The Bathrooms

Upstairs, downstairs

There were two types of bath facility on St. Helier – the well-remembered bath in the kitchen with a hinged lid over it, or the bathroom upstairs which had a bath but no direct hot water taps. Hot water had to be carried up in a bowl for a wash or, for the bath, heated up in the downstairs copper and then pumped upstairs. Later an Ascot heater was provided.

The copper to heat the water was in the kitchen. This was heated by coal, underneath it of course, and ladled into the bath with a saucepan. So we had a bath once a week. Obviously, it was too much like hard work to do it any more and I remember we shared the water because again it would have been hard work to have emptied it out and given each one of us clean water, but we thought nothing of it in those days. We accepted it. (Doreen O'Halloran née Hayden)

Risky do-it-yourself

I mean, we never had hot water upstairs. Well, we did. We put it in a big boiler in the kitchen which was filled with water which was boiled, and then Dad had to pump it up with a handpump to the bathroom - 'cause the bathroom was upstairs and that's how you had the bath. The old man, he got fed up with it. He bought a big old industrial gas ring, 'cause there was gas up there in the bedrooms so there was gas pipes up there. He somehow connected this gas thing to the ring and bought a big tub with a tap on it. Put a piece of old hardboard on the bath, put this gas ring on there, put this big tub - filled that up with cold water, set fire to the gas. Course, boiled that water up, turned the tap and you got hot water, instant hot water. I got my bath and put the gas on and I felt suddenly rough and I felt ill. Mum come running up - "What's happened?" I'm hanging over the bath. No ventilation - that's it. I was getting gassed! He was gassing me! So we used to have to have a bath with the window open. It was freezing in the winter. That was terrible - you got the window open and you're trying to have a hot bath. (Brian Doubtfire)