For whom the cap fits

When I first started caravanning we used, like most others, a “bucket and chuck it” Elsan for the loo. If it had any advantage over more modern day toilets, it was that it had immense capacity, which was very handy for a family of four.

We soon started rallying with the Club and swiftly moved up to a ‘proper’ (PortaPotti) loo, with flush and a sealed lower tank for the nasty stuff. If you rallied in those days it was not uncommon to find that toilets were emptied into a pit, or ‘soak-away’, that the rally marshal had kindly provided in a low corner of the field. Some of these were dug by machinery and were very deep, especially for larger rallies. After a bit of practice I became quite adept at emptying our new loo tank and could quickly remove the cap with one simple flourish. At the end of rally there is an understandable demand for such a facility, so speed was of the essence as onlookers were queuing up behind.

On one occasion my cap did not come off very cleanly and flew up in the air, hit the ground still spinning, and ran off in a large circular arc to rest only inches from the edge of the pit some distance from me. I wasn’t concerned if it would’ve sunk or not, had it gone an inch further, but realised that it had been a close shave and I’d have been stuffed for the rest of the rally without one. There was no way anyone would’ve been able to fish it out again, on the surface or not.

Having learned from experience, I bought a spare cap, just in case. It was a good job that I did, for I am sure it saved me from further disaster, just like taking an umbrella can keep away the rain you had assumed inevitable.

There was a later rally when someone kicked their cap into a manhole drain. I was able to immediately offer my spare one up as a replacement, of course, and was a temporary hero. I don’t know why, but he decided to come back and try to recover said cap after the rally had finished and, somehow, managed to recover not just one cap but two!

Only he knows how he managed to recognise his own, but I don’t believe he ever found an owner to claim the other. Was it your’s?

I have kept an extra cap to this day but still hope that I’ll never need it. I’ve always been very careful, since, to place my cap carefully on the ground and away from where it could be knocked into a disposal point. Heed my advice. I’m sure there’s a moral there, somewhere.