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Article Does Anyone Remember The ‘Dunny’ Man?

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My kids love hearing ‘I remember when’ stories from when I was a young child. So much has changed, so very quickly over the last few decades. It’s almost impossible to imagine being back in a world without mobile phones, Minecraft and McDonald’s. How DID we survive?

Who remembers when plum puddings were not a desert but little plants that one could pull out of the garden and eat the roots?

I remember as a child, honey suckle flowers that would be in my mother’s garden, I’d suck the juice out of the flower.

The tar on the road would bubble on a hot summer’s day and kids would pop the little bubbles and taste the tar.

Anyone remember the Dunny Man?

I remember when the toilet was an old drum with a seat and squares of newspaper had been cut up and hung on a nail behind the door. When the toilet was full the ‘Dunny’ man would come late at night and hoist the drum up on his shoulder and carry it away! But not before replacing it with an empty one.

I remember going to a milk farm and watching cows be milked and then drinking the warm milk and having a white moustache from the delicious thick cream. Oh yes, we knew that milk didn’t come from the shop packed in a plastic bottle. Do our kids?

Paddock To Plate

As a child we would also pick up cow’s manure from paddocks to take home to fertilise our vegetable garden that was overflowing with spinach, tomatoes and herbs. In those days even the neighbors grew their own ‘veggies’. Tomatoes tasted like tomatoes!

Or how about knocking the chickens head off with an axe (no buying from Coles neatly packaged) and watching the chicken end up in the laundry tub having its feathers plucked and then served up for tea!

Yum!

How about having dripping on bread or fresh cream and jam on bread, baked rice puddings and crumbing one’s own cutlets.

The list is endless, another time and another place. Time never stands still and we’re always moving forward. But it’s not always for the better.

Who else has wonderful memories of life when it seemed much easier? What do you remember from your childhood? Tell us in the comments below.

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Comments

  • My mum and dad had an outside toilet. My mum tells my grandfather had a urinal & pot under the bed for the kids to empty in the morning !

    • Oh yes the old chamber pot under the bed. I do recall them vaguely.

    Reply

  • Can’t remember a dunny man ! What a job !

    • Yes it wasn’t the best job but I suppose in its day someone had to do it. There was no alternative.

    Reply

  • My Nan and Pa had an outside toilet. It was always so cold to use it in the winter and there was always frogs that lived behind it that would scare you every time you lived.

    • Not to mention spiders that were always in the outside Dunnys.

    Reply

  • I remember all that was written and experienced it myself growing up in those times.

    • So many different times from another era. Some good some not so good.

    Reply

  • I remember the outside toilet, my sisters and I would all go out together while my Dad stood at the back door. It was a real celebration when we finally got an indoor toilet.

    • I know that feeling I was in my teens when my parents finally got an indoor toilet!

    Reply

  • I love listening to my parents and grandparent stories…life was so diffrent

    Reply

  • I’m 40 and have never even heard of this myself!

    • Wow! I’m in my sixities and I can still recall all of it. You were lucky to have missed out on the outdoor toilets.

    Reply

  • No, i dont remember a dunny man. I remember my mil had a empty yourself toilet tho. She emptied it or a friend or relative. It was at her house til the day she died in 2005

    • Never heard of that unless when the dunny man ceased to exist she just kept using the old system. Mind you not everyone in that time could get indoor toilets. When I was a kid I hated using newspaper as toilet paper!

    Reply
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