This question at Quora a few days ago received an answer from yours truly. This is what I wrote in response to:
Are you old enough to remember when outhouses were used?
Are you old enough to remember when outhouses were used?
After pondering, later, on the question of "what we called it", I eventually recalled my grandparents' comments when they were about to use the earth closet: "I'm just going up t'garden" - translated into British English = "I'm just going to the loo."I am indeed! My grandparents lived in a tiny village in East Yorkshire, England. They had no indoor plumbing until the early 1950s, so water had to be brought in from a pump in a communal yard, catering to a row of five cottages. Each cottage had a long narrow garden at the back, at the end of which was the outhouse - though it wasn’t called an outhouse in Yorkshire. I don’t remember what we did call it in conversation; in formal language it was called an ‘earth closet’.
I also recall visiting my great grandparents’ small farm in an even more rural setting, and seeing their earth closet : an earth closet made for two. Very sociable! :)
Using earth closets wasn’t pleasant, but imagine the poor souls whose job it was to empty them! These men, of ultra-strong constitution, were called ‘scavengers’ , they toured the area once a week or so, emptying the earth closets into a big specially designed truck with sliding lids. The stink was indescribable as the scavengers passed by.
I can only remember my paternal grandmother's WC which it was always called - way at the end of her long back garden "in town". Very delicate sensibilities. For the life of me I can't remember my maternal grandparents' privy. They were small tenant farmers with an open range and I can remember being bathed in the big old copper tub (used for laundry too) on the flagstones with chickens running around it where I could splash. Carbolic soap for everything, LOL. I think it was potty and Granny would take care of that. No recollection at all of an outhouse. Spoiled I was.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Wisewebwoman ~ You were, too! :) Of course, you are younger than me, WWW - perhaps not a full generation younger, but younger enough that modernisation of lavatorial necessities had moved on that bit further.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, indeed! Potty under the bed at night - but only for the 'wees', if you needed 'the other' you got your clothes on to 'go down the yard' and never mind if it's raining, snowing, or blowing a gale and a half (or possibly all three!) and there was no toilet tissue, just cut squares of the Daily Mirror or the Manchester Guardian hung from a nail driven into the brickwork. And woe betide you if you used the last square and didn't replace it. It was known as the 'privy', and because we were posh we had a proper flush toilet with a bleached wooden seat and an old cast-iron cistern high up near the roof with a long chain dangling that you pulled to flush the thing - and man did it go! You needed a good head of water to blast half a dozen Manchester Guardian squares and their accompanying solids out into the sewer, but I don't remember it ever getting blocked. At the tender age of six I was always scared stiff it would suck me down and I'd be lost forever. I'd pull on the chain, then rush out the door before the water hit the bowl.
ReplyDeleteAh, the good old days! Kids today, bah, they dunno their born.
;-)
RJ Adams ~ OOOH! Yes - and it was black dark going "up t'garden" at night in wintertime, even early-ish, just before bedtime. A torch helped a bit, but the darkness was so intense, back then, that it remained a scary prospect - possibly brought on more chronic constipation than has ever been recorded! :)
ReplyDeleteThe "toilet paper" torn or cut up squares of the daily newspapers (or if particularly unlucky some shiny magazine or catalogue pages!) Yes. These squares needed to be crumpled energetically to soften them before use. I also remember the huge spiders that inhabited the earth closet of my grandparents (L0L - that sounds a bit like "la plume de ma tante" , but I can't translate it into French!)
At home, we too had a water closet complete with the dangling chain. I've long maintained that the dangling chains were far better than the press-handles with which we now dispose of the WC's contents.