Pandora’s box

In 1949 when I was 6 years old we moved to Australia. We lived first in Melbourne and later in Hobart, Tasmania where, because my Dad worked with the Government Housing Department, we were given a brand new house on the estate at Warrane (or ‘the Warren’ as it was known locally).

When we first moved in we had electricity but the roads weren’t finished and we had a fair hike to get to the nearest bus stop. Most significantly there was no mains sewage. That didn’t arrive until a couple of years later.

In the back garden of each house was a combination outside toilet and garden shed. The ‘facilities’ consisted of a wooden bench with a hole in it under which was a 20 gallon metal can partially filled with creosote to keep the smell down and to discourage the flies. The cans were replaced through a flap at the back of the building. In Australian parlance this was ‘the Dunny’.

The local council provided a weekly sewage collection service using trucks that looked not unlike a brewers dray but carrying something a lot less savoury than barrels of ale!

These were ‘Dunny Carts’ and the stalwarts who manned them were universally known as ‘the Dunny Men’.

There was a song around at the time called ‘The Butchers Boy’

Mama dear come over here
And see who’s looking in my window
It’s the butcher boy and oh
He’s got a bundle in his hand

(Written by Paolo Citorello and sung by Rudy Vallee)

I hasten to add that the song goes on to better explain what the ‘bundle in his hand’ actually was – something to do with sausages I believe.

Of course it was parodied to

Mama dear beware beware
Just look who’s passing by the window
It’s the Dunny Man and
He’s got a Dunny Can up on his back

At the first sight and sound of the Dunny Cart careering round the corner and into your street festooned with strings of flying toilet paper and accompanied by it’s own personal swarm of flies, doors and windows banged shut, children were dragged unceremoniously into the house and the area went silent as the populace collectively held its breath.

God help you if you were actually on the Dunny when these guys arrived. No quarter was given.

The cans were designed with lids for sanitation and the protection of those handling them but the lids were seldom used. It took too much time to fit them and the men were on piece work. The more cans they dealt with the more they earned hence the flying paper and a certain amount of spillage.

After the Dunny Cart had departed and after a decent interval to let the air clear, doors and windows were cautiously re-opened and life returned to normal.

The depot for the sewage operation was by the river in North Hobart where the waste was loaded into a specially designed barge that took it out into the Derwent River estuary to be dumped. The barge made the trip two or three times a day accompanied by a huge flock of seagulls as it made its way down river.

Warrane was on the other side of the river from Hobart city. There was a regular ferry service from Bellerive but if you went by bus or car it was across a floating bridge with a lifting span on the city side to allow ships to pass through. The sewage barge was a regular disrupter of bridge traffic.

A ship passes through the lifting span of Hobarts floating bridge

In the foreground work has begun on the replacement bridge

If you were unfortunate enough to be caught when a vessel needed to go through the bridge then you were in for a 20 minute or so wait as the span was lifted, the ship passed through and the span lowered again. My school was on the Hobart side but the excuse that ‘the bridge was up’ if kids were late for school was seldom accepted.

‘Yer should’ve left home earlier’ (thump).

However, if you just said ‘the Pandora’ then you got a sympathetic nod and no further questions asked.

Why? Guess what the sewage barge was named?

A real Pandora’s Box!