Big idea for smallest room

Isaw something this week that made me laugh – then made me think. And it’s not very often these days that you can say either of those things individually, let alone in the same sentence. There I was, at a concert in a church hall in North Berwick – my other half knows how to show a girl a good time.

After a cheery first half singing along to the mostly long-forgotten hits of such operetta favourites as Oscar Straus and Sigmund Romberg (those household names), the interval arrived.

Being an audience of a certain vintage (I took the age demographic down by about a decade and a half, which shows you just how venerable it was), we started to troop en masse, not just towards the reviving tea, coffee and vino on offer, but towards what I once heard described in a tour of the archaeological remains of some mediaeval monastery (I have such an interesting social diary, don’t you think?), as the necessarium.

And you ask what the Romans ever did for us.

Be that as it may, I stood in the queue you always find for the ladies’, did the necessary (the clue being in the name) and on the way out noticed a cheerful and brightly coloured message on the door.

“This toilet”, it proclaimed, “is twinned with…” and to my shame, I can’t remember the exact name but it was a location in Africa.

It made me smile for a moment, thinking about all the daft, puninducing fun that could be had connecting up your cludgie with similar structures in suitably-named spots such as Kalimpong, Craponne or good old Steeple Bumpstead.

A bit like the twinning of towns such as Dull in Scotland with Boring in America and Bland in Australia.

But of course, there was more to it than that.

Now, there is a lot of debate going on at the moment about signage and using of loos, particularly those in public places in our advanced and supposedly civilised society.

Arguments are raging about whether they are – or should be – duo-loos or same-sex lavvies, gender-neutral or inclusive washrooms or just good old bog-standard Ladies’ or Gents’.

Identifying as one or the other isn’t as simple as it was once probably believed to be and practicality is currently doing its best to follow and accommodate social change.

There are serious, if often difficult to decipher, points to be made about such facilities for the comfort and security of all and no less about the availability of changing place toilets, specially designed for those with disabilities, that offer more space and specialised equipment.

Look at the ruckus over provision at the new Dundee railway station in recent times.

Loos are news, it would seem. There’s even a World Toilet Day in November every year.

Don’t worry, by the way – I am finding my way back, if by a somewhat circuitous route, to the subject of toilet-twinning.

At home, house-buying is now dominated by the need for en suites, a concept of which most of us were still happily ignorant little less than a couple of decades ago.

You lived in a house.

According to some figures, more than two billion people worldwide live without what we take for granted

It had a bathroom. If you were lucky, it was inside.

Later in the process, if you were particularly lucky, you might have another wee room with a loo and washhand basin, in case of mass desperation during large-scale family visits or those old-fashioned social gatherings known as “parties”.

Nowadays, as a young person of my acquaintance once remarked when she, her parents and sister moved into a five-bathroom home: “We’ve got more toilets than we’ve got bottoms.”

Yet outwith the home, it’s difficult to go into a bar, restaurant, theatre or whatever these days without encountering a long queue for the Ladies’.

For the Gents’, not so much, as I understand it tends to be a speedier process.

As for finding a public toilet – and then, if you find one, finding it open – that’s another story.

No restrooms for the wicked, after all.

But all joking aside, if it’s an issue of public health and amenity here, imagine what it’s like in places with fewer options about any kind of sanitary provision, at home or in public.

That’s where toilet-twinning comes in.

When I looked it up, I found an initiative by a British-based Christian organisation called Tearfund which aims to help those in poverty all over the world.

As an organisation or individual, you make a donation to twin your toilet with one to be provided in a village in a poor community, meaning that its inhabitants – and women and girls in particular – have a safe, hygienic facility close to home.

As someone who has no form of faith, even I can see that this is a good idea. It seems to cost about 60 quid. According to some figures, more than two billion people worldwide live without what we take for granted.

A small gesture re the smallest room? Toilet humour is all very well – and you’ve had plenty of it here.

Toilet-twinning? Sounds to me like the way to go.

Picture: PA. Making room... toilet twinning is an initiative which deserves to be a success.