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Don McDouall was evacuated from London during World War II when he was five years old. He was sent to the small country village of East Hanney to live with Grans and Grampy at a house called Tamarisk. He now lives in Australia.
At the back of the terrace of houses in East Hanney were the back gardens, with a row of tenant sheds leaning against the far wall. It was in one of these sheds that Roy and I got our haircut about every two months. It was always in the horrible 'pudding basin' style and cost sixpence for the two haircuts.
In the back garden up against the washhouse was an ancient wooden rainwater butt. This container always had mosquito wrigglers in it during the summer months and was usually a green block of ice for much of the wintertime. The butt was where Roy and I usually obtained the water to wash our hair with once a week. The reason was the village water supply came from a waterbore that was too hard for washing your hair.
Between the water butt and the back garden was the coal shed. Attached to the side of this shed was the grownups lavatory. This was a small brick building adjoining the coal shed. It was a bucket toilet that according to my memory was always brimful! So much so that the buckets contents touched your bum if you were stupid enough to sit on the seat.
Also in the back garden was our 'sack' covered toilet, which had been fashioned from a framework of secondhand timber, covered over with worn out corn sacks. A warped plank of splintered wood sitting on two loose piers of used house bricks formed the lavatory seat. A discarded coalscuttle was the bucket! This contraption was open at the top to the elements and was a very uncomfortable place to be if and when it was raining.
The washhouse that adjoined the scullery was where the one and only tap was located. This brightly polished faucet was on a stalk of galvanised pipe that leant over a stone sink.
At the far end of the table sat an ancient mangle or wringer. Come Mondays the table held two huge galvanised washtubs. One was to scrub the washing in and the other one to rinse and 'blue' the clothes in. These immense metal tubs for the rest of the week hung alongside the tin bath on the opposite wall.
Also in the washhouse was the 'copper'. This was fuelled with coal when boiling up the washing. The copper bowl sat in a square made up of brick walls with the fireplace to one side. To light the copper on Monday mornings one would take a shovel full of hot coals from the kitchen fire and place these hot ashes in the coppers fireplace.
Roy and I had one bath a week and the same receptacle was used to heat up the water for bath. On Friday nights us two kids would fill the copper in the wash house with water. Then by burning waste cardboard and paper bit by bit (we were not allowed to use coal) we would slowly heat the water up. This might take up to two hours. We never got any help from an adult.
The warm water was then bucketed from the copper into a galvanised tin bath that had been put on the floor of the washhouse. In this tin bath we both washed ourselves.
If it was at all cold or there had not been enough waste paper to make the water warm then neither of us would undress and get into cold water. So on those days we didn't have a bath at all. We wore no underclothes in those times. Our trousers were probably washed once a month! So hygiene was not a very high priority. In reality we must have smelt something awful!
A small chicken run was behind the coal shed that had an enclosed chicken run made from wire netting. At the far end was a very healthy, bushy hazelnut tree. This tree shielded the ash heap that contained all the excreta from both the adult and children's toilets and was the reason for the tree's luxuriant growth!
The toilet buckets were emptied into a heap of spent coal ashes each Saturday morning. This smelly heap was removed once every year by carting it by wheelbarrow to the roadside. Then it was taken away in a dung cart, normally pulled by two horses.
At the far end was a pretty sad looking veggie patch! The houses next door over shadowed the garden patch so it was always shaded and there was the years of coal ashes that had been dumped, souring the ground. But tomatoes and runner beans grew well closer to the house. The runner beans came up by themselves at the end of every spring.
Vast amounts of runner beans were consumed during the summer and autumn period. Those beans not used fresh were sliced up by Roy and me and salted down. This was achieved by packing the beans in jam-jars with extensive amounts of cooking salt. Apples too were sliced and cored then saturated in salt then hung on long strings to dry out. Both foods needed a lot of soaking before you could eat them and the salt made your hands very sore.
Gran always made a lot of blackberry and apple jam. Plum jam was another of her favourites along with Sloe jelly. Her attempts at wine making met with success in varying ways. Her Parsnip wine was apt to be very strong. Her Elderberry wine tasted like paraffin! But in every case Roy and I spent hours picking the required fruits.
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