Those were the hard old days
Sir: Quentin Letts’s article on Izal and Bronco toilet paper (Modern Life, June issue) brought back memories of my time in Libya. When Colonel Gaddafi took over the running of the country, one of the items he banned importation of was toilet paper. This was because he decreed that no self-respecting bedouin had any need for the such niceties. It was therefore necessary for our company to hand-carry large packages of the infidels’ bog rolls when entering the country. One hapless incomer decided to economise on the purchase by buying a huge pack of Izal. One American employee labelled the stuff as ‘John Wayne Paper’ because, in his words, ‘It looked tough, felt rough and wouldn’t take s**t off nobody.’ Robin Wrigley, Verwood, Dorset.
SIR: I greatly enjoyed Quentin Letts’s scholarly piece on bum care. My only reservation was that he failed to mention that invaluable standby for the less well heeled – the pages of the Daily Mirror.
Perhaps, I could mention my own small part in the demise of Bronco? In the 1950s, as a young officer, I wrote in the ‘Members’ Comments’ book in the Cavalry Club that ‘as lavatory paper technology had made giant strides in recent years, could not the Club’s worthy Bronco be replaced with something less abrasive?’ It was. Roland Fernsby, Furneux Pelham, Hertfordshire.
SIR: Quentin Letts’s article on Izal and Bronco brought back many memories. As a young child, we had the traditional outside ‘thunderbox’ and used squares of the Radio Times as loo paper. Then my father transferred his allegiance to Izal and to the end of his life would allow no other toilet paper in the house. Even when we got that wonder of wonders – an inside bathroom and toilet – Izal reigned supreme. In 1972 I came back to England from Sri Lanka with my children, and my five-year-old daughter visited Grandma’s loo. When she came out she sidled up to me and whispered, ‘Mummy, why does Grandma have airmail toilet paper?’
(Mrs) Chris Gordon, Boston, Lincolnshire.
SIR: Further to Quentin Letts’s memories of the little room: Government
Property paper had a shiny side and a rough side. We in the Army knew that the shiny side was for officers and the rough for ORS. Owen Taylor, Snodland, Kent.
SIR: Quentin Letts’s Olden Life article in
The Oldie reminds me of a John Betjeman parody I read some while past. It was written by Alan Bennett. Here I sit alone at sixty, Bald and fat and full of sin, Cold the seat and loud the cistern, As I read the Harpic tin. Mick Barber, Carlisle.