“The dang man”
The mention of the ‘dang man’ created a lot hilarity in our house when we were growing up. It was only in the late 60’s that all homes in Melbourne had indoor toilet flush systems. Before that it was common to have an outside toilet separate from the house. These came in a variety of shapes and styles and have been recorded in “Aussie” books as a series of photographs. Our toilet was located as an adjunct to the tool shed. It was almost totally dark in there except for a few cracks in the boards. We were always fearful of sitting on a ‘daddy longleg’ or even worse - a red back spider. Every week the ‘dangman’ came to remove the black can and put it on his truck. We called it the ‘flying red truck with 48 cylinders’. We were usually alerted to his arrival with the barking of our boarder collie dog, ‘Tiny’. He seemed to have a particular dislike for the 'dangman' who carried a leather strap over his shoulder and he wore a large floppy felt hat which concealed his face from view. We used to part the curtains of our bedroom to see if we could get a glimpse of the dangman as he went on his torturous way. Of course the ultimate embarrassment for us was to be caught unawares by the dangman on the Friday when he made his weekly round. To have your white cheeks suddenly exposed to the outside sunlight like a camera flash when the shutter door was opened from the outside, was enough to send you into a sudden shock and was sure to halt natures process for quite some time. I'm guess it was not a pretty sight for the dangman too but I suppose he was used to it.
As we got older it was hard to make it from one week to the next with the seven of us in the house. By Wednesday the black can was getting uncomfortably full so Dad took on the onerous task of ‘dipping’. This ensured that we made it to Friday, the day the dangman came. The poor guy – I don’t know how he didn’t get a hernia. When he came to the Kane household, he could be assured of a full consignment. On more than one occasion, he staggered past our bedroom window noticeably bending under the weight and we wondered if the job might be getting the better of him or if he might come asunder with disastrous consequences.
Another hazard of our toilet was the seat itself. The wooden panel eventually came apart in a series of pieces. I’m not sure whether Dad didn’t have time to fix it but we had to put it together like a jigsaw before we could sit down. Even then you weren’t out of the woods because the seat had the habit of pinching your bum in a straight line that hurt for ages.
The ‘dang’ trucks were emptied in the valley down from the present Heatherdale Station. I believe that factories have been built on this site today.
Country towns were famous from their outside toilets. Dad told the story about a chap who went to an outside toilet located adjacent to a pub. Soon, he raced back in with a stunned look on his face complaining that he had been bitten in a most unfortunate spot. “Don’t worry” the publican replied dryly. “You went to the one on the left didn’t you? Well there’s an old duck sitting on eggs there!”
I remember redback beetles being a problem in the outhouse on my uncles farm. One day Ballie, my uncle, decided to end the problem by doing a controlled burn around the little structure. He thought he put the fire out and it was only after grandpa went out after lunch that we heard a desperate cry - “Quick – the dunnicans on fire!” By the time we reached the scene with buckets of water the heat had caused the can to boil. With burnt boards and holes everywhere the outhouse became a very uncomfortable place to spend time especially in winter. I was very proud of my inventive skills when I was ten because I was able to attach a series of string lines that caused the handle to rise on the door while you were still seated in there.
In those days everyone relied on a vile smelling black concoction called ‘phenyl’ to sterilize outhouses. When you compare those days to our modern times you can see that we have made some giant strides forward in sanitation.
