Toilet Stories: Number One

Tales about loos, bogs, shitters, throne rooms, crappers, khazi’s. Musings on the littlest room in the house and public conveniences.

HOME

Slamming bathroom doors would be the soundtrack to my life as a kid - usually one of my older sisters in a rage about some petty argument. Families are exhausting, especially when we’re all trying to pretend we’re having a nice family day and there’s really nothing wrong! Christmases were the worst, add the heady mix of hormones and day drinking... My Mum once told me that, despite years of divorce, she and my Dad would occasionally have a bonk in the loo! My brother once lost half a toe in the bathroom door, ouch! I found my brother's stash of porn under the sink one day - I was far too young to have witnessed all the flesh and withering looks within the glossy pages of titles like Men Only (I ignored the instruction), Razzle and the upmarket sounding Mayfair. They were fairly tame by today’s standards but I’d never seen anything like it! Apart from the odd loose ripped and crumpled page in the woods...that was a thing in the 70’s and 80’s! My first period, oh the embarrassment. My Mum, past her menopause, had nothing to offer me and both my sisters had moved out by then, so she called my friend to ask her. I was red faced and awkward. I rather hope people don’t feel like this any longer, periods shouldn’t be taboo or embarrassing. My brother used to boldly go and get tampons for me sometimes. Fair exchange after years of being sent round to Tinkers with a signed note to buy his cigs!

SCHOOL

The dread of the school bogs, it was BIG! It was where you might get cornered by one of your many nemeses. I was often hassled, goaded, teased and once, flushed. There was always a sense of menace about them. There was much mocking in my town. If you hadn’t had your period yet you were a baby; if you had you were dirty. If you didn’t sleep with boys you were frigid; if you did you were a slag. Honestly, you couldn’t get it right if you tried. I heard a lot of these fractured theories being bunged about from the relative safety of a cubicle. An urgent arm shoots up pleadingly, the teacher lets you go. The drama of having to be let out of class to go to the loo, everyone knew what you were doing, it was awful! Although sometimes it was just a cover to escape the monotony of double maths. The cool girl group (of which I was not a part) sharing stories, or pouring their hearts out over a boy. The echoes, slams and shouts...they ring in my ears still. OUT OF ORDER!

WORK

I’ve worked in all sorts of places, offices, markets, factories, shops, studios, stables and private homes. There’s usually some sort of problem or other for me when faced with the inevitable need to “go”! Thing is...I like privacy, a lot of it. I like a big thick door, or two, or more, between me and other people. I like a strong working lock, cleanliness, loo roll. You might think this wasn’t much to ask of a workplace, but it seems it is for a lot of places. I’m all for gender neutral loos, honestly I am, but they don’t always work. Especially if it’s two tiny cubicles in a tiny room with a tiny sink! You have to lean in to shut the bloody door! The community who use this particular toilet are a mixed bunch with varying needs, some religious. No room for cleaning feet before prayer. Part of the Wudu procedure performed by Muslims before each of their 5 a day is to wash the face, arms, head and feet. The sink is about 25cm across and 15cm deep! So there are often a lot of stray splashes all over the place. It’s really shitty for them and it’s not great for us either. I’ve slipped a few times but luckily not fallen. I would dearly like things like this to be more carefully considered when installing new public bathrooms. They had an opportunity to do a lot better! My local community centre has great loos with specially designed troughs for people to wash their feet in, bravo St Werburghs Community Centre.

TRAIN

Travelling by train is made less stressful knowing there are several loos on board some of them. But recently there was one SO terrifying to me that I know I would never conceive of using it. It’s a huge looking thing with a massive, wide curved door that opens STRAIGHT out onto the carriage! Of course these are not meant for me and I’m extremely glad to see proper accessible toilets on public transport at long last, but it made me feel a bit jittery. Being a nervous traveller means the train station toilets are usually the best place to prepare for a journey, and hope to GOD you don’t need to use one again until you’re at the other end. I always loved the tiles in the underground in London, I remember saying to myself as a kid “when I’m grown up I’ll do my bathroom just like this”. All Victoriana and dirty grout. The lovely old loos with the cistern up high and a chain to pull. The brass handles and locks on the doors, the old burnished wood. We favoured Paddington Station Ladies for privacy and security when we all tramped up to London for a jolly. Our penny was well spent in there. Paddington wasn’t the only famous animal associated with the station, there was Tiddles the cat who got fatter and fatter for 13 years from 1970. I was potty (ahem) about Tiddles, I was potty about all cats, but this was a magical cat that lived in a beautiful victorian loo in the big smoke. I once tried to sleep in the loos at Reading Station when I missed the last train home. I got kicked out by the cleaners several times and then someone said I could get on the mail coach. I was saved! Much like the lovely old loos at train stations, the museums have a very grand feel to them for a passing piss. Old dark wood, brass knobs and pretty fittings. The ones in the Bristol Museum have opaque glass panels though which make me nervous. But those Victorians knew how to make a public piddle pleasant!

AIRPORT

Believe it or not, that’s heathrow Airport, isn’t it pretty? Me and a friend would go up to Heathrow in her boyfriend's car, a bright orange Triumph Dolomite with wildly bouncy suspension. We’d play “The Airport Game” which involved us pretending to greet each other after being away. Of course being the gooseberry a lot of the time, which I didn’t mind at all, meant I'd have time to explore. Airport loos are fairly magical places. I've never travelled really and never been on a plane so it was all rather exotic to me. People getting changed into different clothes; uniforms, posh frocks, brand new, the tags left by the sink, doing make up and hair. All kinds of people from all over the world. The doors clicking and slamming constantly. Mile High Club...is that still a thing? I wonder.

Pissoir ~ permanently closed. From Vonalina Cake

STREET

Pissoir ~ permanently closed. Remember those glorious days of public toilets dotted all over the place? Especially in London and other big cities. The ones down under the pavement were especially enticing with their cage-like railings. Always a bit whiffy, mucky and with broken doors...we perfected the art of peeing with one foot jammed against it. We’d chat about the gig, the shopping at Camden Market or Portobello Road, back comb our hair in the wobbly pitted mirrors. Sometimes we’d sing, our cracked voices bouncing off the tiles. Then we’d climb the steps up into the noise. Most of them are gone now, filled in or turned into fecking coffee or cocktail bars. I miss them, the public loos. They used to have them in parks or near beauty spots too. There's one by Clifton Suspension Bridge, currently closed due to Covid, but it is one of the rare public loos that remains operational in Bristol. There’s an old pretty pissoir in my local park that's been barricaded up for ages now, men still piss against it, in a park, with kids playing, by two paths and a road...urgh! I remember in London when those new fangled pods came out that only gave you 15 minutes before they opened...oh the horror. I only went in one once to wash my hands and laugh at the absurdity of it all with my friends. Did I imagine the 15 minute thing?