I was talking about toilet parlours with J, and she mentioned that when she was a teenager there was still an old fashioned Ladies’ Retreat in Melbourne where, not only could you go to the toilet, you could change if you were going out with friends after school – she went to school in Prahran, and her parents lived in Eltham meaning a journey of over an hour each way – and do your makeup etc.

Long gone now, but it perhaps help explain the origins of the term Toilet Parlour, toilet of course originally meaning the act of dressing and preparing oneself: to make one’s toilet…