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OUTSIDE LAVS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chrissy
  • Start date Start date
C

Chrissy

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Most of all I can remeber of the outside lav, it was so cold. I was very naughty because I use to take my mum or dads matches and make myself a little fire out of the newspaper. I use to place the screwed up paper onto the brick floor of the toilet and set light to it. Mum use to think it was the neighbours who did it. Sorry >:D
 
Remember them!!!
besetzt.gif
... and now the Sports Argus has ceased publication there'll be no more pink toilet paper in ours. :'(​
 
We had a gap both top and bottom of the door. Still one never heard of smellies being used in them then (not that they were on the market) for the gale that blew through them there were no smells able to linger. I can remember sitting looking at the stars through the gap above our door.
We had a miners oil lamp hanging on the lead inlet pipe to the system and in winter it did keep the tank from freezing but did nothing for bare legs.
I recall having to put my overcoat on to go. How we managed to clean ourselves for there was no light in there and we never had a torch. Pulling the sheets of newspaper off the string was a art all by itself in the dark. Bless progress....
 
:angel: Like Paul a quote from a much earlier thread on 'Loo's ' :


" I had a group of Little's the other day teaching them about ice and how things freeze below zero.
I said that when I was their age we had icicles out side the toilet door in winter and we would break them off and eat them.
Confused or what? I had to then explain how in England in winter it gets very cold out side and that when and where I grew up all the toilets were up the back yard.
So our 'Science lesson' turned into a 'History Lesson' and 'Geography Lesson', teach me to think before I speak next time. "

Chris :angel:
 
As a child I thought we were deprived because we had an outside lav. Other kids I knew had indoor ones. Then I went to a party in a back to back house somewhere and found that they had an outside one that they had to share with other familys. After that I thought we were middle class.
Regards.
 
i was the youngest of 5 children and i was 18 before we had a loo indoors this was in the mid/late 60's we moved from lozzells (wheeler st- houses being pulled down) to a posh area of perry common and this was when we had our very 1st bathroom and my parents were both in thier 60's

and the kids to day think they are hard done by if they don't have thier own TV/phone/ps2
 
our outside loo was shared by the the lady who worked at becketts the dry cleaners,she would sit there with the door wide open drunk as a lord waving to all the people on the top deck of the number 8 bus which stopped out side our back gate which was on park lane,my job was to tear up the newspaper and put it on the string,in the winter my job was light the lamp and keep it topped up with paraffin,and then go knocking on doors to scrounge potato peelings to go with the slack(coal dust) and bank up the fire in the grate so ther was a bit of warmth when we got up next day,if it was really cold we had to get some old coats and throw them on the bed,and the trip to the loo was always a dreade first thing on a winters morning
 
Now wheres the piccy of Sylvia sitting outside the loo at the back to backs - when you need it? :(
 
Thank goodness for the po under the bed. It saved those late night trips up the yard, especially when the cistern was frozen. Mother used to examine it like a fortune teller reading the tea leaves. She always knew if we had a "cold in the stomach".
 
In another life, 50 years ago, I was very friendly with girl whose house only had an outside one, like most in Handsworth at that time. The family normally lived in what was the kitchen, although they had gone posh and had a lean-to scullery with sink, washtub and perhaps cooker - I forget now. Only on special occasions would they sit in 'the house', where Mary had to do her piano practice.
They were a very set family, dad always sat quietly next to the fire (which was always burning) with his paper and smoking his Erinmore baccy, while mum would be talking and working. Occasionally he would get up, go out and return a minute later. Above the back of his chair was a nail with a cap hanging on it. Once a day he would put it on when he got out of his chair, which was a public sign that bhe wouldn't be back for five minutes.
Peter
 
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