Unlike some of our better off neighbours we didn’t have en suite potties, we had a communal white enamel bucket on the landing and it was strictly for peeing in. This was never said but was strongly hinted at by the fact that there wasn’t any paper.

Before I was born the pee was collected in the mills to scour the cloth. All the workers were required to pee in the mill owners bucket. This is where the saying ' They all piss in the same pot', comes from. In other words they all supported the same man or project.The urine was called,' Wheeting', meaning wetting. Men went door to door collecting urine with a' Wheeting cart' a bin on wheels. One of these fellows was affectionately known as ' Piss Billy '. The bin had a grill on the top to stop kids chucking bricks in and splashing him. The workers who walked up and down in the stale urine pressing the cloth down with their feet were called ‘Walkers’. That’s where the name Walker comes from. The collector paid a penny a bucket and two pence if you were a red head it was thought to be better quality. I would therefore, at that time, have merited a separate bucket, some are born special but at the wrong time.

Then we were only a one-bucket family but it was sort of still traditional for us all to piss in the same pot and not contaminate what used to be a potential money earner with solid waste products. Anyone who did use it for any thing else never confessed. That would have involved you in the indignity of carrying the bucket all the way to the outside lav, down three floors of the house, which wasn’t too bad. Out the back door turn left along ginnel at the back of the houses. At this stage you could meet anyone. Turn left again down the yard, down the steps to the row of lavs. The bucket had a thick wire loop handle with a turned wood grip threaded on. When you held this grip it swiveled so you had little control over the swinging bucket. You tried to hold the wobbling, slopping, smelly bucket as far from your body as possible, trying to counter balance it with the big iron key to the lav door in the other hand. Lav security was very important you didn’t want anyone sneaking in and putting his or her germy bottoms on your lovely lavy seat. When you unlocked the door it always opened inward, so when you were sat on the loo you could hold the door shut with your foot. Unlike a coal hole door that always opened outwards you could get more coal in and the door wouldn't get stuck. They knew about design in those days.

DIEU ET MON CRUET - Salt and pepper set

Lot is the pepper pot.
The salt comes out of Lot's wife's nipples.

Lot taking advantage of his wife's condition to get a better view

The loo itself was a pristine white washed little room. The effect much desired in New York loft conversions. Above the toilet was an orange coloured lead lined wooden box. This was the water cistern, stenciled on it in black letter was the word, ‘JAPKAP’. After flushing the contents of the bucket down the lav one might take advantage of the facilities to hide out and have a read. I always think my eyes have been affected by these sojourns. Not by what adults normally suspected young boys did in toilets, which was said to make them go blind. Suspected kids had big tubes pushed up their pyjama sleeves over their arms and hands. It was said the tubes prevented them scratching but it was really an early form of emission control. No, my eyes were not affected by this ‘Secret Vice’. I always suspected they were affected by the toilet paper. This was neatly torn squares of the Daily Mirror hung on a nail behind the door. Mam once, to my delight used torn up Dandy and Beano comics. This episode was short lived; Aunt Ethel informed Mam this was definitely not the fashion. Not because I liked it but apparently the colour came off on her bum. So we went back to using newspaper. It was always hung by the left-hand corner so it was at an angle. I would attempt to read the sloping lines on hanging squares. Now my left eye is slightly higher than my right. The consequence of this is, that when I look forwards everything’s normal but if I look upwards I have double vision. This means that I have twice as many black clouds in my sky but in fine weather I have two suns. So I follow the Duke of Bedford’s example and rarely go out when it’s wet.

I once went to Woburn Abbey to talk about an exhibition of my cycles. The invitation letter instructed me go to the front door and ring the bell. I don’t know why I thought this strange. I arrived at the front door and rang the bell. The Duke didn’t open the door it was a superior guy I’d never seen before.
Before he could say, “Tradesmen’s entrance round the back.”
I said, “I’ve an appointment to see the Duke.” Then I suddenly realised I’d left my briefcase in the car. “Hang on a minute” I said, “ I’ve left my brief case in the car,” whereupon, I turned and went back to the car leaving him standing holding the door open. I retrieved my brief case and looking back, saw he was still standing by the open door. I don’t know if I thought there was a time limit to his services like an automatic lift door. But I felt obliged to hurry back; so I started running. Just before I got to the door I tripped and fell full length. I struggled on to my feet to find my white linen suit covered in mud. I didn’t want to appear at all concerned in front of the smart flunky. So to be casual and distract his attention from my muddy suit, I pointed at the iron boot scraper at the side of the door and casually said,
“Is that where the Duke scrapes his wellies?”
To which, he replied, “His Grace rarely goes out when it’s wet sir.”

As a consequence of this incident, I now like to hold doors open for old ladies, particularly if they are a long way from the door, for example at the end of a long corridor. They always feel obliged to hurry so the polite man is not kept waiting. Try it … it’s great fun.

All that afternoon at Woburn no one mentioned my muddy suit, not even the woman filling the brown sticky paper machine with Perrier water. They knew I’d come from the North. On leaving I looked at my suit; the mud had dried a light brown. I brushed it off with my hand. It came off easily, there was not a mark left on the cloth. Even the Duke’s mud was nicer than ours.

Later when I met the Duke, he was waiting to greet me at the front of the house. He was wearing a light coloured expensive suit and holding a baby lion. The lion pissed on his suit and unlike Woburn mud, it had a strong unfamiliar aroma. I was informed that the lion had pissed on his Grace. I assumed I was told because I came from the North and being unfamiliar with nobility they didn’t want me to think that they normally smelled that way.

This is all a part of my adult life; the story involved a loaf of bread disguised as a parrot with an Oxo cube tied to its head. If it's ever written this is all in the second part of my biography entitled, 'Brian the Bitch and the Wardrobe'.

