HUG

I've got half a dozen tilleys, some petrol and some paraffin, and a few spare mantles. We used them in Norway in the 10 man tents and one was enough to heat the tent to stripping naked level even when it was minus 40 outside! Mick up in Scotland has gas lights in an old wooden Victorian house on his property used for guests, and you have to be careful opening the door as a strong wind blowing in is enough to turn the mantles to powder. The material they made the old ones out of was slightly radioactive and carcinogenic if inhaled so they've probably changed it now!

"Jock,The Strap For Men!"  Few gaffs on our street dint av leccy Bob n when a went, first job wuz find the matches so eee cud put the fukkin leet on

Worst was trundling down to the outside netty in midwinter with a candle stub and your arse nearly freezing to the seat. Wonder what they would make of that in this modern world  of inside bathrooms!

When I was a kid on Portland our bog was outside tacked onto the end of the outhouse kitchen, and was used as a coal store as well. One of those high level cast iron cisterns used to make a hell of a noise and scared me shitless in the dark, so I used to avoid flushing it before scuttling back down the yard. Got many a hammering for not flushing but it was better than the frightening roar of that thing! The people that bought off us in '72 or so said they would build a bathroom on top of the kitchen, but when I went there last year and looked round the back nothing had changed so I can only imagine there must be one less bedroom and a bathroom where it was as I can't imagine anyone living with an outside bog nowadays! Mind you there were still the same single glazed wooden sash windows rotting away in the front bedroom so who knows?

Our bath used to hang on the wall outside, in the winter the first pan of boiling water that went into it was tepid before the next one hit it. Mind it was always put in front of the fire to keep us warm. One bath a week, shock horror to todays shower twice a day people, mind if they saw the state of the water by the time it was my turn, they would never use it !

At least they didn't chuck you out with it Bob! Our bath at Portland was also a tin one, but it was under the kitchen table which was hinged to lift up against the wall with a plastic curtain that hid the bath when not in use. There was a cold tap on the wall beside it and an Ascot gas water heater at the foot which very slowly provided the hot water. The bath was balanced on bricks and rocked about if you moved too much and had a small plug hole at one end attached to a length of garden hose that went out through the wall to the yard with a wine cork as a plug. Luxury, an indoor 'bathroom'! The main thing I remember about it was all the pointy little solder repairs in the base that used to scratch the f.ck out of yer arse!

Wot used ta get me wuz the owd Paraffin heater in the bog durin cowd winter neets in the outside bog ta stop the fukker freezin up.Gu fer a shit  in the middle o the neet ta relieve thi sen n almost commit suicide at the same fukkin time! 🤮 

We had one of those as well, used inside and outside for heat. You couldn't afford to run one now with the price of paraffin! I had 4 great ones that Her Maj donated to me, a bit like those Super Ser gas heaters, self lighting with a couple of batteries, but dumped them after finding paraffin was now about 6 quid a gallon container which would run one for 24 hrs or so, an expensive way to stay warm, bring on the wooly pully!

There seems to have been a good bit of ingenuity used in designing your Portland bathroom Pat! But the basics are the same a metal zinc bath with ridges on the bottom leaving your arse resembling a Zebra Crossing! 🤣