So, I am not surprised you'd never see these anywhere outside of a generally sunny climate. Space is also a factor - the average yard size in Australia is far larger than that of the UK, though it is shrinking in the major cities.
The handle certainly helps to prevent head injuries when mowing the lawn around them. I've hurt myself a few times after forgetting to wind ours back up.
Typically if the weather was nice we would hang the clothes before school/work, and they'd be done at the end of the day. Some years we would go as late as Thanksgiving before taking it down for the winter.
This is an example of the more modern, detachable design. It's ready to use in under a minute.
As a child growing up in the suburbs of Boston, we had something similar in our backyard. It would come out with the summer patio furniture and return the shed when autumn hit. Not only it more eco-friendly, but the long term damage of high-heat is pretty well studied in the scientific community[1].
I was actually interested enough to test this out on my own. During the regular Brooks Brothers 2 for $100 bi-yearly sales, I picked up two identical blue oxford cloth button-down shirts (of domestic manufacture, circa 2012). I weighed them to make sure the oz/in quality was comparable, along with a pretty thorough defect analysis to inspect the quality of the seams, how well the buttons were anchored (they both had anchor points), qualify of cuff/plackets, etc. They were more or less comparable in quality, but I selected the one with more flaws to be used as the 'air dry' (I took a Sharpie and scribed with a red x to denote the 'air dry' to maintain consistency.)
Both of these shirts were washed in the same unit, with the same detergents and had uniform wear patterns (amortized over time at least). They'd get ~3 wears in the winter, and generally 2 in the summer, followed by a wash in cold/cold with on 'medium' agitation. I wish I had pictures to document the evolution, but after ~6 months the color fade became was pronounced to such an amount that I could identify between the two. This fade continued in more or less monotonic ln() fashion as a function of time.
The structural failure occurred on the 'dryer' unit around 3.5 years into the purchase. It failed at the at the elbow, though curiously not due to fabric wear fatigue in a stress-loaded position (i.e. the conventional 'blazer hole'), but the seam that bound the sleeve together[2].
Obviously there's no rigor to this anecdotal story. But any article of clothing that I've got some sentimental attachment to will get air-dried just to prolong the longevity. For those who are curious, the 'air dry' experimental unit was retired after ~6 years of use due to structural deformation[3] of the experimenter.
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[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990831080157.h... [2] I.e. construct a paper cylinder, slide it over your lower arm, and cut it in from your elbow towards your hand. [3] I.e., I put on ~25 lb of the indolent variety between 24 and ~29. I went up a jacket size (36R->38R) and 2inches of waist.
Precisely zero of these clothes lines made it to the UK - you never see them - so there must be a reason for that. In the UK they may have failed compared to the more modern rotary design because that uses far less metal and does not have the heavy and unnecessary handle. In the UK portability probably matters more due to the rain.