The Duke and Duchess of Bedford, with myself holding a 'Crutch Criminal Cycle', The cycle punishes only the part of the body that commits the crime. The Duchess is activating a, 'Tonsil kicking anti-thumb sucking device'.

A non-electrical ' Crutch criminal cycle.'

Granny, like the Duke was also reluctant to go out to the lay in the wet. She had an old teapot that had lost its lid so she peed in that. This ruse saved her a long walk to the outside lav. She just threw it out of the back door. Any one watching thought she was throwing out tea. A normal occurrence in these parts because you didn’t want the tea leaves blocking the sink. She could of course have poured it down the sink. There was no chance she would do that all sorts of diseases were about. Everyone was terrified of germs then. Even now people don’t like pee down their sink.

Granny wasn’t the first to think of this personal potty idea. Upper crust ladies used a similar method to Grannies teapot for pee disposal. They didn’t use teapots they used a specially designed container. It’s sometimes seen on dining tables being wrongly used as a gravy boat, which it strongly resembles. Called a Bordeloue it’s named after a Jesuit priest, Louis Bordeloue (1632-1704). He gave such long sermons that the desperate ladies were obliged to use this device in their pews. They were able to do this discreetly because they had long dresses and wore split crutch knickers aptly named 'Ever Readies.'

I thought of Granny when I came upon a market stall on it were dozens of teapots, not one of which had a lid. I asked the stallholder what had happened to all the teapot lids. She looked at me as if I was stupid and said, “Teapots, teapots? These are planters.”

A 'Bordeloue' and a pair of 'Ever Readies'.

Some hotels without en suite toilets have the sink plumbed in at chest height to stop you peeing down them. In these rooms the chairs always have cane seats, which give way if you stand on them. A broken cane seat in the room is a sure indication that some short guy has been standing on it to pee down the sink. Peeing down sinks is of course a man thing. Peeing in teapots is a lady thing.

Granny would swirl the contents round the pot before throwing them in a great arc. Every drop shot out with great momentum, like an amber rainbow. That was the recognised way … cold tea was always thrown. If I were told to chuck out the real cold tea dregs, I would stand with the pot at crutch height and pour it out slowly through the spout so I looked as though I was having a pee; this would amuse passers by. They’d take a second look thinking they’d seen someone with a strange willy and an enormous ‘Willow Pattern’ gonad.

Mam caught me once and I got a good leg smacking. She administered this by first grabbing my left arm high up with her left hand, so I couldn’t escape. She silently signalled to me by pointing to the teapot and the floor that I should put the teapot down, carefully. This was all done calmly so she hoped I wouldn’t suspect what was coming.

Then when she’d positioned me to her satisfaction in the arena. She exploded in a smacking frenzy. Mam was facing the opposite way to me so she could get a good swing at the back of my legs with her right hand. Her arm swung down like a golf stroke; at the bottom of the swing her hand made contact with my calf and I was being propelled forward and upward. (How much more satisfaction golfers would get if the ball squealed when they hit it) Mam’s grip on my arm combined with me trying to escape just meant we went round in circles, a kind of centrifugal flagellation. I was like a dancer swinging round a Maypole with Mam as the Maypole she beating the rhythm in smacks followed by my cries of, “Oiya! Oiya! Oiya!”, her evil hand following my legs like a swat following a fly. If the smack missed my legs she’d get me the next time round. Red legged, sobbing; I went bob, bob, bobbing, around. When she’d had enough she stopped and released me. I was indignant. With a quivering lip, I mimed bafflement as to why I was being chastised. This mime involved standing with my palms upwards; my mouth and eyes wide open in a look of astonishment my head shaking from side to side in disbelief. Picking up the teapot and wagging her finger at me Mam informed me that cold tea should not be disposed of that way because the leaves always stuck to the bottom of the pot, any idiot knew this, which is why they were laughing at me. If that was right, the punishment was a bit over the top. But she knew and I knew we were both fibbing. I realised there was some truth in what she said. Thus I became aware of the difference between being laughed at and being laughed with.

Sometimes Granny saved some pee to soak her feet in she said it was good for chilblains. Urine was also considered good for curing deafness but only deafness caused by wax in the ears. This cure involved persuading a strapping youth to pee in your ears. The warm liquid melted the wax and the strong flow washed it out.

Finley Topham was a friend of mine and his mother got a book from the library. She said it was called, ‘Urinate Power.’ He thought it was about powerful pee-ers and I don’t mean strong noblemen. The book was actually called, ‘Your Innate Power.’ You don’t hear about peeing in ears nowadays but I expect with Prince Charles recommending alternative medicine it will come back and his ears are built for it.

I understand nits are on the increase. I lived in terror of putting on someone else’s cap or balaclava. It was drummed into me I’d certainly get a terrible disease, ring worm, nits, scabies or fleas and if I broke a mirror while looking at myself wearing a borrowed hat, I’d be sure to get the lot.

Before stethoscopes Doctors used monoscopes a short trumpet like gadget to listen to your heart. They always insisted they weren’t too short in fact they liked them slightly longer than the height a flea could jump because when using one they could easily end up with a flea in their ear. They still use the monoscope today on pregnant women.

In England, being polite, we use many euphemisms for the place we go to defecate; lav, privy, bog, loo. etc. One of the nicer ones is the aptly named ‘Nessy’, which is of course short for ‘The necessary’. This word on one occasion led to some confusion. The father of a young truant received a letter from the school stating that if his son did not attend school more often they would, ‘Take the necessary steps’. When the father read the letter, he remarked, “They can take the whole shithole for all I care”