Things you don’t see outside any more

[AY1975]

Following on from the ‘Things that used to be commonplace in the home’ thread, shall we continue with the nostalgia? This was inspired by this quote:



and I remember there used to be a lot of public Gents urinals, which were little more than a wall, with a bit of a curved entrance so people couldn’t see inside, and a drain. They usually - not surprisingly - stunk of stale urine, but were very convenient, as it were. The last example I can remember using was at Hawes, maybe twenty years ago, though this was ingeniously somehow built inside a wall.


Edit: I found a picture

View attachment 108070

I remember finding one in Worsbrough near Barnsley about ten years ago, still open but very basic (I don't think it even had a flush).

There are a few that are still in situ but boarded up or bricked up: on the Kelham Island/Neepsend border in Sheffield and opposite the Victoria pub near Lincoln Castle, for example (the one in Lincoln was still open in the early 2000s).

Sheffield used to have several: there was one on Abbeydale Road, next to the Broadfield pub, that has now (very appropriately!) been turned into a convenience store.

There is still one at the National Tramway Museum (a.k.a. Crich Tramway Village) in Crich, Derbyshire. It's round the side of the Red Lion pub and has only been there about 10-15 years. It's one made from green railings rather than a brick-built one.

As well as gents' urinals, two other types of public toilet that were once commonplace but are now pretty rare are the underground toilet (which I think had been around since Victorian times) and the Superloo (self-flushing toilet cubicles, usually coin-operated but sometimes free of charge) which I think were first invented in the 1980s but have now largely disappeared. In the 1980s and 90s many councils saw them as a cheaper alternative to conventional toilets, but in recent years they have realised that they too cost a lot to maintain.

And public toilets in general are fast disappearing because of council budget cuts: these days you only tend to find them in popular touristy areas, where for obvious reasons they are still considered socially necessary.

 

[PeterC]

Following on from the ‘Things that used to be commonplace in the home’ thread, shall we continue with the nostalgia? This was inspired by this quote:



and I remember there used to be a lot of public Gents urinals, which were little more than a wall, with a bit of a curved entrance so people couldn’t see inside, and a drain. They usually - not surprisingly - stunk of stale urine, but were very convenient, as it were. The last example I can remember using was at Hawes, maybe twenty years ago, though this was ingeniously somehow built inside a wall.



Edit: I found a picture

View attachment 108070

There is a case iron one, locked out of use in an alley behind Lincolns Inn in London. It appears in an episode of Rumpole with Horace emerging while giving his trousers a final hitch into place

 

[gg1]

and I remember there used to be a lot of public Gents urinals, which were little more than a wall, with a bit of a curved entrance so people couldn’t see inside, and a drain. They usually - not surprisingly - stunk of stale urine, but were very convenient, as it were. The last example I can remember using was at Hawes, maybe twenty years ago, though this was ingeniously somehow built inside a wall.

There was a rather ornate Victorian cast iron example not far from the centre of Brum on either the A38 or A34 heading north out of the city centre which I think just about survived into the 21st century, though not visible on the oldest Google streetview images from 2008.

 

[ABB125]

Is this an old Victorian toilet "module"? Outside Jewellery Quarter station.

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[birchesgreen]

There was a rather ornate Victorian cast iron example not far from the centre of Brum on either the A38 or A34 heading north out of the city centre which I think just about survived into the 21st century, though not visible on the oldest Google streetview images from 2008.

There is one under the railway bridge at Snow Hill on Lionel Street, though shuttered off now. Also one on the back of Harborne High Street which seems to still be in use (saw some bloke coming out of it last week anyway!)

 

[McRhu]

There is one in a certain Lanarkshire town which is now a cafe. I haven't been in there under its new regime, but I trust the refurbishment was extensive.

 

[gg1]

Is this an old Victorian toilet "module"? Outside Jewellery Quarter station.

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That looks not unlike the one I remember, definitely a different location though.

 

[McRhu]

This may be an erstwhile local phenomenon, but in days of yore the pavements were be thronged with grannies out doing their shopping in a uniform that consisted of; Rain-Mate head scarf, Long coat of tweed or other durable material, Furry boots, Tartan shopping trolley, wee round glasses. And I daresay tightly permed hair.

 

[AY1975]

During winter or cold weather, I have not seen anybody wearing a balaclava since my primary school days.

