Outside privies

Frost?

That takes me back to when I asked my grandma how they took a dump in the outhouse when the water in the U-bend and the cistern was frozen. She couldn't remember.

I suspect she did it in the coal bunker instead and then used the shovel to scoop the jobby up and drop it onto the compost heap, and was embarrassed to say.

It may not have been as convenient as an inside WC and would never have met the current EU regulations on water saving, but the old method of about 10 gallons of water dropping 5 feet would have cleared elephant stools.

No need for toilet brushes in those days.

The compost heap will be benefiting from jars of urine until Mr Saniflo turns up to install the new unit, bongo.

Re taking a dump in cold weather, one of my dad's tales about fighting with the Ukrainian resistance on the Russian Front involved defending buildings to the death in winter, because without that shelter you risked your bowels literally freezing, if you had to relieve yourself outside.

Jack: the one bright spot this morning was watching a tsunami of water sweeping away the pebbledash afterwards.

Happy days.

It's grim  up norf....as well as in Zummerset.

Fkn grim in rural Zummerzet today. Non-stop rain and a max temp of 3C.

Plumber's still awaiting delivery of the new Saniflo unit.

screaming thats right re the low temps action on ones bowels. Panzer commander Heinz Guderian complained in an official letter from the Russian front, that he was losing men left right and centre to congelation of the anus when they were going for a pony outside their tanks. :(

Any link to that letter, HH?

Guderian was fond of toilet analogies. His famous piece of military advice in Memories of a Soldier - "Klotzen – nicht kleckern!" - gets translated as something like "Don't ****foot! Stick the boot in!" But kleckern is what you do when you splatter dribs and drabs around the bowl, rather than klotzen, which is a full-bodied, crashing thump onto the little shelf provided in toilets in the German-speaking world.

My father was born in Liverpool in 1914.  He lived in a 'court',  which is a cul-de-sac.

As you entered, there were 2 parallel rows of 4 houses.

At the top end was 2 stables which were separated by the only toilet.

There were 2 families to each house.

not sure if I can find a link but I read it in Masters of Death by Richard Rhodes.

As a very young boy we did of course explore everywhere, and not far away were some seriously old cottages, with some seriously old residents.

Opposite the cottages was a small stone buiding, inside of which was a stone trough with a wooden seat, and two holes!!!!

How very civilised!

It just doesn't bear thinking about, does it, dixie? (I presume you're an Everton supporter with that username.)

I grew up with a bucket in the bedroom, so it shouldn't be the end of the world, but traipsing 30 yards down the garden with a torch when you need a dump is an unwelcome trip down memory lane.

There's an ancient mini kerosene heater still on the floor next to the toilet bowl - it's just a metal tray with a flimsy wick/chimney sticking out. I'm tempted to clean it out and get some paraffin, if Saniflo and/or the plumber don't get on with it soon.

Did anyone else ever see that interview where Frank Skinner told Tony Blair that you could define whether someone is working class by their answer to the question "Did you have a bucket in the bedroom?"

The panic-stricken look on Blair's face as he struggled in vain to understand Skinner's point was priceless.

Used the outside toilets at Leeds festival once a  few years ago, where every cubicle, if you can call it that, was always full, the sound of the simultaneous plopping noises as it hit the water about 15 foot below will haunt me forever, God knows how people coped 200 years ago when they needed to go, my mum tells me they did it in a bucket and simply threw it out the window

Blackbushe Airport hosted Bob Dylan in 1978. There were 200,000 of us and, as far as I could see, the toilet facilities consisted of 2 rows of back-to-back benches, each with 8 holes over a ditch. A masterstroke was building the benches a fraction too high for most people to  use in the approved manner, with the usual consequences for the seats.

The urinal consisted of a fence, a wholly inadequate gutter and a few oil drums. There was a huge sign that read TOILET over it, in case of confusion. A wonderful photo in the following week's NME showed several hundred of us with our backs to the camera and sinking into the yellow mud, every one of us looking to heaven.

Dylan missed a trick that night by failing to play Desolation Row.

God knows how people coped 200 years ago when they needed to go, my mum tells me they did it in a bucket and simply threw it out the window

So that would make you about 240 years old??

Written on the wall of an outside toilet

''It's no good standing on the seat the crabs in here can jump six feet.''

Yes Screaming, a Blue.

And a bedroom bucket man.

scandanavian_haven    25 Nov 14 19:24 
Used the outside toilets at Leeds festival once a  few years ago, where every cubicle, if you can call it that, was always full, the sound of the simultaneous plopping noises as it hit the water about 15 foot below will haunt me forever, God knows how people coped 200 years ago when they needed to go, my mum tells me they did it in a bucket and simply threw it out the window

There has been slight improvement in Newham in that area

in 1900 it was West Ham, and had open sewers running through it.