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| Ancestor Gateway Forum - STAMFORD MEMORIES GATEWAY (Lincolnshire England) used as PRIDE and PREJUDICE FILM SET | New Topic | Search |
| Thread Topic: CHAMBER POTS Topic Originator: Mike Laughton Post Date August 27, 2017 @ 9:33 AM |
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| Mike Laughton |
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In the days before indoor toilets, bathrooms and en-suites everybody would have a chamber pot in their bedrooms - in case they wanted to "go" during the night. Sometimes the chamber pot would be enamel but most were made of porcelain. The chamber pot had several nicknames - the pisspot, guzunder (because it goes under the bed) and the Jerry (because it resembled a World War I German helmet. There were often joke chamber pots on sale containing little rhymes or eyes painted on the bottom of the inside. And, of course, being British, the chamber pot was the subject of much humour. Sometimes at a party, somebody would pour a couple of pints of bitter into a chamber pot and challenge other people to drink from it. The well-known actor and screen-writer Colin Welland (who would go on to write Chariots of Fire) even wrote a chamber pot joke into the script for his film YANKS made in the late 1970s. The film was about American soldiers stationed in the North of England during World War II. Early in the film the Yanks were introduced to a popular northern drink called half-and-half - half mild half bitter in a pint pot. Later in the film an American bangs on the door of the pub long after closing time demanding to be served "Half and half" With that the landlord pours the contents of his chamber pot over the soldier from his bedroom window calling out: "There you are - half-and-half - half's mine and the other half is from the Missus!" Some more of my favourite chamber pot jokes will follow. |
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| Mike Laughton |
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Another name for the chamber pot was the Poe. I have no idea where that word came from. Apparently the chamber pot was called a Jerry because early on during the wartime years there was a poster campaign about keeping your mouth shut which read "Beware the Jerry under the Bed". It had a picture of a bedroom with a German soldier hiding under the bed. Two of my favourite chamber pot jokes. 1. I was conceived during an air-raid in the Second World War. My mam and dad were laying in bed together when they heard the sound of aeroplane engines overhead. My dad turned to me mam. He said: "Jerry's over again." She said: "Never mind, I'll mop it up in the morning." 2. A salesman booked into a local hotel hotel and when he entered the room he saw his chambermaid was a buxom young blonde girl. He gave her a hefty tip and got her to promise she'd bring him breakfast in bed the following morning. Morning came and there was a knock on the door. In walks the night porter with his breakfast on a trolley. The salesman groaned and said: "Where's the chambermaid?" The porter said: "Dunno! But the teapot's made in Stoke on Trent." |
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| Michael Eames |
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Mike- Apparently 'po' is an abbreviation from French 'pot de chambre'. This fits in well with your two jokes! |
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| Peter Leatherbarrow |
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I hope there's no connection with Chamber music! Nor Aliss Chambers! |
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