Toilet Paper

Staying with the bathroom theme, let’s look at toilet paper. The toilet was, of course, in the garden. The idea of having a toilet indoors was laughed at as being suspiciously unhygienic. We were pretty posh in our household because we always had toilet paper and it was usually soft, mostly pink and came in rolls. Public conveniences and eccentric aunties had stuff that was hard, scratchy and came in single sheets that could –and did- double as tracing paper. My grandparents thought the use of toilet paper a new fangled extravagance and an unnecessary luxury. They favoured squares of newspaper stuck on a nail in the outhouse. This early training stood me in good stead during my years of foreign travel to similarly minded nations. If you ever find yourself in a country where toilet paper is unavailable, as I did in Mozambique, then might I suggest a subscription to the airmail edition of the Guardian Weekly is the way to go.

I think we’ve come full circle with toilet paper. We’ve had the soft, silky years. Now folk are returning to abrasive re-cyclable. How much longer till it's back to newspaper?