More on Shit

I did talk to Elvie and Meredith about the sewage coming to our house in Mt Waverley and the toilet in Nanna and Poppa Williams house in Hartwell (that I could not remember). Elvie said the toilet there was inside and had the customary chain flush from a cistern on the wall above. She also said as far as she could remember the house at her home was connected to sewage all her life. She was born in 1928. She did say that her mother told her that her house in Donald St was the first in the area. I can't imagine that this house would have been connected to sewage at first but only old nanna could tell us and she died in 1996 aged 99. Old nanna was apparently so very lonely there at first during the day not having any neighbours, as their house was the first in the area. As time went by and other houses were being built around her she said it was a great comfort hearing the tradesmen and particularly their whistling as they worked. This area was known as East Malvern, then later as South Ashburton. Newer parts of Ashburton east of Warragul Rd were not built till the 1950/60's.

My recollection of the toilets at Mt Waverley Primary school were vague, except that they were rudimentary so I asked Meredith if she remembered. She did, saying they were disgusting, a handful of cubicles for the girls which were covered with roofing, but outside the cubicles there was no roof, a concrete floor and no hand basin, just a single tap in the corner which ran onto the floor into an open drain on the concrete covered with moss and slime. She said it was rarely cleaned, if ever. There was no piped sewage and the pans removed from the back by the dunnyman. There were many times turds on the floor because cubicles were full and it was a a totally freak out disgusting situation which was not changed until new toilets were built in her last year there which would I think have been in 1965.

My last year at that school was 1963 so I would have had the old toilets for my entire time there. This was baby boomer time and that school had more than 1000 pupils in the 1960's.  Meredith's recollection sparked some memory of mine which concurred with hers. It was frowned upon to ask to go to the toilet during class time and only if you were desperate for a crap were you allowed to put your hand up in class and ask permission to go to the toilet. Once when I did when I got there a kid from an older grade was balling his eyes out as he was trying to clean himself up after not making it and shitting in his pants outside the cubicles. The shit was on the floor and I had to step around it and him. He was a grade older than me and I always felt a little intimidated by him but I was moved by the abject misery of his situation. I guess we have all shat our pants at an inopportune time at least once in our lives. Good thing is we can put it in the past and move on.