In the wee small hours of the morning, the night carter arrived. He came to empty and replace our dunny bucket.

In the fifties we had no sewerage; just the old outback dunny. In the freezing cold we tip toed outside to find, alas, someone in the household had beaten us to it. Shivering and jumping from one foot to the other, we waited.

We didn't have the u-beaut toilet paper of today; newspapers were cut up and hung on a hook for all and sundry to wipe you know what. Later, things did improve, toilet paper made from crepe paper. It was crinkled and on a roll to make it more appealing than newspaper. Who wants printer's ink on their derriere?


Of course we had to deal with the wildlife that made their homes in the old dunny.

Perhaps you have heard the saying, "there's a red back on the toilet seat?" Deadly if you were bitten in private places. The red back can make you quite sick. Then, in country towns were red-bellied black snakes that made the dunny home.

Of course the outback dunnies were quite different than the suburban ones.

A hole around twenty feet deep was dug, so you suffered sitting over that hole, filled with sawdust to absorb and kill odours. The worst thing that could happen to your derriere was a cold breeze from the deep hole in the earth.

In the late fifties, finally we had the sewerage and blessings came in the form of an indoor toilet. That throne was so popular and a real treat; grandpa took his newspaper and pipe to sit in comfort for an hour - we just crossed our legs and waited.

Today, the dunny has become an icon, every dunny found has been restored to it's former glory; saved from rubbish heaps. Tourists take great interest in our past history.

If you travel to the outback, you probably will be faced with using a hole in the ground, they are still used where no sewerage exists.

Me? I would rather have an indoor throne to call my own.