Safe Seats for Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire and Cheshire folk
The term ‘safe seat’ is used in many connotations. With regard to mobility products it could be a riser recliner chair that safely lifts someone to a standing position, or it could be a
raised toilet seat or commode with handles to enable one to do ones ablutions in a safer manner. I always prefer to sit in the tail end of an aircraft in the hope that it is going to be safer; after all, should disaster strike it would be furthest away from a mountain!
People with
mobility problems often lack confidence and need the reassurance of a safe wheel chair seat or the safe seat on a stair lift when ascending and descending stairs as well.
In the world of politics, a safe seat is the prize for the chosen few who are thought to be destined for high office or to be used to replace those already there. It was reported by James Chapman in the ‘Mail online (January 14th 2013) that such a plot is allegedly afoot.
‘Boris Johnson lined up for safe seat in 2015 to fight Cameron for top
job’
The Mayor of London, Boris
Johnson, may be given a safe seat in the next general election as part of what
is called a ‘stalking horse’ plot to replace David Cameron. In response, Boris
has denied that he has any intention to try to return to Parliament. However,
rebel Tory, young Zac Goldsmith, is reported to be intending vacating his safe
seat in Richmond, after Boris had a clash with the PM over Heathrow, to make
way for Mr Johnson.
The Tory Party is of course not
alone in courting safe seats. Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle -under -Lyme are both traditionally
Labour strongholds. Once a prosperous industrial area, the world famed pottery
manufacturers, Royal Doulton, Minton, Spode, Wedgwood, once household names,
are all gone. Together with engineering, iron and steel at Shelton Bar and of course coal mining, the
traditional industries no longer exist, resulting in a seriously depressed area.
Other ‘safe seats’ are far more
important to all of us. How many people have ever heard of Michael Kaastrup
Kjaer, Mike Skovbjerg Vad, Marten Baltzer Kristensen and Rene Nygaard
Christensen? No... I hadn’t either. I took a guess at a Scandinavian pop group,
or perhaps boy band, following in the tradition of Abba with a new version of
‘Dancing Queen’. These guys are not a part of the glitzy glamour of Abba and
pop culture. There is a much less glamorous reason for fame. They follow in the
steps of Sir Thomas Harington and one Thomas Crapper. The group were students
at Skjern Technical
College in Denmark. They invented a lavatory
system with a safe seat which closes automatically once the lavatory is
flushed. I am not too convinced that this will change the course of history but
it did allow them to win a Best Product Award in 2009 for their ‘Intelli
Toilet’
Perhaps the invention could have
a definite social role to play in ending an age-old row between men and women,
thus removing grounds for divorce! I look back with amusement to a time when I
had a female boss. Close to her office was a toilet, located adjacent to the
photocopiers and IT room. I don’t think it was ever really the case, but she,
by ‘tradition’, requisitioned the facility for her own private use.
Geographically, the gents’ was quite a way down a long corridor. If, during a
long printing run, nature called, it was sometimes used by male members of
staff, but only when it was certain that she had gone home. As if endowed with
some psychic powers, an irate notice would soon follow, requesting men not to
use the holy of holies. I was once naive enough to tread where angels feared
and asked her how she knew that such a heinous crime had been committed?
The answer came with the
conviction that springs from certainty. “Ladies
do not leave the seat up dear!
The history of the toilet
The availability of modern,
hygienic toilet systems is taken very much for granted in developed countries.
Ancient civilisations, including those of Roman and Egypt, developed toilet systems
attached to simple flowing water sewage systems. The 3rd millennium
BC has been referred to as ‘The Age of Cleanliness’. Toilets and sewers were
invented, some being quite elaborate constructions.
The ancient urban ‘lost city’ of
Mohenjo Daro in what is now Pakistan was not by discovered by archaeologists
until 1921.It’s origins go back some 4,500 years, prospering from its location
in the fertile Indus Valley. “It was the
most advanced urban settlement of its time” (National Geographic).
Mohenjo Daro had no palaces or
grand arenas, but it did have a large public bath system and, most interestingly to me, it
had an advanced toilet system. These were built into the outer walls of the
more affluent (or should it be effluent?)
houses. The lavatory was a brick structure, with a wooden ‘safe seat’
mounted over vertical chutes, through which the waste fell into drains or
cesspits. (Photo: National
Geographic –Google images)
Sir Mortimer Wheeler was the
director general of archaeology in India from 1944 to 1948. Speaking
of Mohenjo Daro he said “The high quality
of the sanitary arrangements could well be envied in many parts of the world
today.”
Going for a crapper?
However, in this country, anything
resembling modern toilets didn’t really come about until the late nineteenth
century. Popular opinion gives the credit for the 1800’s invention of the flush
toilet to one Thomas Crapper. He certainly was an early maker of the product,
and indeed in the Gladstone Pottery Museum there is an entire display dedicated
to the toilet bowl with ornate, white and blue ceramic decorations, (including a
genuine Crapper,) but really the crucial component was designed very much
earlier in 1596 by Sir John Harrington, a Godson of Queen Elizabeth 1st.
