It hung in the outhouse along with the peggy-tub and mangle.  I can’t remember what else was in there but it sat between the pantry and the outside lav.

I find it hard to believe it was zinc – more likely tin, but it was full sized and big enough that me and my sister could sit at either end.

We all had one then except Edie-West-Next-Door, who had converted their outhouse into an internal bathroom.  Ours had to be filled with hot water from a boiler in the outhouse which my dad lugged in buckets to teem between us as we sat in front of the fire.

The fire, of course, was coal and sometimes we had two, one in the living room and an occasional one in the front room.  My dad would make this by carrying fire on a dustpan from the living room.  When we needed a fire from cold you needed to “build” one, a skill I’ve never forgotten.  Scrunched up paper, kindling, bigger sticks, coal.  Once the kindling took you drew it up by holding a sheet of newspaper over the fireplace.  It needed watching for it browning.

This was Butler’s Hill, Hucknall (aka Little Moscow) in the 1950’s.  They bulldozed it down when I was nine. It was a privilege to have lived through it.