, 82-year-old Agnes Murray agrees with this. "You had to put your washing board down and put something on it and keep an eye on it in case someone nicked your place in the queue," she says.

May says she knew most of the other women at the steamie – and it was all women apart from the one or two men who managed the place or fixed the machines. I ask the women if they ever questioned this fact and they say no. What would have happened if a man had ever gone and done his washing at the steamie? We would have just stared at him in amazement, they say.

"It was quite sexist when you think about it," says May, "but we never thought about it at the time – it was women's territory. Men came home from work and that was them finished for the day whereas women didn't finish – you were on the go all the time."

In the play, the male caretaker of the steamie is played by Peter Mullan, a character that was based on former steamie manager Bob Macaulay. Bob, now 84, spoke to Tony Roper more than 25 years ago when he was researching the play and Mullan's character of Andy duly emerged. Bob worked in a number of Glasgow's steamies including Cranston Hill, Townhead, the Gorbals and Garngad, starting as a pool attendant and caretaker and finishing up as manager.

He agrees with May and Agnes that it could be competitive. "The women were clannish," he says, "women from one area would get together and try to make it difficult for women from another area and vice versa.

"Some women were always looking for extra time – they would say 'there's somebody in my dryer' and this is when you got trouble. And there were certain women that ruled the roost. I sometimes got between squabbles."

Bob, who lives in Knightswood, remembers the good aspects of the steamie: the busy atmosphere and the support that women could get from the place. Occasionally – as is shown in the play – they would bring in a bottle of something to have a little party. "In the Garngad steamie, the depute manager came down one night and the tables were pushed together and the drink was all laid out," says Bob. "The depute manager walked up and a woman said 'before you open your mouth, this is our night out' and that was that."

In all, Bob spent 19 years working in steamies and he becomes sombre when we talk about their decline with the coming of the washing machine. Macaulay accepts that in many ways it was inevitable – women like May were moving from the Gorbals out to new homes in places such as Drumchapel and Knightswood that had separate kitchens and bathrooms – but Macaulay also thinks that steamies were poorly managed towards the end in the 1960s and early 1970s.

"That period wasn't so good," he says, "The steamies got taken over by the parks department and all they were interested in was sports centres – they weren't interested in steamies or hot baths. But there were still a lot of women using them. The washing machine killed it although certain areas were still busy."

May also remembers this period. She had moved to a new house in Knightswood and got her first washing machine and, instantly, life was easier. In the Gorbals, she and her husband and their four children had lived in a room and kitchen; in Knightswood, May had a twin-tub and didn't have to cart the clothes back and forth to the steamie.

However, that did not mean the change for May and thousands of women like her was easy. "I came from the heart of the Gorbals with big tenements all round us and it took me a long time to settle in Knightswood," she says. "I kept thinking: I'm only here for a holiday. Every time I looked out and saw all these trees outside, I thought to myself: I don't feel as if I'm here to stay even though I knew I was. I wanted to go back home."

And even though the steamie was hard work, May missed that too. "You could get everything done in an hour at the steamie whereas at home it look longer. And it was part of life that you went to the steamie. Sometimes there would be a fall-out over something but you also got to know people there."

So here's a question: would May go back to the steamie if it still existed? She laughs and shakes her head. Of course not, she says: modern conveniences make life easier (perhaps a bit too easy for the younger generation, she says) but even the easy life has its downside.

"My life is easy compared to what it was," says May. "But I'm bored stiff sometimes. I have so much free time especially if you're on your own. We've too much free time."

It's why this old school in Anniesland is so important to May, Margaret, Agnes and all the others who come here. It's a place where there's community, they can chat and gossip, and occasionally have a party. It's a bit like those huge buildings that were torn down or turned into flats. "This is our steamie now," says Margaret. n

The 25th anniversary tour of The Steamie is at His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, from April 24-28; the King's, Glasgow, from April 30-May 3; Perth Theatre from May 7-12; and MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling, from May 14-19.