Harrington designed a valve which allowed the flush water to be circulated but
its application was to wait a long time. From medieval days, bad sanitation
was the cause of dreadful disease from contaminated cesspits and excrement
being thrown out of windows into the streets and running into drinking water.
Since 1825 there have been five cholera outbreaks and pandemics. In 1849, in London alone, 10,000
people died from the disease. John Snow was the physician who first proved that
cholera deaths were caused by people drinking water contaminated by sewage.
The availability of safe
sanitation is not yet universal. It is estimated that 40% of the global
population, mainly in regions of Africa and Asia,
does not have facilities for safe excreta disposal.
One scheme is to encourage people
to dig a hole or pit and install plastic liners, screening the area with
sacking. This remains a very primitive solution and far from being a ‘safe
seat’ for the user! It has to be said that in some parts of
Eastern
Europe things are little better. I well recall my first experience
of the ‘squat toilet’ – no ‘safe seat’ – just markings to show where to place
your feet! Continental France is not
much more advanced having the hole in the floor toilet still featuring in many public conveniences. There are some surprising advantages to the squat
down toilet in that it helps avoid constipation and is good for maintaining hip
and knee mobility. If you or your
relatives hip or knee flexibility requires a
raised toilet seat in Stoke on Trent in order to
more easily use the lavatory then contact Castle Comfort for free advice on
08000 832 797.
Privy to the finest
chamber pots
Before the advent of
bathrooms and toilets becoming a feature of all houses, and today many expect
the en suite, it was not uncommon for the toilet to be an outside ‘privy’ in a
back yard or garden. Many terraced houses sacrificed a bedroom to indoor
bathroom conversion.
As our climate does not encourage a trip down the garden
in the ‘wee’ small hours, the chamber pot was a necessary, albeit not too
pleasant a feature of every bedroom in dwelling houses and even in most hotels.
The requisite pots ranged from the very simple to the most lavish of ceramic
design in the grand houses of the day.
The need to relieve the call of nature
is common to all, regardless of rank or status, and some fine examples of
chamber pots graced the likes of palaces and stately homes such as Chatsworth,
Blenheim and no doubt Downton Abbey!
You will see pictured a fine example of a decorated
chamber pot designed for the wealthy in the grand houses of England. An
item worthy of holding the soup on a grand dining table than part of a commode.
What is toilet humour?
A man staying in a hotel rang for room service. Expecting a
young lady, he enquired of the bell boy “Where’s
the chamber maid?”He lifted the pot from a
cupboard, holding it high to read the back stamp. “Made in Stoke-on-Trent Sir.”
It is perhaps not
surprising after all that such basic needs have resulted not only in ingenuity
but in attracting the skills of some master craftsman. One such item was the
commode. Whilst accepting that for some unfortunate people, the use of a
commode is an unavoidable, clinical living aid, we tend to shy away from such
objects and would prefer not to know. The chamber pot was common to all at one time
and, for those who could afford, so was the commode.
I was hoping that my research would link the commode to the
18th Roman Emperor, Commodus (the clue in the name perhaps?) but,
disappointingly, whatever Commodus may have achieved for the empire, the
commode was not attributed to him.
A commode was really far more than a chamber pot. The name
applied to any of several pieces of furniture. The name does have a Latin
derivation (adjective),
commodus. The
word found its way into French as
commode
meaning ‘suitable’ or ‘convenient’ hence we have ‘
public convenience’ meaning toilets in modern usage. In Staffordshire, musicians can rehearse at an establishment oddly entitled,
The Toilets.
The commode was introduced in French furniture making during
the 1700’s. Many were elaborate pieces demanding the skills of a master
cabinet-maker to create the veneers and gilding. Prior to the plumbing advances
during the mid 19th century, the commode remained an essential item
of furniture. It took the form of a low
cabinet, sometimes with drawers, and a cupboard to house the chamber pot. It
was usual for the top to be made of marble, ideally, matched to the fire
surround in the bedroom. The chamber pot would be hidden away in a cupboard and
only a ceramic water pitcher and bowl would be placed in full view on the top.
The skilled cabinet
makers who created the elaborate commode furniture during the 1700 -1800’s are
not the only craftsman worthy of mention.
I turn again to the skilled workers,
in the now lost pottery industry in Stoke-on-Trent,
Staffordshire. The City of Stoke-on-Trent,
with its six towns, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, are
still known collectively as ‘The Potteries’. The name of the Premier League
football club,‘The Potters’ still echoes the past. Statues of former worthies
still stand sentinel. The obligatory Queen Victoria,
stands aloof in the Queen’s Gardens in Newcastle-under-Lyme (‘Castle’ folk
would not forgive me if I didn’t stress that they are not a part of Stoke-on-Trent!) The
Pottery towns are still presided over by the towering figures of Spode and
other famed pottery makers, and Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) the best known of
all, stands tall, with a Portland Vase in hand, opposite Stoke Station to
welcome all to the city.