This may be an erstwhile local phenomenon, but in days of yore the pavements were be thronged with grannies out doing their shopping in a uniform that consisted of; Rain-Mate head scarf, Long coat of tweed or other durable material, Furry boots, Tartan shopping trolley, wee round glasses. And I daresay tightly permed hair.

I think a separate thread on things you don't see people wearing anymore (and/or clothes from the past that are making a comeback) might be called for.

 

[gg1]

This may be an erstwhile local phenomenon, but in days of yore the pavements were be thronged with grannies out doing their shopping in a uniform that consisted of; Rain-Mate head scarf, Long coat of tweed or other durable material, Furry boots, Tartan shopping trolley, wee round glasses. And I daresay tightly permed hair.

I distinctly remember seeing a line of said ladies on my way to school outside the local post office on pension day in the 80s. I never could understand why there was always a queue a good 15-20 minutes before the place opened, were they worried the post office would run out of cash if they waited an hour or two?

 

[McRhu]

Sticking with the sartorial aspect of all our yesterdays (before it diverges down nostalgia junction) I would nominate... Trainspotters with bobble hats, anoraks and flares, gymn shoes, wire framed NHS specs with elastoplast on the lens, and Locoshed books squintly underlined with TEMPO felt tips, and Zenit EM or Polaroid cameras. All of which leads on the the wonderful lost world of Type 2 diesels darting like rabbits o'er the station purlieus, pink or yellow cardboard tickets and day returns for 2/6.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Gas lamps. They were there before they were replaced by those greenish white mercury arc street lamps.

Still a few in London.

 

[32475]

Sticking with the sartorial aspect of all our yesterdays (before it diverges down nostalgia junction) I would nominate... Trainspotters with bobble hats, anoraks and flares, gymn shoes, wire framed NHS specs with elastoplast on the lens, and Locoshed books squintly underlined with TEMPO felt tips, and Zenit EM or Polaroid cameras. All of which leads on the the wonderful lost world of Type 2 diesels darting like rabbits o'er the station purlieus, pink or yellow cardboard tickets and day returns for 2/6.

Don’t forget boys’ shorts held up with a snake belt!

 

[Killingworth]

Sticking with the sartorial aspect of all our yesterdays (before it diverges down nostalgia junction) I would nominate... Trainspotters with bobble hats, anoraks and flares, gymn shoes, wire framed NHS specs with elastoplast on the lens, and Locoshed books squintly underlined with TEMPO felt tips, and Zenit EM or Polaroid cameras. All of which leads on the the wonderful lost world of Type 2 diesels darting like rabbits o'er the station purlieus, pink or yellow cardboard tickets and day returns for 2/6.

Go back another 10-20 years or so and we'd have had lots of railway themed lapel badges. One of mine was in North-Eastern Region orange and I'd have worn no hat - school cap was all I had and I didn't wear it. Think I used a ballpoint pen (felt tip not yet invented?) and had to buy a 1d platform ticket at Newcastle Central. I've a memory of it going up to 2d. No platform ticket needed at Manors, but not so many to spot. No camera.

Don’t forget boys’ shorts held up with a snake belt!

That was me!

 

[McRhu]

Go back another 10-20 years or so and we'd have had lots of railway themed lapel badges. One of mine was in North-Eastern Region orange and I'd have worn no hat - school cap was all I had and I didn't wear it. Think I used a ballpoint pen (felt tip not yet invented?) and had to buy a 1d platform ticket at Newcastle Central. I've a memory of it going up to 2d. No platform ticket needed at Manors, but not so many to spot. No camera.

I've still got my BR barbed wire logo tie clip. I trainspotted in style.

Don’t forget boys’ shorts held up with a snake belt!

My pride and joy at school!

Still a few in London.

My first job (1974) was in GLQ. Back then, in Glasgow, closes still had gas lighting. The jakes used to pipe the gas through bottles of milk and imbibe therefrom. I would meet them, sprawled and miraculous, on my way to said station in the morning.

 

[Jagdpanther]

Wall mounted mechanical Vending Machines outside Newsagents .....

Beechnut et al....

Plus 10 Guards or Cadets or Sovereign and other Cigarettes.

,in the late 90s when I first moved into the County Durham village I still live in now, there was still a ciggy machine on the wall of an empty house, ex-shop. It was a known local landmark then. A couple of years later the house got done up and I saw some workmen putting it in a skip. It's been in my garden ever since. No ciggys of course but an old two shilling bit fell out of it.

