Toilet in the 18 and 18th centuries

At dinner parties a toilet of sorts would be set up in the dining room behind screens for the use of guests. I'm glad we have moved on since then. I can't see us setting up the porta-potti in the dining room nowadays.

Begging your pardon if someone has already mentioned…..there was reference to ‘going behind a screen’ during the first episode of The Other Bennet Girl

Luckygirl3

I was always fascinated by the fact that the French pay such close attention to what goes in (haute cuisine) and so little to what comes out and where.

And I am fascinated about how women dealt with periods, but assume that in the main they were either pregnant, breast-feeding or dead.

They were frequently "indisposed" and not seeing visitors, which probably meant they were not fit to be seen or smelt, so they were keeping a low profile.

Let us know how you get on 😀.

That is such a good idea. A loaf tin is the right shape.and it would roll up fairly small. I think I have one not used for a long time. I shall give it a test run.

Dragon's Den?!! 😂

HelterSkelter1

I wonder,if someone makes a silicone collapsible gravy boat type handled container in a zip up washable bag to use instead of squatting. You could keep it in your bag with wipes and tissues. I know I would fall over if I tried to squat. There are silicone collapsible mugs which I suppose would do. DD has a collapsible dog bowl but thats the wrong shape.
And if ever I go to a country in the future I will wear skirts and go commando.

How about a silicone loaf 'tin'?!! I have one in my kitchen collection of silicone bakeware, you could fold it up after emptying it out and rinsing it under the taps or wet wipes if no sink available. It would then fold up small to put in your bag! 😂

kircubbin2000

I remember going to a BBQ at a local farm The toilets were a long bench with 4 holes.

Many years ago I helped demolish the double sided privy on a local farm, the family side was a 4 seater, 2 adult 2 children, back to back with the workers another 4 seater.

Not a piece of social history anyone was concerned about preserving in those days

I wonder,if someone makes a silicone collapsible gravy boat type handled container in a zip up washable bag to use instead of squatting. You could keep it in your bag with wipes and tissues. I know I would fall over if I tried to squat. There are silicone collapsible mugs which I suppose would do. DD has a collapsible dog bowl but thats the wrong shape.
And if ever I go to a country in the future I will wear skirts and go commando.

Greciangirl

I travelled to Morroco in the 1960’s.

I’ll always remember sitting in a cafe drinking mint tea.
I enquired where the toilet was and it was a hole in the ground.
Not easy to perch over either.
I was quite shocked.
Hopefully nowadays they have proper lavatories.

I’ve been in Turkiye this last weekend - not one of the south coast touristy areas - and encountered a couple of “squatty pottys “. Thankfully I was prepared with tissues and wipes. My daughter just crossed her legs until we found western toilets.

In the US am not sure about unisex toilets but in the ladies toilets they usually had a very small door with a large gap at the top and bottom a bit like a saloon door in a western. Could see legs as well feet and often the tops of people’s heads.
Very off putting.

I remember going to a BBQ at a local farm The toilets were a long bench with 4 holes.

Good old Gregg's!! 😂

I agree with you TheSun. Hospital toilets for the public are mostly unisex and accessible. But the door closes flush with the floor and the walls are solid to the top. I dont think those library loos have been thought through. I expect you are not the only one who is avoiding them. I doubt if the staff loos are so "flimsy". That s the only word I can think of. I would put a complaint in writing to the "council".
Is thereman accessible loo you could use which is probably more substantial and private.

Home toilets are completely different ...open to family and friends not Joe Public.

But that's different to what I'm talking about. I don't have a problem with a unisex toilet, one in one out, it's the thought of sitting on a loo at the same time as men, possibly sitting either side of me, you can hear everything going on, then standing beside them at the sink, no thanks, not for me.

I have long needed to use an Accessible toilet when I am out. Nearly always these are separated from the usual Men/Women's toilets - and are totally unisex.

Toilets in my own and other people's home are also unisex.
Never worried me. Just grateful that we have them.

That arrangement sounds awful. I wouldn't like it at all. I would also complain to the library. I thought unisex toilet walls and doors were completely floor to ceiling with no gaps.

HelterSkelter1, it's a row of four toilet cubicles where there's a gap top and bottom in the dividing walls and doors. It's open plan, so there's no door to get into the area, you walk straight in off the library landing so people walking past can see you washing your hands and feet under the cubicles 🫣😳. Public toilets in our town centre are few and far between, so the library was handy, but never again for me, I don't like it at all.

Were the cubicle walls and doors floor to ceiling The Sun Rises?
In a little independent cafe I love to go to the 2 quite small loos are unisex. The walls and doors are floor to ceiling.. . Must say I am not keen as they are quite in a confined space as the cafe is small. Unfortunately it is quite a long walk back along the river to the town so I have to use it. Like you I wouldnt mind another woman in the other one.
I suppose unisex avoids the situation of trans gender questions/concerns. Now I think about itmI am jot sure they have a disabled loo . I must check next week.

Our local library has just installed a row of unisex toilets, I think it's disgusting. I nipped in for a pee the other morning and a man was sitting in the next cubicle having his morning poo. Yuck. I wouldn't have had a problem with a woman, when you've got to go you've got to go, but this did not feel at all acceptable and I won't be using them again.

We are sooooo lucky.

That historian lady, Ruth something or other did a programme about personal hygiene and said that, although people didn’t wash they wore linen which was washed regularly and that kept them clean in some way. Having said that it wouldn’t help me because linen makes me itch terribly.

Fallingstar

I think it must have been a world of many aromas back then. People didn’t bathe very often, wash their clothes frequently, or have deodorants, and the waft of the contents of chamber pot behind screens at a dance must have been eye watering. Also not to put too fine a point on it if a person defecated up an alley or in a pot at a dance how on earth did they clean themselves, my guess is that they couldn’t.
Hardly a romantic setting as is portrayed on screen though I suppose people were used to these aromas.
I believe that in certain countries today people do urinate and defecate on the street. Sue Perkins in a documentary about India a few years ago walked down a street full of human faeces and slipped and fell in it if I remember rightly.

Where we used to live (Middle East in the early days) it’s wasn’t uncommon to see men pooing on the beach - at the edge of the water. I do remember (before I realised what they were) wondering what all the funny little sausage shaped things, draped with seaweed were…💩
Where the women went I don’t know.

In those days the people in the villages certainly wouldn’t have had loos.

When after my marriage broke up I had to take on several jobs and one of them was cleaning the very old creepy haunted village school. The first night I heard a flushing noise coming from the boys toilets. I didn’t realise that the urinals periodically flushed themselves. It really freaked me out. Although the ghost was supposed to be in the store room, not the boys toilets.

HelterSkelter1

I wonder what they had in Selfridges? I must Google flushing toilets and see when they came in. I think I had read that before that it enabled women to shop longer or at least get out of the house for longer. All helped towards women's emancipation.

The credit for inventing the flush toilet goes to Sir John Harrington, godson of Elizabeth I, who invented a water closet with a raised cistern and a small downpipe through which water ran to flush the waste in 1592. He built one for himself and one for his godmother; sadly, his invention was ignored for almost 200 years: it was was not until 1775 that Alexander Cummings, a watchmaker, developed the S-shaped pipe under the toilet basin to keep out the foul odours.