There is an aspect of the Stoke-on-Trent pottery industry which is usually
overlooked. Amongst the famed creators of fine china to grace the dining tables
of opulent palaces, the makers of sanitary ware are the less glamorous examples
of the potter’s art. Baths, basins, lavatories and bidets, however essential,
just do not have the same appeal! Amongst the names of the Staffordshire
potters we should acknowledge Joshua Twyford and family.
Joshua was born in 1640 and died
in 1729, for the period at the amazing old age of 89. It was he who was to
establish a factory to make commercial pottery at a site near Shelton Old Hall,
in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Oddly enough, I
could not find a record of when production ceased at the site. Examples of work
by Joshua Twyford can be seen in Stoke-on-Trent
Museum in Hanley, in
particular an interesting salt glazed
teapot bearing the inscription ‘Sarah Twyford’.
Thomas Twyford was born on
September 23rd in Hanover
Street, Hanley. He was to build two factories, but
not to make teapots or tableware. Thomas saw the need to develop sanitary
products and developed the production of washbasin, urinals and lavatory pans.
The distribution of these products was, for the period, remarkable, with
exports to America, Australia, France Germany and Russia.
The accolade for sanitary ware
development must be awarded to Thomas William Twyford (son of Thomas) born in
1885. It was Thomas William who perfected the building of a one-piece,
integrated pottery pedestal toilet with both pan and trap, the UNITAS,
establishing the way forward to the design used to day.
The Telford
family was not without compassionate responsibility for their workers. The
Cliff Vale ‘pot bank’, built in 1887, was a model factory. Perhaps not surprisingly,
the toilet facilities were innovative, as was the ventilation system with ample
opening windows, Factory inspectors treated the new building as the pattern to
be emulated throughout Staffordshire; no mean achievement!
The Cliff
Vale Factory
Rather sadly, the redundant Cliff
Vale site was recently demolished to make way for a canal side housing
development. However, the original entrance facade was saved and remains today
as part of the local industrial archaeology of Stoke-on-Trent.
T W Twyford died in 1921. He is remembered as the leading pioneer of the
application of the principles of hygiene in sanitary appliances. The Twyford Bathrooms
brand, locally based in Alsager, Cheshire,
is still a major player, boasting a Royal warrant, (Ma’am is on the throne!) This
is the only bathroom company to do so. The company supply innovative sanitary
products worldwide, including a new easy clean rimless pan with the now
obligatory self closing safe seat. Innovative ‘Independent Living’ products
include easy access baths with stepped levels and easy reach lever taps,
adjustable height semi-pedestals with extra height safe seats for close coupled
toilets and easy wheel chair access bathrooms. Amongst the famed manufacturers,
another son of the Potteries has left his mark
on industrial history.
Travel, it is said, is part of a
sound education. This may well be true, but it can be a lonely, insecure experience. Some fifty years ago, I travelled
to the old Soviet Union. This was not the Russia of
today. It was the time of cold war fear and suspicion and western travellers
were certainly followed and watched at every move. It was a fascinating visit
and left me with lasting memories. I recall the gilded opulence of Katherine’s Winter Palace
with room after room of priceless works of art.
There were the Hermitage, with
its collection of the Tsar’s coronation jewels and countless priceless
treasures. The bizarre St. Basil’s Cathedral looking something akin to a gingerbread
castle in Disneyland, and, of course, there were the Kremlin Cathedrals and Red Square. Tourists were allowed to jump the long queues
at Lenin’s mausoleum. Outside, the goose-stepping guards of honour kept vigil.
Chillingly each pair seemed like identical twins selected for the task! Inside,
one descended down and down a stone stair case into the chilled air and, not
being allowed to stand still, filed past the glass coffin to see the body of
Lenin, bathed in orange light. I recall that I felt sick.
It was in Moscow that I had the most frightening
experience of being alone. I managed to get lost. I say lonely only because
albeit I was surrounded by hundreds of people in the rush hour, unlike me, they spoke Russian! The unfamiliar
cyrillic alphabet allowed not even a feeble attempt at translation
And even if I could have made
anyone understand angliyskiy, I didn’t know the name of my hotel. No number of
do svidaniyas was going to help and yes, I was scared. Even the old English
adage of ‘ask a policeman’ was no help and each attempt made the salt mines of Siberia seem a real possibility. It is too long a story,
but it ended happily. As the night came on, I needed to relieve myself, but
where was I to find the loo? I resorted to take the risk and entered an
official looking building via an open side door. Trying to look as though I had
every right to be there, I checked a number of doors as my bladder was nearly
at bursting point, with no time left to worry about what that would
entail. One more door awaited; this was
an only too real game of ‘Russian Roulette’. A lavatory pan, extravagantly decorated
in Wedgwood blue jasper style, came
before me not a moment too soon.
As I aimed at the bowl with an
involuntary audible cry of relief, I was transported back home. I was urinating
over a very familiar name: ‘Twyford’ was clearly visible in the wet glaze! All
my fears left me as I walked quickly back into the Soviet night, strangely
comforted by the fact that two lads from Stoke had been united in an alien
land. I had found a safe seat in Moscow.
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