 

[McRhu]

,in the late 90s when I first moved into the County Durham village I still live in now, there was still a ciggy machine on the wall of an empty house, ex-shop. It was a known local landmark then. A couple of years later the house got done up and I saw some workmen putting it in a skip. It's been in my garden ever since. No ciggys of course but an old two shilling bit fell out of it.

There used to be lots of them at railway stations (often dispensing Fry's Five Boys or boxes of chocolate-covered raisins) alongside machines for punching one's name onto long metal strips. And weighing machines.

 

[Springs Branch]

This may be an erstwhile local phenomenon, but in days of yore the pavements were be thronged with grannies out doing their shopping in a uniform that consisted of; Rain-Mate head scarf, Long coat of tweed or other durable material, Furry boots, Tartan shopping trolley, wee round glasses. And I daresay tightly permed hair.

It definitely wasn't just local to you (assuming you mean Lanarkshire / greater Clydeside etc). Similar "Muppets", with exactly the same get-up and accessories, used to be be found randomly wandering about the high streets of industrial towns in South Lancashire.

I first came across this use of the term "Muppets" in the Bloodbus blog and book written by "The Driver" - an anonymous employee of First Glasgow who, due to personal circumstances, needed to drive the evening & night shifts on Glasgow's buses, and had many a funny or scary story to tell.

The Muppet nickname came about because a good fraction of these Glasgow grannies had neither teeth nor dentures! In the case of The Driver, they were usually encountered just after bingo finishing time, moaning and complaining to him about the poor bus service.

I distinctly remember seeing a line of said ladies on my way to school outside the local post office on pension day in the 80s. I never could understand why there was always a queue a good 15-20 minutes before the place opened, were they worried the post office would run out of cash if they waited an hour or two?

Only 15 minutes before opening? They're lightweights!

I remember around that same period, our local sub-post office near Wigan actually did run out of cash one Pension Day. Supplies were replenished by Securicor before lunchtime, so nobody was in danger of being broke, and it only happened once. But for months, maybe years afterwards, the OAPs would start queuing outside on Pension Day from 7:30am for the 9am opening (I saw this as I set off for work at that time).

When I quizzed my mother (who was one of the pension recipients, but not quite that daft) why all these frail, elderly grannies were queuing for so long in the cold and drizzle, she replied gravely and sagely "Well it's in case they run out of money. They did once, you know."

Even after Old Age Pensions were paid directly into bank accounts and buff-coloured pension books were done away with, my mother insisted on going to the Post Office on the morning of the fortnightly pension day and drawing it all out in cash (whether she needed it or not - "in case they take it back"). She insisted this still had to be done from the cash machine inside the Post Office - not an ATM anywhere else - "because that's where you get your pension".
After she passed away, my siblings found the surplus pension money "hidden" in old envelopes, drawers, biscuit tins and the like. Cash paid into the bank that day - well over £17,000 (in £10s and £20s).

 

[McRhu]

I remember Bloodbus and his encounter with the 'Electric Scarecrow'!

 

[Matey]

A high street Bank!

 

[XAM2175]

This may be an erstwhile local phenomenon, but in days of yore the pavements were be thronged with grannies out doing their shopping in a uniform that consisted of; Rain-Mate head scarf, Long coat of tweed or other durable material, Furry boots, Tartan shopping trolley, wee round glasses. And I daresay tightly permed hair.

It definitely wasn't just local to you (assuming you mean Lanarkshire / greater Clydeside etc). Similar "Muppets", with exactly the same get-up and accessories, used to be be found randomly wandering about the high streets of industrial towns in South Lancashire.

I remember seeing a BBC segment showing a procession of very similar characters all queued up to pass through a security checkpoint in Belfast at around the same time.

 

[Howardh]

A high street Bank!

Very true - and post offices too! Although with the popularity of e-bay/amazon etc I would have thought post offices would be in high demand? Pubs are in short supply also, huge areas of my town (Bolton) don't have any at all, and the town centre must have lost over half from the 90's. The Old Man and Scythe still stands though!!

 

[Springs Branch]

Bright yellow sodium lights, which were red when they first came on, gradually turning yellow. Commonplace until around 2010, but seemed to be very rapidly replaced between 2010-15, even newer examples from the 1990s.

I do miss them, there was something very comforting about the warm orange glow of those lights and the red colour as they turned on at twilight was very atmospheric. Also for me they'll be forever associated with my childhood, teens and younger adult years...

