Growing up with 1 bathroom

Yeah, I remember growing up with one bathroom for my parents and one for us 4 kids. Obviously, a heck of a lot roomier than your childhood. Now, my wife and I do not have any children, but I still don't think our marriage could survive with just one bathroom. Slightly off topic... I remember the family visiting my brother when he got his PhD from Dartmouth in 1976. He was living with some friends in an old farm house in Thetford Center, Vermont. The house had a two-holer attached by covered walkway to the side of the house. Needless to say, with my large family at the house, when nature called, the facilities were occupied, so I went out behind the house to relieve myself. Unfortunately, I didn't recognize the three-leaved plant where I decided to go to the bathroom. When I returned to graduate school after the ceremony, I began to suffer the consequences of my mistake. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for a 24 year old man to have to visit the school health clinic with my particular problem. The nurse asked me to show her the rash (like I said, I was 24 and she was a good looking nurse). The treatment consisted of a shot to my backside, but everytime she tried to give me the shot I kept clutching my cheeks. She must have bent 2 or 3 needles before she finally got the stuff into me.

I am aware that most Americans refer to the "bathroom" in the same way as we refer to the "loo" or "toilet", so I hope I'm right in thinking you actually mean somewhere to deposit your waste rather than actually taking a bath.

When my sister got married her first "home" was a single room - known as a "single end". There was literally one single room, in which there was a sink with a single cold water faucet. On one side there was a stove - a cast-iron cooking place which was the only source of heat. She had to bring buckets of coal to replenish the supply.

In the corner there was a "recess" which was just large enough to have a double bed.

There was no bathroom nor a toilet in this four storey building. They had to share a loo with the other two residents on the same floor as themselves - AND with the three families downstairs at ground level as the loo was halfway between!

If the loo was occupied, there was the alternative of using the one upstairs, but this was frowned upon as one of the families upstairs were known to go out in the mid-evening and come back in the middle of the night - and sleep all day.

Only years later did it occur to me they were "ladies of the night".

The communal entrance to this block of tenements was gas-lit and I distinctly recall peering out the only window and seeing "Leery the Lamplighter" on his daily routine - lighting them at dusk and turning the gas taps off in the morning.

"Leerys" or "Leeries" were legendary.

"Leary the Lamplighter" was a short poem written by Robert Louis Stevenson:

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;

It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;

For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,

With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.

Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,

And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;

But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,

O Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!

For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,

And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;

And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light;

O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!

What a great piece Britscot, I thoroughly enjoyed that. It brought back memories of my childhood. I was born and lived the first 4 years of my life in a 'single end' in Maryhill.

My dad was working on the shipyards in Govan while getting his degree from Strathclyde university as a mechanical engineer. We barely had 2 pennies to rub together but I remember that house being filled with nothing but laughter.

You lucky people. when I was a child we had no bathroom. We moved to a house with one bathroom when I was 7. There were only 3 kids so maybe from then on I had it good. My kids (2) grew up in a house with 3 bathrooms and sometimes complained about it.

Let's not derail this thread about "bathrooms" too soon, Stephen!

I went to Govan High school and well remember all my fellow pupils who lived in single ends!

In the communal toilets, there was no tissue paper - only scraps of newspapers! It was the only place I could ever read about the Broons and Oor Wullie!!!

My parents forbade comics due to their religion!

I also remember that place having a huge big Belfast sink, which is where I used to get washed. To go buy one of those sinks nowadays costs a small fortune.

I remember my aunt and her family moving into the Red Road high flats and everyone thinking it was the lap of luxury.

My father went to St Gerrards in Govan