Public lack of Conveniences

It took us two hours to get home from Bolton on Saturday night. It's not like we were travelling particularly late, but it shouldn't have taken that long to get home.

We caught one bus from Crompton Way into the centre of Bolton so we'd be able to get a 95 bus home (it drops us off much closer than the 524). If we'd had a car, the problem we faced would not have arisen as we'd have been home in 15 minutes.

We got to the bus station with 5 minutes to spare before the 95 was due in. I needed to go to the toilet. I know it's not a polite thing to talk about, and perhaps that's one reason why provision of public conveniences has fallen by the wayside. The bus station toilets were closed by this time, and the next nearest (a horrible huge cold metal cubicle thing with a locking sliding door you have to pay an extortionate amount to get in was too far to walk to and get back before the bus arrived.

I thought I'd be able to hang on till we got home. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten how bumpy that route was, with all those useless bloody speed-bumps. It got worse and worse, and I was in agony from the effort of holding it in and feeling nauseous from the jolting. Our driver was doing the best he could to make the journey as smooth as he could (it was the same driver we'd had on the way into Bolton), but we'd not even got as far as Little Lever before I had to give in.

We then had to walk the rest of the way home - it was that or wait an hour in the rain and the cold for the next bus.

Now, if Bolton Council would spring for toilet refurbishment (and make a proper job of it this time) and actually employ someone as a toilet attendant we'd have been a lot better off. This isn't the first time we've been caught short in the centre of Bolton on a long journey home - last time it was one of the children. You have small children, and you quickly learn the location of every public loo anywhere you visit regularly. Alas, that only works in daytime, as Bolton's public conveniences are only for the convenience of daytime travellers it seems.


I know it's scary using public loos in the evening - they get used by undesirables, junkies, alcies, and the like, and by people who prey on the vulnerable. However, we've got CCTV now, so we should all feel so much safer (yeah right) using public spaces in the evening. After all, the guy who mugs us is going to get caught on grainy video footage and if they manage to get a positive ID, he'll get a slap on the wrist and a couple hundred hours community service.

No, CCTV monitoring isn't the answer. What we need is people. And I don't mind having to pay a few pence to use public conveniences - the ones at Shudehill Interchange and Piccadilly Railway Station are quite pleasant to use, and only cost about 30p. The fact that you have to go through the pay and turnstile thing puts off casual vandals, and if there's someone around keeping an eye on things that you can yell to for help as well as the ubiquitous CCTV cameras that watch all and see nowt, that'd help. Although you'd need a change machine as it's really annoying to be desperate for the loo but unable to get in as you don't have the right change. I liked European public loos that have someone on duty all the time, actually sitting there keeping an eye on things - you pay them on your way out. What I didn't like was the fact that the money they are paid by the customers either supplements the tiny wages they get for being there, or is their only income for being there.


I've said it before and I'll say it again - society is seriously fucked up when the people who do real and necessary work get paid pennies while useless people like company execs and footballers (Footballers - people who kick a ball around for fuck's sake) get paid millions every week. It's a staggering amount of money that I just can't imagine. And for doing nothing important. It's obscene what those buggers get paid, when there are families on the edge of starvation and a third of children in this country are living in poverty.



We come back to the issue of public conveniences. We are the underclass, society is not built for our convenience. it is built for the convenience of cars and people with cars, for people with a "disposable income" - literally, money they can throw away. Hundreds of pounds on a really cool gadget, a new pair of boots, a third holiday this year. They've already spent hundreds on repairing the car, paying insurance, road tax and fuel - Gods forbid they should ever suffer the inconvenience of not having the car. They'd REALLY find out what inconvenience is all about then.