No, not a gravy boat, though it would make a very pretty
one.
The chamber pot wasn’t a very hygienic thing but by the 20th
century it was at least used in the privacy of the bedroom. Up to the
19th century gentlemen, full of claret and ready to progress to the
port, depended on finding a po in the dining room sideboard, though of course
they’d only use it after the ladies had withdrawn. Why, you may ask yourself, didn’t
they go to another room relieve themselves? What, and risk missing a bit of
gossip or a good joke?
This is a bourdaloue, once the salvation of many a lady caught with a full
bladder in a public place. The only problem was, having used it she needed
someone to empty it for her. If she didn’t have a maid I suppose she could have
slipped it under a chair and nonchalantly kicked it over with the toe of her
dainty slipper.
I find it interesting to see things that were once a part of
my daily life becoming collectable antiques. I was born too late for a
bourdaloue but not for a chamber pot. Growing up in a house with no indoor
plumbing it was an essential item under every bed. Mine was pink. My parents had one in blue and
white willow pattern. The unenviable job of emptying them each morning fell to
the females of the house. When you were deemed old enough to empty your own
gesunder you knew you’d really grown up.
Gesunder was one of its several affectionate names. As in
‘gesunder the bed’. ‘Jerry’ had a
similar etymology, during and after World War Two. Po (from pot-de-chambre)
was the favourite in our neighbourhood, which caused a lot of stifled mirth
when we did the rivers of Italy in school.
Writers of historical fiction sometimes get berated either for
bringing 21st century sensibilities to their creations, or for not
doing so. Personally I’m in the ‘tell it how it really was’ camp. And the
bourdaloue is a good reminder that spending a penny hasn’t always been a
private affair. I wonder, by the way, how long the expression ‘spending a penny’
will remain in circulation. On Horsefair Street in Leicester sixty years ago a
penny used to buy you a very comfortable call in a spotlessly clean cubicle.
Nice warm wooden seats too. Those were
the days. As for bourdaloues - named by the way, after a French priest famous for his bladder-testingly long sermons - they are now collectors' items. And chamber pots look very nice planted with geraniums.
