Saturday 4 February 2017

Outside Loo

My grandparents' house had no indoor lavatory and very primitive plumbing generally. When you had to go you needed to cross a tiny yard at the back, go through two gates across a shared passageway to the end of another small yard to find the outside loo. Its position was immediately adjacent to the railway line, steam trains passing just a few feet away. This picture* gives a very accurate impression of what it looked like, though imagination will be needed for the other senses; I can still occasionally recall the combined smell of the coal from the railway engine mixed with that from the latrine.


In that house they successfully brought up eleven children though I believe the older girls helped a lot with the youngest children.

On Blacka badgers use outside loos and in that section of the woods (which I think of as Badgerville) it's fairly easy to find these similarly advanced facilities.


They consist of small scrapes where the droppings are deposited. If you see one you can be sure a badger set will be nearby.


For the most authoritative comment I know on the badger cull and much else beside please read the comments on this link.

http://www.self-willed-land.org.uk/articles/badger_slaughter.htm

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* From the Black Country Living Museum
 https://www.bclm.co.uk/




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