A private corner

LOOKING back through the telescope of my mind I recall how our children, the six of them, were astonished when told that their parents once lived without telephone, television or media networking.

The very thought of living with such ‘hardship’ was difficult for them to imagine, but to this day what they have never really accepted was that many in those times had to do without rolls of toilet paper.

When asked what was used the standard reply was; squares of the Cork Examiner pierced onto a length of stiff wire hung from the water cistern overhead. And in rural settings, you sometimes had to use whatever came to hand.