Drivers’ attitude to having a wee can be spotted and smelt at many a roadside layby, so what is the answer to getting caught short? Long, long ago, in a truck park far, far away I was pretending to steer around the fetid tarmac with my son. He then lost interest and started to look around the cab. He wondered out loud where the toilet was. Astute enough question from a six-year-old to confirm that he gets his brains from his mother and looks from me.
I glanced around my one bedroom maisonette on wheels. Bed, TV, microwave, fridge, chair, desk and wardrobe (of sorts) were all present and correct, so why not a toilet? Water closets in confined spaces are not as daft as it might sound. As a child I had the misfortune to spend my summer holidays in caravans on windswept fields somewhere between the A1 and the east coast. Each shed-on-wheels was fitted with a chemical lavatory. My abiding memory was the smell, my God, the smell. And that was before anyone used it. I never considered a chamber pot could be fitted within the confines of a 2.5 by 2.5metre truck cab. A quick glance online revealed a plethora of portable commodes. From a cheap fold up seat with disposable bag to a bucket or you can buy something more robust that boasts a lid and chemicals. For most truckers, and by that I mean men, having a slash is a practical activity that employs minimal privacy and incorporates any inanimate obstacle that might be available. For a brown trout it’s a case of hanging on until reaching somewhere more suitable like the services. For ladies the process is more principled, at least that is what I am told, but when push comes to shove they take their chances. Many drivers suffer unwittingly from urinary retention brought on by years of holding it in. It is a medical condition where you are unable to completely empty the bladder, it leads to infection and can be potentially life-threatening. My first brush with it came back in the 1980s when international work was plentiful. I’d catch the Dover-Calais boat with a bunch of other British and Irish truckers who also hauled for a German company. We formed a small clique that met regularly on the Sunday night ferry for a few hours before heading our separate ways. Part of that group was a husband and wife team from Barnsley. They were always heading somewhere east, and usually couldn’t pronounce their intended destination. The standing joke was that they delivered everything to ‘T’Ghent’ as it was the only town anyone could remember them saying coherently. The husband, a dour Yorkshireman bereft of an extensive vocabulary, usually drove down to Dover. On arrival the wife, polite and self-effacing, usually emptied a wok-like pan against a tyre before they got the paperwork authorised. He refused to stop lest they miss the ferry so if she was desperate she was forced to draw the curtain, squat on the bottom bunk to take aim into the aforementioned container. One Sunday as I lined up to board the ferry the Yorkshire Dream Team rolled in with the wife behind the wheel. She caught my eye and waved with a huge grin. From the passenger door emerged the husband soaking wet and a face like thunder. Feeling tired from a heavy weekend tending ferrets and whippets he let his wife drive down to Dover. At Peterborough he wanted to stop to point Percy at the porcelain, or hedge, or tyre. She refused. After a blazing row that lasted the rest of the A1, and fast approaching Dartford, he was desperate. With great deliberation he clambered onto on the bottom bunk with the pan and drew the curtain. Once congregated on the ferry she ran us through events. She might’ve braked or swerved, run over a pothole or steered through an adverse camber, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what caused her husband of 15 years to miss the carefully placed vessel. He’d rolled sideways, knocked over what had already been spilled from the receptacle and managed to cover himself, the bottom bunk and his sleeping bag. He emerged from behind the curtain with face like Geoffrey Boycott. Not one word was uttered for the rest of the journey. In this specific case a portable toilet would have come in handy. Parked up for the night drivers face a simple choice of either wandering around outside half naked in the cold trying to avoid mud, oil or dog poo or remaining indoors and utilising a plastic bottle. I’m for the latter although I’d be lying if I said my aim was true every time. Still sat in the driver’s seat my son appeared to be waiting for an answer. “Sorry,” I replied, before adding, “they don’t fit them in lorries.”
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AuthorAging proletariat with face, teeth and body to prove it. Archives
August 2021
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