Oisin
gone but not forgotten
I know I posted this before but can't remember whether it was here or on Ted Rudge's Winson Green site. If it was on here I s'pose I'll hear about it soon enough from SuBee - our vigilant but friendly :knuppel2: moderator 
...
Our khazi; out the back door, sharp right passed the brew house on the right, then sharp right again and second on the left. Unlike other more unfortunates, our khazi was our own – we didn’t have to share it with anyone and there was only one neighbouring toilet attached to it. At the other end of the yard there were three more. All five were brick built (probably better than the houses) with reinforced flat concrete roofs.
The tradition was to have pages of the Sports Argus cut into squares and hung on a nail, to be used for cleaning purposes. As I was the youngest of seven, I’m not sure if this was the practice in my family before I came along, as all I can remember is having train timetables (Father worked on the railways). This, we were assured, was of a far superior softness to newspaper. It also gave the added benefit of improving your geography whilst letting your mind wonder over all the exotically named stations between New Street and Euston.
From that we graduated (a debatable term) to Izal toilet paper (Mother worked as a cleaner for a large local company). For some strange reason, Izal toilet paper (no tissue in those days) was shiny on one side and rough on the other. I never did figure out which side was meant to face the bum – the shiny side slipped and the other made you sore.
Of course the Sports Argus, Blue Mail, Evening Despatch or Daily Mirror made there way into our khazi, but only as reading material. The Argus was my brother’s favourite. He spent so much time in this makeshift library that in winter he would take a handmade brazier with him to prevent hypothermia. It consisted of an old paint tin riddled with nail holes and filled with live embers from the fire.
Winter provided more problems than keeping my brother from freezing to the wooden seat. In icy weather, there was the real danger of slipping up en route. This was overcome by blazing a trail of ashes from the back door to the khazi door. Then there was the fear of the plumbing freezing up. Burning a Kelly oil lamp continuously through the worst of the season prevented this. Left on a low light, it was enough to keep the water liquid and provide just about enough light for reading.
Having no electric illumination that distance from the house, finding your way and seeing what you were doing once you got there could be problematic. In the long cold nights of winter, frightened of the dark, my teenage sisters would never make a solo trip. One would always accompany the other, bearing a candle to light the way.
The highlight of the winter season was Bonfire Night. For my brother, a ‘closet’ arsonist with aspirations of being a pyrotechnician, this was the opportunity to show the world what he was really made of. He would spend a fortune on fireworks and adapt our khazi roof as his stage and launch pad for the best display in Wellington Street. Kids would come from near and as far away as Foundry Road to watch him ignite some of the most exotic Roman candles, skyrockets and Katherine Wheels available in the Western World. All would gasp in awe at the pinnacle of the night, when he would set off several bangers, simultaneously, under a dustbin lid to see how high he could lift it.
Summer saw our khazi adapted for other leisure activities. Many were the hours my two sisters would spend up on its roof, soaking up the sun. Up they’d go in their swimsuits, fully equipped with suntan oil (no lotion in those days), magazines to stave off boredom, lemonade to prevent dehydration, and straw hats and sunglasses to block the worst of the sun’s rays. There they’d lie on the whitewashed flat roof, soaking up the sun, closed eyes, imagining they were with Princess Grace in Monaco. To bring a little more reality to the proceedings, I once had an idea of painting the roof a nice shade of blue. I imagined it would raise our status by convincing aeroplane passenger that we had a swimming pool in our back garden - sadly I never got round to it.
Then the time came for us to finally leave our Wellington Street abode for the decadence of Ladywood, a bathroom, soft toilet tissue and hot and cold running water (our only previous experience of that was when the wind took a few slates off the roof). I can still recall the sadness of us all as we bade our last farewell to that outside khazi, the centre of our family life, which had served us so well for all those years.
To this day I can recall my last vision of our khazi: It was on a subsequent, nostalgic visit to the old end, that I saw it; the very last structure to be demolished in the redevelopment; it was half tumbled with the roof supporting an old car – overflow from the neighbouring scrap yard, which, in former days had been a very productive allotment.
Gone forever are those happy days but they will stay with me until the day I die. And, when I think back on those memories, I can clearly hear my father’s voice ringing out like a timely bell across the eons of time with those immortal words, 'We're out of the bum fodder again, Jess!'
