29-04-2013, 04:54 PM
1
At your convenience
All the public conveniences 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 next to the enigmatic sign offering a wash & brush up for half a crown.
“Nice out today innit guv”.
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?
29-04-2013, 05:42 PM
2
Re: At your convenience
Must be an English thing then because here in the valleys every village has access to at least one public loo, usually with attendant, and most towns have more than one. They are always clean and fresh, and never pong (unlike ones in England I have used in the past).I read recently that this lack of facilities had led some Councils to set up a scheme by which shops/pubs/caffs could display a sign to show that they were willing for the public to use their loo's.
29-04-2013, 05:51 PM
3
Re: At your convenience
29-04-2013, 06:10 PM
5
Re: At your convenience
Originally Posted by pixie
->
thats right but at the buss station and trian station you do not pay when we came to canada was a nice change not to have to pay to use the looo
30-04-2013, 11:05 AM
8
Re: At your convenience
That is a lovely story Robert - what a great outcome
We have an abundance of public loos and all quite clean and taken care of - if a bit dated though.
The worst I've encountered is Spain - public toilets tend to be in the large supermarkets and the only other option is to use the cafes but, of course, a purchase is necessary beforehand.
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