This week's prompt made me think of the house in which I was born.
It didn't look a bit like this but it did have a fence and some outhouses too, not that you would have known when looking at it from the front.
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| 100 High Street, Ketton |
When I lived there there was a wooden fence across the front, not that stone wall. It had no running water just a cold tap on an outside wall and when you wanted to 'go' you had to leave by the back door and visit what I euphemistically called "The Black Hole of Calcutta" -- a building with a wooden seat and an open bucket underneath.
So I hope you will forgive me for speculating on the use of:
in our prompt. Why else would you have a hole in the wall?
I doubt that the inhabitants of Bradford still have to pay a visit to the outhouses in this back alley.
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| Pickles Hill, Bradford Back alley between Boldon Lane and Poplar Avenue (By Paul Glazzard, Feb 2007 - Geograph Project Collection; CC BY-SA 2.0) |
But the view from Tyson's veranda in Queensland in 1924 made me wonder about the uses of the sheds between the fences.
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| Residential view from Tyson's veranda (John Oxley Library; State Library of Queensland) |
I doubt that my Calcutta euphemism will enter the Oxford English Dictionary but another term certainly has - it's even been used to describe a scene on Mount Kenya.
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| Top Hut on Mount Kenya - with long drop khazi in the foreground (By John Spooner, 1 Jan 1999 - CC By 2.0) |
Looks a bit draughty to me.
However I have saved the best (of)fences till last.
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| Fences at Mount Farm Museum (By Bill Hathorn, 20 July 2012 - PD, US Government) |
Excuse me while I just check to see whether that wooden hut is a 'khazi.'
Now flush' with success, I suggest that you find whether anyone caught the plague at Sepia-Saturday-218,
21 comments:
You've rendered me speechless !
You say khazi and I say dunny
You like long drop and I like squat,
toilet, latrine, compost , loo,
You make your choice and I'll make mine.
You know I don't think I have a single photo of an outdoor convenience in my family almum !
Brilliant wordgame there in the topic.
Outhouses galore! Thank goodness they are the men who drove the honey carts down the back lanes between the houses here in Melbourne are a thing of the past, although the lanes are still there.
Well of course there were outhouses everywhere, or some other such method...and I wonder how often they were cleaned out, or lime added? The only times I've seen them (and used one) was in the country, and they would just fill in one eventually and move the little house to a newly dug hole every few years...depending upon the use of course.
What a fun collection of outhouses, back yards, fences - and holes!
Your post made me remember that I do have a photo of an outhouse in my album. Well, there is bound to be another such prompt. The one in the prompt looks very big and roomy.
No (of)fence taken. This was more fun than foul. When I went to Girl Scout camp as a kid, we used latrines, and we all had to take turns cleaning them. Makes you appreciate what you have at home!
You can see honey wagons in rural areas which have septic tanks over here. Lots of places still have outside khazi's in the wilds here I think. I remember one where I used to get Matt to escort me at night. I was scared of bears or anything else.
I even cringe at having to use the more modern adaptations of the old outhouses such as port-a-potties but at least they smell better - most of the time, anyway. And hey, when ya' gotta go, ya' gotta go!
dunny, loo, thunderbox, long drop, can, throne,
Some of the names that Aussies give to outhouses
Fun post!
Oh, I remember those days. We had a two-holer.
Outhouses were a popular subject for comic postcards--I have a bunch of them on my Postcard Funnies blog.
I do enjoy your sense of humor Bob, and I'm not sure which was better your stories or the photos!
What fun that was! I believe you won the prize for adaptation of the theme!!
Civilization is not always high art and grand buildings, is it?
Ah yes the outside ‘whatever you want to call it’. Thank goodness for progress!
The house I grew up in also had an outhouse, but it had been out of use for a few years by the time I was born, thank goodness.
We had an outhouse until well into the 1970s - right down the path, in the dark. Teaches you to have a strong bladder - wouldn't go in the dark cos of the spiders and snakes - and one time the cat had it's kittens in the 'room'.
I have quite a few out house photos - another time perhaps.
You've just made me realize that you still have to go outside to go to the toilet at my mother-in-law's place. It's been incorporated into a kind of extension to the house combined with the laundry but you still have to go outside down the steps from the kitchen and through the laundry to the loo. We are so spoiled these days aren't we with ensuites and the like?
Excellent theme-stretching - and educational too! ;-)
Ha! What fun. You've set us all thinking about a different aspect of a back yard.
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