Polish toilets - scarred or is that wiped for life!

Stan Krawczyk • 24 November 2019

Field toilets and the Głowno yellow rain incident.

I always seem to remember my toilet experiences in Poland, probably because they were quite stressful to a me between the ages of 5 and 11! But funny too!

I found this photo (above) I am fairly sure its a cousin's house in Głowno Poland that I visited one summer with mum mid 1970's.  I must have been about 6? 
I loved it there, it was in the middle of a forest (I have frantically google- earthed it but can't quite remember where it is?) But I digress back to potty shenanigans.

It was a medieval type prairie house (if there is such a term) . Wooden, no electricity or running water inside. No inside loos either! 
 
In the back was a large courtyard, where my cousin messed about with motorbikes, I can still smell the petrol.  

He actually took me for a ride into town on the back of the bike through the forest, to say I was petrified was an understatement. 
It was only a teeny 50hp lawn mower sized engine moped, popular in Poland back then Romet Komar, but he dreamed of a Kawasaki. 
Riding on the back of a bike at seemingly light speed with trees coming towards you is not my idea of fun.

One side of this courtyard was a very large wooden toilet block.

It was about 5 feet high, you walked up via steps to the top where there is a bit of a boardwalk then a bank of doors  (think about 6). You opened one of the doors and there was just a flat timber raised boxed in board with a hole in the middle for the poops to drop in, nice eh!  The smell..............  the flies!

The reason it was so high because the lower part is actually a cess tank a very large one!  I can't find any photos on t'internt so will draw a picture another time, anyway being a small boy I was scared I could fall in there or something would bite my bottom (yes yes I know but I was 6!)  so I didn't like going but when I did, I found I could actually hold my breath for longer than I ever anticipated, bonus. 

Once a month the poops man would turn up with a tanker, open the floor at the front of the toilet block which hinged up, drop a large pipe in there and suck the poops up. Apparently once day he fell in and nearly drowned! Horrible but funny at the same time! 

(Imagine the truck below as a tanker instead)
Toilet trips were very stressful! 

One night I had gone to bed in the house, but after a few hours I needed to go for a wee.
It must have been around 11pm?

I didn't want to go outside in the pitch black, house I was not familiar with, to that toilet block I was a bit scared. 

We are in the middle of a forest with nothing around but 1 street lamp in front of the house (near my bedroom- I was at the front) that was the only light, not even a candle but then I was 6 they won't let me play with matches.  

They did actually leave an enamel potty for me in the room and a traditional type water jug however because it was so dark I could not find them anywhere?  

A Krawczyk is not going to be beaten by this situation especially since my bladder was reaching critical mass by now,  all I could think was to open the window, (a very small double shutter type) I managed to get myself in position and off I went - ooooh if you only knew the relief! 

To this day I remember all of this vividly.

At that moment I heard 2 people walking past the house (where too I have no idea, there was a rough dirt road in front that passed the house!) anyway I heard one of them say' Oh did you feel that, I think its raining!"  Nuff said. 


During another trip out to the countryside with another cousin she had my favourite ever car FSO Warszawa Garbus (below - that's her) but that's a blog in its own right - I am a petrol head. 

When you are very young it seems you need to wee and poop quite a lot,  but anyway we are driving out for miles in the Warszawa, (me bouncing around on the huge rear seat no seat belts of course) when I really REALLY need to go. 


We stop the car.


In the countryside I remember there being wooden toilets every now and again (have you ever seen Mr Beans Holiday where he sits in a wooden loo by the side of the road) well that's what it was like!!! 


I went in but the smell was so bad and hundreds of flies (its effectively a hole in the ground with a wooden hut around it for your modesty).  I just couldn't handle that so ended up going out behind a bush. 


Oh hang on no loo roll? Ok fortunately nearby leaves were of a suitable size and durability! I am very good at improvising on the spot it's a Krawczyk thing. 


I am the person to be stuck on a desert island with. Before long I would have built a small town from available materials complete with shopping complex and cafes!  Of course you have to put up with my boring stories .....



I told you scarred for life by toilet events from an early age.

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