As well as those classic, atmospheric sodium lamps, the concrete light posts which often held them up have also all but disappeared.

I always associate concrete lamp posts with my youth. On bus journeys as a young child, I could identify which municipality we were passing through based on the differing styles of the concrete lamp standards.

As with many fringe interests in the Internet era, there's a niche following of these things. My own interest has long passed, but aficionados drool over photos of rare Stanton & Staveleys, or Concrete Utilities swan necks and the like.

Concrete was apparently used as a material in the post-WW2 period because steel was in short supply and too scarce to be wasted on lamp posts. With age, many weathered examples became susceptible to concrete spalling, and health & safety quickly reared its head, especially on main roads, so off they went.

 

[py_megapixel]

As well as those classic, atmospheric sodium lamps, the concrete light posts which often held them up have also all but disappeared.

I always associate concrete lamp posts with my youth. On bus journeys as a young child, I could identify which municipality we were passing through based on the differing styles of the concrete lamp standards.

As with many fringe interests in the Internet era, there's a niche following of these things. My own interest has long passed, but aficionados drool over photos of rare Stanton & Staveleys, or Concrete Utilities swan necks and the like.

Concrete was apparently used as a material in the post-WW2 period because steel was in short supply and too scarce to be wasted on lamp posts. With age, many weathered examples became susceptible to concrete spalling, and health & safety quickly reared its head, especially on main roads, so off they went.

You may be right about main roads. But Stanton & Staveley concrete lamp-posts are far from rare in residential areas around where I live. And they'll now generally be found supporting newly fitted LED lights, so I doubt they're going anywhere any time soon.

 

[DelayRepay]

You may be right about main roads. But Stanton & Staveley concrete lamp-posts are far from rare in residential areas around where I live. And they'll now generally be found supporting newly fitted LED lights, so I doubt they're going anywhere any time soon.

I had a concrete lamp post in my front garden until last year, when the council replaced it with a metal one. Personally I miss the old one because it used to illuminate my drive and front door, the new one doesn't.

The council are slowly replacing all the concrete lamp posts, but for now there are plenty left in different parts of the town.

 

[nw1]

You may be right about main roads. But Stanton & Staveley concrete lamp-posts are far from rare in residential areas around where I live. And they'll now generally be found supporting newly fitted LED lights, so I doubt they're going anywhere any time soon.

Extinct in much of the south it seems, including Hampshire, West Sussex, Surrey and Dorset; these four counties (including the unitary authorities) seemed to do a blitz on removing old lamp-posts between 2010 and 2015.

Maybe more common in other areas of the country; I have to admit I have travelled very little within the UK outside of the central south for the past 3 years or so. They - and indeed sodium lights - still seemed common in Liverpool in summer 2018 though. Also a few hybrid examples as you say, old posts, LED lights.

I'm not sure why they have gone for wholesale replacement down here. In previous upgrade iterations, they kept the classic wrought-iron (?) lamp posts from the early 20th century and just replaced the lamp. That was IMO the correct approach as old lamp-posts are part of modern heritage. But round here, they are all gone except for a few isolated pedestrian paths.

As well as those classic, atmospheric sodium lamps, the concrete light posts which often held them up have also all but disappeared.

I always associate concrete lamp posts with my youth. On bus journeys as a young child, I could identify which municipality we were passing through based on the differing styles of the concrete lamp standards.

As with many fringe interests in the Internet era, there's a niche following of these things. My own interest has long passed, but aficionados drool over photos of rare Stanton & Staveleys, or Concrete Utilities swan necks and the like.

I do remember those names from the old lamp posts.

And I remember the different colour schemes based on council. Often it was county-wide, but Hampshire seemed to have different colour schemes per district/borough council, e.g. Havant and Fareham were pastel-green, Gosport blue and white, and Portsmouth silver. The western councils of Hampshire seemed to go more for concrete.

 

[Matey]

Pubs are in short supply also, huge areas of my town (Bolton) don't have any at all

Seventy years ago my father would say, "in the countryside if there is a church, there's a pub".

 

[Gareth]

Stripey traffic lights with STOP written on the red lense are a big cultural loss.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Howardh said:
Pubs are in short supply also, huge areas of my town (Bolton) don't have any at all

Does that effectively reflect the demographics of the local population?

 

[birchesgreen]

Scooters which don't have L plates on them.