Reading this reminds me of the "Flatley Dryer" that my mother used to dry clothes in when I was a child. It was a tin box, about the size of a small fridge, which contained a row of removable wooden slats to hang washing on. The tin box was heated electrically to allow the washing to dry.
Alternatively, the wooden slats were very useful for beating badly behaved children (they sounded worse than they felt) and the Flatley could be used for keeping large quantities of meat pies warm in, (my father used to supply warm pies to some of the local clubs to be served during the entertainment intervals) although I suspect that the Flatley company wouldn't have reccomended the latter, given the alarming potential for an outbreak of food poisoning in storing food under such conditions.
It's a wonder my father isn't as famous as Sweeney Todd and, considering the amount of left-over pies we ate, that his five children made it to adulthood!
C-flat.