Re: Tippler toilets
 

There were no chemicals for the one I spoke of.
'Cleaning' was a shovel parked outside - for use when the pile was high enough to reach your bum.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

Elsan Blue- happy memories.
The first time I was a rally marshal for our caravan club we had a farmers field in Gisburn.
No site toilets so every caravan used its Elsan toilet all weekend-basically a bucket with a seat on and another bucket inside with Elsan in it.
One marshal dug a large hole at the bottom of the field to empty the toilets in. On the Sunday night as everyone left the other marshals asked me( the newbie) to tidy up the site and fill the hole etc.
It was a lovely night but very windy.
When I got round to filling the hole( now a big blue pond with various floating things) I realized how big it was and how much soil I was going to have to shovel.I was going to be there all night.
Right, I thought, big fit lad, big shovel, get stuck in.
I dug deep in the pile of soil, swung hard and sent a good load into the pond.
As I said it was a windy night and not being an expert at this -I was standing downwind!

As the soil flew up it flashed into my mind what I had just done and what was about to happen! It did.

The poo, paper etc soon washed off and I changed clothes but I still had the pond to fill in- that took a long while.
However, Elsan Blue is a very strong dye and word soon went round the offices the next day-'Come and see the blue boss'. I looked like an ancient Briton.
It took all week to get the blue off my face and I couldn't get near my wife for days.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

My Grandma and Grandad had a two hole lavvy out in the yard.
There was an adult size hole and then a much smaller one - I guess for a child.
They also had a flush lavvy in the house.
I didn't like the flush lavvy - it made such a noise when it was flushed(i thought something was going to come up the bowl and grab hold of me)...but I didn't like the outside lavvy either.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

Think there's another thread about smells that stay with you?

At my Great Grandmothers your privy "doings's" as she called em' were covered with ash from the coal fire. Now and again some hot ash still in there sizzled and sparked as it came into contact with the doings's.
I've always thought thats how the word hum became associated with smells.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

Back in the 60's people were getting grants to have a bathroom fitted especially in terraced houses, I was an apprentice plumber then and this meant it was my job to dig out the old tippler and then either fit a flush toilet in its place or concrete over after filling in the hole. It took a day to do this and 3 days to get over the sewer gas smell!

Re: Tippler toilets
 

We had a Tippler when I was growing up in Great Harwood. We didn't have toilet paper so we use cut up newspapers. They came in handy in the winter when I used to light a bundle with a match and throw them down. That warmed things up but I finished up with a smoky bum !

Re: Tippler toilets
 

Surely it's a generation thing rather than north/south. Tipplers were normal in Ossy (up until the 1960s?) and some parts without sewers had tubs that used to be emptied by hand into a council wagon - nice job. But in one of his books Spike Milligan refers to the 'night soil' lorry doing the rounds in Bexhill-on-Sea (and you can't get much further south than that). I think there were a lot more flies when we had tipplers.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

When I first arrived in Canada, I lived in Kincaid, a small village in southern Saskatchewan. Here it is ... a little smaller, but still there:



Village of Kincaid - Home

Every house had a biffy ... the only buildings with sewer and running water were the school and the hotel ... it was bad in summer (temps up to 40c) and worse in winter (temps down to -45c) ... but folks got by. On Hallow'een, the kids used to move the biffy off the hole ... more than one unsuspecting citizen fell down a hole:eek: ... and this was the late sixties. The highways weren't paved ... and most homes had their drinking water hauled in. But the folks were the children and grandchildren of homesteaders, and most could remember the dust bowl of the "dirty thirties". Farmers always carried a roll ot tp in their trucks, tractors, and combines ... when you are summer fallowing the back forty, you take a dump out in the field:D :)

Re: Tippler toilets
 

The night soil lorry would be referring to the emptying of an earth privy I reckon DBT.
Back to my Great Grandmothers in Durham they didn't have running water in the home using a communal stand pipe in the early 50's. They couldn't have had a tipples so hence the "soil privy"

Re: Tippler toilets
 

Drove from Calgary to Lake Louise severalty years ago Eric used the Bow Valley Trail Road, incredibly scenic. Stopped off at a Provincial Park to do a bit of a valley/river walk and watch some moose. Had to use the restrooms. Reckon it was a biffy :D there were more flies there than on Whinny Hill Tip.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

There were night soil lorries still around in Walsden when I was growing up.
They had a curved cover over the back which could be slid up from either side to allow the "night soil" to be tipped in from the tub.
The little stone hut at the bottom of the yard had a small door opening into the back lane where the tub could be pulled out.
One chap I remember well, Called Fred Scutt, was only small and when he lifted the tub to tip it in the lorry it was over his head, I never saw him spill any. He always wore wellies about two sizes too small.
We could only buy fireworks after the 4th November but you could bet that within an hour some one had thrown one through the small door trying to blow someone off the board over the tub.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

I think tippler toilets were one of the great moves forward in hygiene from the earth closet and the like. I think it is a north / south thing because I've never met anybody in the south who's come across them. They probably moved straight on to the next step, indoor flush toilets but it took them longer to come to terms with better sanitation.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

Down the pit in the sixties we didn't have any flush or tippler toilets apart from in the pit bottom there were Racasan toilets half filled with racasan chemicals. For every 100 people working down the pit there had to be 1 of these tubs. A certain gentleman who we named Jimmy Racasan had the luxurious job to bring them out the pit when they were full and empty them down the sewers. One Friday his wage was wrong and the pay clerk told him he would have to wait till next week for his money. Jimmy Racasan accidentally tipped a completely full tub of racasan chemicals and some other disgusting stinking smelly human crap through the pay office window. His pay was never wrong again. I must add that the photo attached bears no resemblance to the ones we had. I think we used old 5 gallon oil drums.

Re: Tippler toilets
 

We had a tippler toilet in Ossy until about 1958 when the Urban District Council started giving Grants. We then had one of the two back bedrooms converted into a bathroom with flush toilet, washbasin and bath. Prior to that it was the "old tin bath". When you were a child and not big enough to use the tippler you used a "potty" in the house. Adults also had them under the bed to use at night. You went to bed with a hot water bottle - rubber if you were a child, a stone bottle if you were an adult. Those were the days!

Re: Tippler toilets
 

It seems like only yesterday!