If you are offended by lavatorial don't open

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Jaxie, earth closets are very interesting. Each hole in the earth needs to be vented to the top of the shed or enclosure. The smells are vented away like how a chimney vents the smoke, by air movement at the top of the vent.

I’ve used earth closets at beautiful beaches in New Zealand & there was no smell.

Very bad smell ?

I remember the unplumbed outside loo at the bottom of the garden in my Aunt’s cottage in Gloucestershire in the 50s.
Then my Uncle Herbert digging it all into his excellent kitchen garden periodically.
Very good veg ?

No, no, no, no, no!

The thing is the hole has to be deep enough, and ideally needs an air vent above head level. Also there needs to be a really good supply or fresh earth or ashes. none of these is expensive. Even I could rig it up if I had the physical strength.

I’m sure I saw Stella McCartney on television saying she had an earth closet in her garden, and it didn’t smell at all!

I have horrible memories of earth closet at guide camp, surrounded by four canvas walls, and complete with trowel and lavatory paper in a blue Sellotape tin!

closets

Can sanitary engineers make earth closets that could function for the hoards of visitors to beauty spots? If so, earth closers would seem to be a good thing for councils to spend scarce money on. Tne alternatives are closing the beauty spots or people shiting behind the bushes.

In China on holiday I was shocked to see women squatting over sh-tty holes with no door to conceal their activities, In France in the sixties with the hole in the ground loo the advice was to puff on a Gitane cigarette to keep the flies at bay.

A few years ago on holiday in Ethiopia, our group went out to a bar and after a while I really needed to use the loo. The woman manager escorted me down a passageway and into what appeared to be somebody's living room where a young woman was lying on a sofa watching the television. Walking over to a sideboard, she leant down and produced a chamber pot which she plonked in the middle of the floor. Seeing the look of horror on my face she said "It's normal, it's normal."

Being desperate, I forced myself to go but then didn’t know what to do with the steaming pot. It seemed a bit rude to just walk away and leave it.

After reading all these tales I will never complain about the state of our public toilets here again!

The sociable rows would have to be 2 metres apart (socially distanced)!
Apologies if this has already been said - I haven't read all the posts. ?

When in Rome do as the Romans do, not on your life thank you.I like the time on the loo to be peaceful, nobody knocking to get in, its a "sacred" place for me.

Some of the camp sites in the 1950s and 60s had a plank over a ditch or the foot print things. The firsthing one asked about a site was What are the Toilets like?
In palaces like Versailles in the 17th century there so few places of easement that people would use the corners of the rooms.

Well it’s something we all do! Have never understood why we need gender assigned public loos - we don’t have that at home

You taking the p.lol

A couple of years ago whilst in India on holiday we were just pulling into Agra on our way to see the Taj Mahal, I looked out the train window and low and behold a long line of men squatting over the railway line on the far side, doing their business. That's a sight one can never unsee. I could hardly believe it.

You've only got to watch Plebs (ITV2 or 3) to see them sitting alongside each other and passing the sponge on a stick!!!
While in Turkey - a beauty spot, - I needed the loo. I was shown a building and the stench made me wretch. But I was desperate. I went in trying to not to breathe in. There was a hole in the ground and two pieces of iron either side of the holes where you placed your feet. And you stood and did what needed to be done. No flush, no toilet paper (I always carry loads of tissues in my bag, plus hand gel and wipes!).

I do not think my stomach would cope with watching somebody wipe their backside!

I was astonished to read that Victorians would make sure they did not cross paths with someone coming out of the lavatory, it was considered unseemly to be seen entering or exiting.
(Didn’t apply to lower orders if course?)

I remember years ago my friend telling me about her visit to the loo. The partition walls did not go down to the floor and she noticed a mirror on the floor. There was a pervert in the next loo!

She seemed to be good at attracting perverts. She was on a bus once and a man sat next to her and started to fondle her leg. She didn’t say anything, just ground her stiletto into his foot.

When a student, OH lodged with an old couple who lived in a posh Victorian house. The loo was quite a big room with a raised dais ( two steps up) on which stood the "throne", a beautiful blue and white porcelain loo, decorated inside and out, with an inspection ledge so that you could see what you had produced!