ootside toilets....first home and all that..ha

We had IZAL in our toilet but our neighbour had real soft paper. It was very very expensive hence it was only for visitors.

Yogagran, you probably mean IZAL, my auntie and step-sister worked at their factory in Chapeltown, near Sheffield, so we got it for free, it was considered a luxury after newspaper!

vampirequeen Surely you don't mean soft toilet paper? I seem to remember horrid hard, non absorbent paper - was it Izal or Jeyes? Made good tracing paper but not much good for the intended purpose

In my parents first house we had an outside toilet I just don't know how my poor mum managed to get us toilet trained she had four under 7yrs,my twin brother always beat me to the toilet in the mornings and he was a typical boy never put the seat up,I will never forgive him for that and make sure he remembers it to this day.

We had an outside toilet that was cold, damp and full of spiders. Our neighbour used newspaper but had a roll of soft paper for visitors. The only problem was that the soft paper would start to disintegrate because of the damp and just crumpled into soggy pieces if anyone tried to pull it off the roll.

Our first flat had an outside netty in 1976, proved very tricky getting down the steep steps in the heavy frost pregnant. We had to go to the parents for a bath.

The cistern froze every winter no matter how many time the chain was pulled, a candle in a flower pot sometimes helped

We were married in 1963, lived in a terraced cottage, row of 5, plus a shop, 3 toilets in the yard that we shared. It IS strange Tegan, that newspaper didn`t block the pipes then, when it doesn`t take much to block everything nowadays. I remember one night, we had visitors, SIL and her hubby and son, me and her were in the kitchen and I need the toilet, neither of us fancied the yard in the dark, didn`t like to ask hubby in front of BIL, so she suggested I "go" on the plastic bucket. I was 8 months pregnant, and the bucket split!! So had a wet floor to mop, and a new bucket to buy!

I've asked this before but how come newspaper didn't block the pipes? Oh the arguements that shared outside loos caused when I was little.

Both my grandmothers had outside loos. Little nan's was in a row at the bottom of the yard. The yard was shared by the 5 other terraced houses. Big nan was posh she had a private garden with her own outside loo. They didn't move from their respective properties until mid 60's

When we were children we had a jerry under the bed, posh people had chamber pots.

Hence the bucket in the upstairs bedroom, Hebrideanlady. I didn't use the word netty because I wasn't sure how many would understand.
Concrete floors and no carpets wasn't much fun, either. I can understand why women were not expected to go out to work when they had young kids. Housework took much longer then.
At least Nappisan had been invented, so we could wash nappies out in cold water and hang them on the line to solidify in the snow.

I had a "netty" geordie for outside toilet until I was 23, very difficult trying to potty train toddlers when you live in a upstairs flat

For the first four years of my life I lived in an old farm cottage with an outside toilet. I can remember a lot about the cottage but not the toilet! My parents had to leave because it was a tied cottage and after waiting in vain for a council house they decided to take the plunge into home ownership - the first of their families to ever do such a thing! My mum thought she had died and gone to heaven when she moved into her brand new semi with an indoor bathroom. It became a bit of a ritual that relatives would come for Sunday tea and have a bath while they were there!

I lived in a tenement flat as a student in London, with a toilet in the corner of the kitchen (yuk). It was grim.

When my eldest son was a year old, 45 years ago, we lived in a house with a toilet in a row outside the yard. Outside the back gate, there was a tenfoot for the coal lorries to get down. Each house had a coalshed with a toilet next door. Needless to say we used a bucket inside at night.
We only lived there for six months over winter. Didn't need a fridge.
There was one electric point in the house, and a cold tap. We had an oven for cooking in, next to the fire. You pulled out a damper to get the heat to swirl round the outside of the oven.
No bathroom.We used to go over the road to Ken's parents on a Sunday to have a bath.
Beamish Museum makes me feel quite at home.

I lived in one of them as a student! In Dundee in the 60s. Mattress on the floor in the kitchen alcove.....three in two rooms

But I also remember being shown an outside privy in Wales with two seats, by my mum who had one when she was young - and was glad of the company in the night!

We shared a toilet with 3 families no bathroom just the tin bath on Sundays .