...OUR KHAZI
Our khazi; out the back door, sharp right passed the brew house on the right, then sharp right again and second on the left. Unlike other more unfortunates, our khazi was our own – we didn’t have to share it with anyone and there was only one neighbouring toilet attached to it. At the other end of the yard there were three more. All five were brick built (probably better than the houses) with reinforced flat concrete roofs.
The tradition was to have pages of the Sports Argus cut into squares and hung on a nail, to be used for cleaning purposes. As I was the youngest of seven, I’m not sure if this was the practice in my family before I came along, as all I can remember is having train timetables (Father worked on the railways). This, we were assured, was of a far superior softness to newspaper. It also gave the added benefit of improving your geography whilst letting your mind wonder over all the exotically named stations between New Street and Euston.
From that we graduated (a debatable term) to Izal toilet paper (Mother worked as a cleaner for a large local company). For some strange reason, Izal toilet paper (no tissue in those days) was shiny on one side and rough on the other. I never did figure out which side was meant to face the bum – the shiny side slipped and the other made you sore.
Of course the Sports Argus, Blue Mail, Evening Despatch or Daily Mirror made there way into our khazi, but only as reading material. The Argus was my brother’s favourite. He spent so much time in this makeshift library that in winter he would take a handmade brazier with him to prevent hypothermia. It consisted of an old paint tin riddled with nail holes and filled with live embers from the fire.
Winter provided more problems than keeping my brother from freezing to the wooden seat. In icy weather, there was the real danger of slipping up en route. This was overcome by blazing a trail of ashes from the back door to the khazi door. Then there was the fear of the plumbing freezing up. Burning a Kelly oil lamp continuously through the worst of the season prevented this. Left on a low light, it was enough to keep the water liquid and provide just about enough light for reading.
Having no electric illumination that distance from the house, finding your way and seeing what you were doing once you got there could be problematic. In the long cold nights of winter, frightened of the dark, my teenage sisters would never make a solo trip. One would always accompany the other, bearing a candle to light the way.
The highlight of the winter season was Bonfire Night. For my brother, a ‘closet’ arsonist with aspirations of being a pyrotechnician, this was the opportunity to show the world what he was really made of. He would spend a fortune on fireworks and adapt our khazi roof as his stage and launch pad for the best display in Wellington Street. Kids would come from near and as far away as Foundry Road to watch him ignite some of the most exotic Roman candles, skyrockets and Katherine Wheels available in the Western World. All would gasp in awe at the pinnacle of the night, when he would set off several bangers, simultaneously, under a dustbin lid to see how high he could lift it.
Summer saw our khazi adapted for other leisure activities. Many were the hours my two sisters would spend up on its roof, soaking up the sun. Up they’d go in their swimsuits, fully equipped with suntan oil (no lotion in those days), magazines to stave off boredom, lemonade to prevent dehydration, and straw hats and sunglasses to block the worst of the sun’s rays. There they’d lie on the whitewashed flat roof, soaking up the sun, closed eyes, imagining they were with Princess Grace in Monaco. To bring a little more reality to the proceedings, I once had an idea of painting the roof a nice shade of blue. I imagined it would raise our status by convincing aeroplane passenger that we had a swimming pool in our back garden - sadly I never got round to it.
Then the time came for us to finally leave our Wellington Street abode for the decadence of Ladywood, a bathroom, soft toilet tissue and hot and cold running water (our only previous experience of that was when the wind took a few slates off the roof). I can still recall the sadness of us all as we bade our last farewell to that outside khazi, the centre of our family life, which had served us so well for all those years.
To this day I can recall my last vision of our khazi: It was on a subsequent, nostalgic visit to the old end, that I saw it; the very last structure to be demolished in the redevelopment; it was half tumbled with the roof supporting an old car – overflow from the neighbouring scrap yard, which, in former days had been a very productive allotment.
Gone forever are those happy days but they will stay with me until the day I die. And, when I think back on those memories, I can clearly hear my father’s voice ringing out like a timely bell across the eons of time with those immortal words, 'We're out of the bum fodder again, Jess!'
THE END (or is it?)
