Outside toilets

In the decades after the war, many houses still had outside toilets – not in addition to a WC on the inside of the house, but as the only one. What did that mean? It meant that you had to go out of the back door and go to a little room which was either attached to the house or, in some cases, at the bottom of the garden. To keep it nice and fresh, the door usually had a 6” (that’s 15 centimetres) or greater gap at the top and the bottom; there was, of course, no heating in this little room; if you were lucky, you had a light. If it was winter, you shivered as you did what you had to, comforted at the end by the not as good as now toilet paper and, having finished, if it was raining, you might be rewarded by a soaking on the way back to the house. I think it was more likely to be referred to as the outside lavatory, or lav or sometimes even privy.

Toilet paper

OK, maybe not the most elegant of subjects but worth a mention as, once again, things have changed a lot since way back then. In the 50s, rationing was still in place and shortages in the UK were still common; money was tight too. Very common for people to tear newspapers to size (some people made it into a craft and used scissors) and either pile up the paper squares next to the WC or, sometimes, make a hole in the corner and string them so that they could be hung. Not as pleasant as using the soft tissue papers now in use. A single ply 'shiny' paper became available and was seen as a big advance over squares of newsprint - the shiny surface did tend to make the paper skid; Izal and Bronco were two leading brands in the fifties and sixties. Then came crepe paper - again, single ply but now with the added feature of a sandpaper like texture causing mild pain before it tore to allow fingers through; fun.  Believe me, you are seriously better off with modern toilet tissues. Of course, bog paper was also a common term. There was also a singer called Lou Rawls if my memory serves me well and his name was a source of amusement to toilet centred humour little boys.