Re: BECKFOOT unmentionables


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Posted by Robert Dilley on April 07, 2003 at 17:38:13 from 65.39.15.73 user rdilley.

In Reply to: Re: BECKFOOT unmentionables posted by John Nichols on April 07, 2003 at 15:56:45:

My family moved from London to the northern edge of the Lake District in 1954. The fair-sized ex-farmhouse had an outdoor privy that had to be emptied by hand into a cess pool. I was very grateful that a flush toilet was installed before my first break from boarding school, or I know whose job it would have become to do the emptying. The updated facility remained in an outhouse.

There was also no electricity for the first year or two. The kitchen and living/dining room had gas lamps from bottled gas; everwhere else was dependent on pressure lamps or candles. Hot water was courtesy of a small pot-bellied stove; cooking on a large solid-fuel AGA and heating in bedrooms was by open fire. These conditions were not unusual in the district for the mid-50s, and must have been the norm 25 years earlier.

And I can't remember if anyone mentioned it, but WH begins with Mrs Dixon bringing hot water for Dick and Dorothea as the jugs in their bedrooms would have had ice on them -- a true reflection of Lake District bedrooms (Ed really need not worry about servants in the attic getting too hot.)



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