Memories.....
Wow, thats the exact machine my parents had when i was born and that started off this whole nutty love oif washing machines that i still have today. It looks lovely. I saw it on eBay too, sadly too far for me. 99p was an absolute steal!
Ours was a funny bit of kit really, not particularly reliable - we had a couple of occasions where it failed to stop filling, numerous sets of brushes & door seals and a couple of floods when it ate underwear and left them in the gravity trap - apparantly when this became blocked the machine simply drained onto the floor instead - not quite sure if this was meant to happen, but it did on ours!
However, it did last a pretty long time, 12 years. Not bad when considering it was on at least twice a day and did countless boil washes of my terry towling nappies!
Sadly an intermittent leak & the suspension leg detatching from its mountings spelt the end of it in our household, though it was used as a donor machine to a friends Hotpoint and was actually still working when it was taken away.
Never owned a Hotpoint since. Less than bargain prices followed by a marked drop in quality, largely thanks to Merloni, have seen to that, but fond memories live on
Liam