04-08-2018, 09:43 PM
9012
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
All the public loos have gone from here, years ago. Back in the 1950s & early 1960s there were loads of them and some of them were quite grand. Ornate little buildings, brick built with high ceilings. Excellent ceramic ware with full height privacy guards between each stall. There would be glossy painted ironworks , pillars & ball & claw ornamental pillars on the panels between the cubicles.The admission charge of a penny was not expensive, but inconvenient if you hadn’t a coin of that denomination.
When I worked in the town centre there was a rather grand facility at the terminus bus stop. It was subterranean.
This premises had the luxury of an assistant, lurking in a little office next to the stairway. Sometimes he might make light conversation , in a non threatening way.
“Nice out today innit guv”..
There was a big sign near the office “Wash & Brush Up 7/6”. I didn’t care to ask what was involve. Or indeed if I could have either or.
As the years passed the whole place went downhill and the convenience became a hub for other activities, drugs, homeless people, indecent behaviour.
I came across the attendant years after he retired and he confided in me that in the end if someone came in for a crap it was like a breath of fresh air.
There was an interesting post script to this bit of local history. The site was acquired by a poster company who planned to erect a huge hoarding on this corner site but when they demolished the building they discovered the Victorian workers who put up the building had vandalised a unique Anglo-Saxon burial plot directly below. The site immediately had a preservation order put on it which prevailed for years until the poster company eventually gave up the fight and very sportingly paid for the site to become a lovely scented garden.
How’s that for a happy ending?
04-08-2018, 10:16 PM
9014
Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)
Originally Posted by spitfire
->
Without ghosts, there is nothingness, but don't tell Gummy, he may be polishing his Ghoulies.
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