Reminds me of when I was about 11 years old, living in Fulham, no electricity only gas light, & an outside loo in the back yard. The loo had no lighting, & as the loo had a fixed seat, my mother & sister were always complaining that the seat was wet, so I had a brilliant idea how to modernise it & help us all. I started a coke round (coke was the cheapest form of heating in those days only having either open fires or black stoves to do the cooking) & I would carry 56lbs of coke on my back, from the gas works & deliver it to neighbours at one penny a time.

When I had earned fourpence I was able to buy a pair of hinges, then I sawed through the fixed timber seat put timber battens at the back & fixed on the hinges. Low & behold I had brought our old fashioned loo into the twentieth century because anyone could now lift the seat & not soil it in the dark. Mother & sister now complained that when they went out in the dark if someone left the seat up they fell down the pan, so my father went out there with his heavy hammer & some six inch nails & nailed it down, so much for progress!

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