TB

[maryrose]

My dad had TB and it was during the 1940s. He had to go to a sanitorium in Bromsgrove and had new pioneering treatment. I think they called it a fresh air clinic as he told me that they had all of the windows open. He recovered from it but he has passed now. Im not surprised as if you read about how tough it was living in the court yards and back to back houses it must have been really hard. Fortunately, Birmingham during the industrial revolution was classed as one of the most sanitary of the Cities as it had very good drainage compared to a lot of places. This still didnt stop people from living in hard conditions with one bog to 5 houses. They even had men who worked at night who would be literally called s... shovellers. These people would go round at night followed by a kid with a lamp and they would clean out the dung from the privvies and sell it on to local farmers.Im 40 now and im so glad we have bog roll as they had newspaper on string. Can you imagine that these days ? If it aint got lotions and patterns on it people wont use it. Izal at school was bad enough lol. :

 

[Di.Poppitt]

Many of us on here can do more than imagine paper on string, we lived with it.

 

[Rod]

Another name for the guys who worked nights was Nightsoil Men. What a job that must have been.

Comics made for softer loo wipes than newspaper, but it's dreadful to start a story you cant finish, do you realise what that did to me as a kid, it's extreme deprivation

 

[sylviasayers]

Kandor, that tail piece of yours reminded me of a true story told to me by a lady I worked with, they were not long married and hard up as most of us were in those days and her brother worked at Alcan and brought home some sort of tissue paper they used between the aluminium sheets, her husband was the first to use it and was very uncomfortable afterwards, it turned out the tissue was impregnated with tiny particles of metal. we were in tears of laughter as she imitated his reaction.

 

[tim eborn]

I was a kid when the film Henry V came out (1947?) with all those knights in shining armour.
My Dad being the great bloke he was made me a suit of armour out of cardboard that he painted with gold coloured paint that he sprinkled with some glittering stuff.
As he believed in wasting nothing he decided to use up the last of the gold paint to paint the outside toilet's wooden seat. Well we used to say "I'm going to sit on the throne " rather than say we were going to the bog or funny.
He overlooked to say anything about it or put up a sign.
We had an elderly aunt living with us at that time and she came back from using the toilet and screamed out "Some silly B..stard has painted the toilet seat GOLD"
Poor Dad, like me he always meant well and it went into stories told about that lovely gentleman!