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<\/p>\nOur old dunny was down the back and built in bricky union with the Chappies. The dividing fence separating our estates ran smack between the two feet that separated our privy doors.\u00a0 Our cisterns rarely chimed in unison because it was part of the game that one did not hear the grunts of labour of the sighs moanings of ecstasy of the unseen partner.<\/p>\n
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It was a Chappie Man I liked most to be in residence with his noisome pipes somehow seemed to catharsize the often turgid atmosphere of the backyard villa.\u00a0 There were always plenty of matches to be lit whilst he went through the Sydney Morning Herald and an ounce of Old Plug.\u00a0 Sometimes we\u2019d have all been down the back and perhaps even washed-up before the blue smoke from his curly pipe would cease leaking through the roof and the fiscus.\u00a0 He had to wear his glasses down there for even with a house brick propping the door open there was not overmuch light.\u00a0 Of course there was always a candle to help out on really dark mornings.\u00a0 The candle was always an inch long and festooned with drippings which froze the curled and blackened matches in old enamelled holder.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember what other type of pipe-side literature Chappies Man indulged in during those secret hours.<\/p>\n
The dividing fence could not have been more than twelve feet long.\u00a0 It stuck out like a row of toothpicks from the gloomy dentures of our wash-house which housed the sadly worn wringer whose perished middle was stop-gapped with an old trouser leg and half a tea towel.\u00a0 Fifty years ago the handle of this wringer was propelled by a quarter horsepower boy with singularly little grace.<\/p>\n
This fence wasn\u2019t much in the way of fences even for those days.\u00a0 It was very grey and most of the nails which upheld the privacy between 290 and 292 were museum pieces of iron oxide.\u00a0 The moistest thing about the fence apart from its age and decrepitude was the fiscus which supported it.\u00a0 This vine had gone berserk and its branches were closing up the lavatory door.\u00a0 It crept its long cancers through the vents and dropped the obscenity of its figs beneath my feet that could not touch the floor when I was enthroned.<\/p>\n
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Our W.C. was a somewhat more elegant than the Chappies\u2019. Beautifully shaped cobwebs, neatly cut squares of the \u201cHerald\u201d strung on the door and oleographed reproductions of Sir John Millais\u2019 \u201cCherry Ripe\u201d and \u201cBubbles\u201d set off the rest of the furnishings.\u00a0 Occasionally we\u2019d switch and have squares of the \u201cWorld\u2019s News\u201d and I was constantly amazed by the odd and scarcely credible information it provided before it met its predestined end.<\/p>\n
Despite the artwork our lav was never in the first flight of mod. cons.\u00a0 It was adequate for the traffic (since we were invariably constipated), and could most aptly be described as a high-up suite with cultural asides.<\/p>\n
As I said, one pretended not to be in there at all when the neighbours were puffing and blowing in the semi-detached.\u00a0 I could hold my peace when the Misses Chapman were in possession, but could not abide the long and wearisome wait for Chappie Man to complete the \u201cHerald\u201d and his movements.\u00a0 I used to pull the chain and to Hell with it!<\/p>\n
Apart from reporting my getting bitten on THE MUST\u2019NT TOUCH IT by a harmless spider, and big brother dropping his fountain pen in to the gurgling depths, I have nothing more to add to on the evacuatory life and habits of 290.<\/p>\n
[W.E. Pidgeon c.1966]<\/em><\/p>\n It was a Chappie Man I liked most to be in residence with his noisome pipes somehow seemed to catharsize the often turgid atmosphere of the backyard villa.\u00a0 There were always plenty of matches to be lit whilst he went through the Sydney Morning Herald and an ounce of Old Plug.\u00a0 Sometimes we\u2019d have all been down the back and perhaps even washed-up before the blue smoke from his curly pipe would cease leaking through the roof and the fiscus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2015],"tags":[2070,2073,1309,2079,2074,2075,2076,30,160],"class_list":["post-4936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-five-ways-to-remember","tag-290-glenmore-road","tag-292-glenmore-road","tag-bill-pidgeon","tag-chappies","tag-edgar-nottage-chapman","tag-florence-mary-chapman","tag-minnie-emma-chapman","tag-paddington","tag-w-e-pidgeon"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wepidgeon.com\/pidgeonpost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/1918_001-2.jpg\")