Luxury comforts?

'Up until the early 1950’s there was no bathroom, just an outside bucket toilet. This was not unusual!'

I must have been traumatised by this as I have compensated in my own house by installing bathrooms wherever possible! A bathroom was added to the scullery around 1951. It had a flush lavatory and bath, and was decorated until the late 90s with pink psychadelic 60s wallpaper. The bathroom extension removed the need for the traditional “Tin “ bath ( actually galvanised steel ) which was traditionally used on Friday night and filled with laboriously heated hot water.

The only heating in the house was by open fires, fuelled with wood or coal. There was also a large “Copper” for heating water. This was common at this time. A second hand Rayburn (similar to an Aga) was added in the 50s to provide cooking, local heating and domestic hot water. Heating of the dining room was by an open coal / wood fire which was quite effective. A similar arrangement in the front room, which was only used at Christmas, was only effective at puffing out clouds of smoke into the room rather than heating it. Anything more than 1 metre from the fire remained frozen - this room always had a ghostly presence!



Washing up