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I could not use one of those. I have a phobia about toilets, since I was a child. Fortunately ours was indoors and upstairs. The phobia, I'm certain was caused by the infants toilets at Berridge. They were outside in the playground, dark and flushed automatically with no warning. I don't know how the mechanism worked. Maybe NBL could explain it?

 

There were 3 toilets and the cistern ran along the wall but was larger in the end toilet. It was painted green. Caused me nightmares for years as a child and, even today, I never leave myself in the position of needing to use a loo with a high level cistern.

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I am having a lazy couple of hours sitting around browsing the Internet and landed on Picture the Past. I searched my favourite place "Gedling" and there have been so many additions since I last looke

I remember little 'Woolies' at the bottom of Hockley. It had very worn and uneven wooden floor boards and tripped over on them. I cried and had a bit of a tantrum with the pain but mam soon put a stop

You HAD to use one in Netherfield.  That or the back garden and that was frowned upon.  Apart from the spiders you also had to watch that your finger didn't go through the nail hole in the Daily Mirror.  :(  There was no wash basin in there.  Some things weren't better back then.  :) 

 

Edit btw.  They were not self flushing.

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Ah the old self flushing loo. Installed in many places where it could not be relied on for folks to flush em after use. They work exactly the same way as gents urinals but of course Jill wouldn't be using them either.

 

There is a 'drip cock' instead of a ball valve, this continuously fill the cistern. A special siphon in the cistern has a weir in it, when the water reaches the correct level it runs over the weir and starts a siphonic action this carries on until the water level goes below the siphon ridge allowing air into the siphon itself thus breaking the siphonic action.

 

Simples really but what a waste of potable water.

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Would that account for the strange noise we could hear in those toilets? The actual tank was probably galvanised zinc or suchlike, riveted and painted green. It terrified me. I was only 4 at the time. Never used those loos again!

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Just now, IAN123. said:

Remember now NBL...had that arrangement at our junior school...they were beige and named Dudley.

I had a school mate too named Dudley !   I'll get my coat.

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3 minutes ago, catfan said:

How often would they flush NBL ? Would one have to time their ablutions

They just flushed whether some poor little infant was sitting on em or not. There was no chain, so not possible to flush it yourself! Had nightmares for years afterwards!

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Ian, Dudley was one manufacturer but there were others.

 

CF, that depended on where they were we could adjust the drip cock flow to increase or decrease the time it took to flush.

 

Jill, that method was often employed, we would make the cistern on site to fit the space available to us, sometimes even taking them round corners to obtain the correct capacity.

 

And 'WET' bum syndrome was a regular occurrence, especially if you had a high tank with a good length of flush pipe.

 

I remember when I went to Ardruman (spelling) hall in the ROI. We had a bog there that took even me by surprise. It comprised of a Thomas Crapper decorated bowl (that fetched a few bob when we had it out) and a flush wire.

 

On my first flying visit to drop some stuff off I went for a pee and dutifully pulled the chain, nothing happened so I pulled it again, still nothing happened, just as I pulled it again the water arrived. Bloody hell it went every where and kept coming talk about panic I was wet through.

 

Later when I went back to stay and work there I was determined to investigate, it turns out this was the original system fitted at the time of the build back when TC was a lad, it was always said that a TC bog would shift a pound of apples and now I know why.

 

In the loft 3 stories up was a 600 gallon tank that fed water to the whole property, in one corner of this was a 'flap' valve in the bottom of the tank, the 'chain' or wire ran through a pulley system from the bog on the ground floor up into the loft when pulled this lifted the flap valve and started the water on its 3 story journey down a 21/2" lead flush pipe to the loo. The trick was pull wire, count 3 let go and get out of there.smile2

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Best laugh I've had all day NBL. :rotfl:

 

Sorry you got wet though.

 

Edited to add.  A funny related memory.  I was once rewiring an old house in Calgary.  A couple of plumbers were working down in the basement.  I needed a little relief so used the upstairs commode.  As I flushed I heard a loud angry shout from the basement.  Well they didn't tell me they had cut the four inch sewer pipe off just under the upstairs floor.  They came upstairs looking for blood.  I thought they were gonna kill me.  Anyway I begged for mercy and explained that it was only a pee.  Finally they believed me and we ended up having a laugh over it.  Moral of the story.  If there are plumbers in the house check before you flush an upstairs bog.  slywink

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On December 31, 2010 at 1:26 PM, katyjay said:

I didn't write the above posting, but just about everything applies to me, including not getting a telly till age 10 or 11. I don't remember the telly coming on in the morning either, not till lunchtime I reckon for things like Andy Pandy etc. I do remember the Pathe News before the film started, and 2 films, A and B, and sitting in the cinema all night if you wanted, but mostly till your 'bit' of the film came round again. We didn't think anything of coming in half way through a film, so seeing the 2nd half first, then the first half second! And of course you never seated yourself, the usherette did that with her torch.

And the usherettes selling ice cream from a tray at the front between the movies, 6d for the front seats and 9d for the back and the balcony

The Tanner rush on Saturday afternoons  

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Ian I was long gone when that livery was around, if fact I was long gone before the brown livery, back in my day it was a lime green colour with red signage.

 

There weren't that many vans back then, at Woodborough road there were I think eighteen, one emergency van for each district and one 3ton delivery van and finally one for each of the six foremen. At Triumph road where mains and service were based it was about the same.

 

Everyone else used public transport, bicycles or walked.

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You should have seen the size of the guy who installed our washing machine on Sunday. He picked up the old old one like it was a rag doll and it had taken two of us and a crowbar to get it over the back step! When I say big I mean fat big. Currys deliver from their Newark warehouse and I asked him if he lived in Newark. He actually came from Mansfield so that explained a lot! :biggrin:

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21 hours ago, NewBasfordlad said:

Ian I was long gone when that livery was around, if fact I was long gone before the brown livery, back in my day it was a lime green colour with red signage.

 

There weren't that many vans back then, at Woodborough road there were I think eighteen, one emergency van for each district and one 3ton delivery van and finally one for each of the six foremen. At Triumph road where mains and service were based it was about the same.

 

Everyone else used public transport, bicycles or walked.

I was on boilers my van (mini) was JRC 541D and my call sign was Hotel 1 also remember Lol Hennessey had a Ford Thames 5cwt OCH 5 smelled terrible from the water from the gas meters,used to have to sit on engine cover when Alan Rodgers used to cadge lifts to jobs for half the day.Hope it brings back memories...

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