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Bum deal!

(17 Posts)
fiorentina51 Sat 19-Aug-17 20:37:39

Izal/Bronco was often used by my brother and myself wrapped around combs to make"music!" ?
Can't remember where we got it from as we're a newspaper squares family. Probably nicked the stuff from the local council offices public loos. We used to nip in occasionally on the way home from school in order to use the facilities and marvel at the wonders of the liquid soap dispensers.
Happy days!

watermeadow Sat 19-Aug-17 19:41:56

Don't worry about the trees. Loo paper, newspaper, file paper are made from fast-growing conifers which are grown as a crop, as wheat is grown to make bread. Not mahogany.

Cold Sat 19-Aug-17 19:35:11

When I moved to Sweden there was a brand of toilet paper called "dubbelkräpp" smile

It caused much hilarity and many UK visitors took some home as a gift! (it means "double crepe")

J52 Sat 19-Aug-17 18:30:53

Off the point, but ... we used to visit someone with a seaside chalet of the old sort. The toilet was outside, I would go because I thought it was directly into the sea, and crabs would bite my bottom!

callgirl1 Sat 19-Aug-17 18:12:23

My auntie and step-sister both worked at the Izal factory at Chapeltown, near Sheffield, in the 1950s, so we got our toilet paper cheap, or sometimes free. My little brother, aged7,won second prize at a fancy dress, he went as Mr. Izal, with his arms and legs encased in Izal boxes, plus one on his head.

aggie Sat 19-Aug-17 14:10:55

I remember taking the Izal paper home to use as tracing paper , Mum was horrified and I wept as she threw it in the fire . I had got it in a posh "Ladies" in a department store in Glasgow , must have been about 5 or 6 yrs old at the time

Synonymous Sat 19-Aug-17 14:10:22

Shysal grin DH remembers that when he was in the Air cadets and went to camp with them all the paper had GOVERNMENT PROPERTY stamped on every sheet. Imagine sending that back used!!! grin grin grin

Synonymous Sat 19-Aug-17 14:03:50

LadyGracie I too was a constipated child especially when we would visit an elderly aunt and uncle of my mother. They also had a thunderbox with two seats on it, one large and one small. There was a small door at the rear of the the wee hoosie where Uncle would shovel everything out and put it in a big trench in which he would grow the most amazing beans. The problems came for me when I was 'busy' and the door at the rear would creak open and a voice would boom up the large hole next to me saying, "Too much paper, don't use so much paper!"The first time that happened I ran screaming back up the garden path to my mother and thereafter I would need to know exactly where Uncle was before I would go anywhere near the 'neccesarioum' and it was truly amazing how long I could hold on. I can remember being told that I had a good stopper - TMI, I know! grin

shysal Sat 19-Aug-17 13:06:56

My Dad obtained some Izal-type paper from work which was printed with 'Barclays Bank'. It was left over when they went from interleaved to rolls. My brother and I had the job of packing them into old flat boxes from whatever brand it was we used in our dispenser at home. We imagined someone having the duty of picking out the used sheets and returning them to the bank!

LadyGracie Sat 19-Aug-17 13:02:11

I remember Izal, grease proof paper, I can smell it now. I'm sure we used to have one called Bronco.
My aunt lived on a watercress farm, I remember the thunderbox at the bottom of the garden, I used to hate sitting on that piece of wood with a hole in it, I was regularly a constipated child!

judypark Sat 19-Aug-17 13:01:50

And I would

judypark Sat 19-Aug-17 13:00:11

In my Gran's outside lav in the fifties there was alway squares of newspaper impaled on a nail, however she would save the tissue-like purple paper that you find around satsumas and tangerines and ceremonially impale these on the rusty nail for Sunday use only.
Upstairs she had Izal and would sneak the odd sheet and use it as tracing paper. Happy days.

Luckygirl Sat 19-Aug-17 12:49:19

My Mum used to use old paper dress patterns when we ran out. Paper nose tissues were not around.

Remember Izal - the crispy crunchy paper!? I once met a very large American lady in a public loo - she was convulsed with laughter over this stuff and wanted to get some to take home to show her compatriots as she did not think they would believe her otherwise!!

DanniRae Sat 19-Aug-17 12:43:29

We were posh in our house when I was growing up - proper toilet paper in the upstairs bathroom in case a visitor used the loo. Just cut up newspaper in the downstairs outside loo - Just wondering if the person who composed the song "The Black Bottom" had a similar arrangement in their outside loo! grin

kittylester Sat 19-Aug-17 12:32:49

I'm sorry that I read that now - it's lunch time!! grin

annsixty Sat 19-Aug-17 11:41:46

?

Synonymous Sat 19-Aug-17 11:26:50

Not wanting to hijack the other thread I thought I would share the following on a new thread.
Just read out to DD some of the chat about which way to hang the toilet roll and horrified her by telling her about what was available during our childhood. Newspaper was fairly common amongst us all rather than the flat packs of the medicated sheets. We were talking about the differing ways that there were of organising the newspaper sheets as in pushing a hole through the top and hanging them on string from a nail on the wall or door whichever was nearer. Some families hung them on thick wire or a meat hook. Even then some of the sheets were more economically sized than others. We discussed the pipe blockages that were not uncommon in those days.
DD asked when toilet paper was invented so DH did a search and discovered that there are records in China of using paper which go back to 600 AD and then specifically manufactured toilet paper was mass produced in the 14th century. Modern commercial toilet paper originated in the 1850s with a patent for a roll dispenser granted in 1883. Before that it was plain sheets.
This was all very interesting until DH told us that in America in 1857 someone invented medicated sheets which were available until the 1920s which had his name printed on each sheet. I am afraid it all went down the pan from there as friend remarked on the 'bum deal' that his kids would have felt at having their name wiped over so many posteriors. You can imagine all the puns that followed and we have had such a good laugh as well as being 'educated' by DH!. grin
Apparently some of the advertising in those days included the fact that their product was splinter free! DD clearly remembered me teaching her when she was little to crumple the flat sheets in public toilets to soften them but had forgotten all about it until now.
All is clearly an advance on the Roman's sponge on a stick which was replaced in a bowl of vinegar for the next user! Perhaps the Romans had a point though as globally according to DH's research we 'consume' 27,000 trees daily for the purpose of toilet tissue manufacture.