How old are you

[Keith at Tregenna]

It seems almost inconceivable today that you could have a home without at least one bathroom. In some houses, one is still not enough.

K.

[Ivan Cloherty]

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...49&FORM=VDQVAP

Well the elite may have found it funny. It wasn't funny living it.

[Tony Taylor]

Lewis, I had similar experience to you, except our outside toilet was over the other side of a lane. Our bath night was Saturday. Our house had one room downstairs with a big range with a kettle on a hob which could be rotated over the fire, the bath went in front of the fire and water was boiled on the gas cooker and the range. The kitchen was about the size of a cupboard with only room for the cooker, sink and a draining board about 2ft long.
Clothes were washed in a gas boiler in the back yard, gas was supplied by a rubber tube thro the tiny wee window in the kitchen and attached to a gas tap on the side of the cooker.
Once a month my mother would buy 2 bottles of pop from the chippy (no fish chips - ours home made) as a treat, one shared out out on Saturday night and one with Sunday lunch. We had a back boiler installed when I was ten years old so running hot water was a novelty. When I was 11 I had to go to the pit baths to get showered as I was considered too old for the tin bath with the other kids. I think this was where I got my fascination with steam, as I used to go in the baths thro the boiler room with two large Cochrane boilers which supplied the whole colliery as well as the baths, the smell of hot oil and steam still stays with me, I can still picture it now with the little steam recip feed pump ticking away.

[Lewis McColl]

Tony, I was lucky I may have been born in that house but I was 6 months old when mum & dad got a new council house about 5 miles from there. The house I was born in was one of the lucky ones as 3/4ers of the street (13 Mineral St lucky 13) was wiped out during the Belfast Blitz. Mineral St was on the side of Belfast lough and was on the flight path for the Luftwaffe to bomb H&W and the Shorts aircraft factory. Thankfully not to many were killed as at the top of the street was the Shore rd and there was a Public park and people used that to hide from the bombing.
Getting back to the bath thing. I remember the council building a Public swimming baths called the Grove baths this was in the 60's. The reason I mention it was as part of the complex there were also PUBLIC BATHS. You would see people going and getting there block of soap and a towel and going for their weekly bath. I had an Uncle who moved into my Grannies old house as Granda & Granny got a new council pensioners bungalow. The houses in Mineral street were being modernised by the council with an extension that had a bathroom/toilet.
During a visit to N Ireland to meet up with friends my wife was curious to see the house I was born in. I took her down to Mineral St and was upset to see the wreckers ball had demolished the street for redevelopment. The old door steps were still visible and I worked out were No 13 was. As there was a load of rubble in what would have been the living room /sometimes tin bath room I helped myself to a brick. Have to admit to feeling a bit upset looking at the rubble as not only me being born in that house , my older brother was as was my mum, her brother and also two other brothers who were still born.
Still for all that there were those during the Blitz all over the UK lost a lot more.

[happy daze john in oz]

The house my GGF lived in was gas lit in Sunderland.

Mum remarried after the war being divorced by my father.
We were put into a council owned house bin South London.
In a street of about 20 three storey houses all of which had been in their early life owned by the gentry.
Three families to each house, one on each floor, we were on the top one.

Only heating an open fire, gas cooker and hot water from the 'Ascot' heater.
Early radio with wet battery then we got a thing called a trickle charger so no more trips to the shop for a recharge.
But in the kitchen was also the bath with a wooden top on it, this had to double up as the dinning table.
After some time you got used to sitting at it sideways.

Three bedrooms with no heating so very cold in winter, not that hot in summer.
Every day after school had to fill the coal scuttle and carry it up the three flights of stairs.

But despite all that we had a great life, my youngest sister born in that flat.
Great people in the neighborhood with the greengrocer and his horse and cart delivering on a Saturday.

[Keith Tindell]

I posted similar before, dad worked for General Sir Authur Warchope, a WW1 general, he lived in the big house in nice comfort, two ladies servants etc, a bungalow went with dads job as gardener/chauffeur, no electric, no gas, open range for cooking, large brick boiler in the kitchen for washing clothes, fed by wood fire, but the worst thing was the galvanised bucket with the timber lid for a toilet, when said bucket was full, was buried in the garden. After a short time, we had a flushing toilet built, shere luxury, i haded sitting over that galvanised bucket.This was 1946-47. The food Mum cooked on that coal fired range always tasted fantastic, and we all lived in the kitchen, it was the only half warm room in the bungalow, kt

[Doc Vernon]

I also had posted this some time back but cannot seem to find it!
Anyway talking of old times when we lived on the Farm many Years back we only had a Shed to start with for the Family of Four at the time. Made of Tin and was as cold as ice in Winter and Hot as hell in Summer. Old Dunny about 25 Meters away with just a Hole in the Ground, always was scared to go there alone in case i fell in that S---hole, LOL

An old Iron type Tub for our Bath, and the Hot Water had to be boiled or at least made Hot on an old Wood Stove that was in a separate small Shed alongside the so called little House.

It took my Dad some 18 Months Plus to build us a decent House of Brick, he did most all of it alone , with the help of one Man of Colour that was always around looking for work.

Eventually we had a three Bedroom House with Brick walls and a Metal Roof. Very swanky after all that time living like we did.

Fancy Toilet inside but still not Modern, used a Metal container for the waste, and periodically had to be emptied, Yuk what a job!

The Bath was also put in and that was Heaven for us all, poor Mum especially.
Nice Kitchen with Wood and Coal burning Stove and three Plates how Grand !

So that was it hard at times but we loved it, and it sure did us no harm Cheers

[Keith Tindell]

Yep, think we all should look back sometimes Doc, and think what a good life most of live now, relative in Australia ?, just pick the phone up and dial the number, answer crystal clear. My dear old Gran had a sister in Oz, and they used to send by post the old cassette from a new fangled recorder, and it would go back and forth, and she could hear her sisters voice, to her it was absolute joy. That would have been in the fifties, kt

[Doc Vernon]

KT
At least it wasnt the old piece of string with the Tin attached at each end LOL
Actually they were quite good and one could hear quite clearly over a fair distance, the harder you pulled on the String to make it taut the better the sound and the father you could go!
Great fun days though!

[j.sabourn]

#19 It’s surprising how clear underwater telephones are Vernon. No joking have communicated that way with people underwater. No doubt someone is going to ask doesn’t the water get in your ear when you hold the receiver there . JS