A Bit Of A Mystery

I know not why but for some reason I got to thinking about outside toilets today, especially in winter, and how cold and uncomfortable they can be. I remembered particularly the smell from the paraffin lamps we put inside one in order to unfreeze the pipes to keep the thing running.

But then came the mystery. Which house was I thinking of? I'm sure the house at Hartford Street in which I was born only had an outside toilet, (definitely no bathroom, we used a tin bath) but we flitted from there when I was five and I have no recall whatsoever of what the interior or lavatory outside were like. I'm certain the place at Cargate Road had an inside toilet - and bathroom - because that's why I felt we were moving up in the world when we arrived there. (I believe in later years, long after we left, the houses on the road became rat-infested!) So that leaves the back of the shop on Guide Lane and the house I spent my teenage years in on Gresham Street - which Mum only left some four years ago. Yes, Gresham Street had an outside toilet but it definitely had a bathroom and toilet inside. In fact when we first moved there they were in a massive room upstairs and I had to sleep downstairs. We did sometimes use the outside lavatory but that was from some kind of atavistic choice rather than necessity.

So does that mean Guide Lane had an outside toilet only? Maybe, but there was certainly a bath there, in a pokey little room right at the back which I was a bit frightened to be in on my own. So the idea is not terribly likely. Which means I just can't figure why I'm seeing myself reluctantly freezing my extremities off in the dead of winter when there doesn't seem to be any reason for having to do so.

Consideration of such matters is a useful way of helping to pass time when you're bored stiff invigilating examinations, I find.