Hard soap, cleaning the silver and secrets of the outside toilet

Hard soap
Soap was always bought long before you needed it and stored so that it went hard, this way it lasted longer. There was no toilet soap then, you washed and cleaned the house with yellow household soap.
Georgina Attrell - Backyard Brighton

Cleaning the silver
There was no stainless steel in those days. Knives had to be cleaned on an emery board, which you sprinkled with a red powder. You rubbed the knives on it and then polished them up with a cloth. Forks, spoons and plated silver were cleaned with Goddards Plate Powder, which you mixed in a saucer of water. It's still on sale now, but comes ready-mixed. I use it today on a teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl, which were wedding gifts and are now over sixty-years old.
Marjory Batchelor - A Life Behind Bars

Outside toilets
An old earth bucket was the order of the day for the outside toilet. The men had to dig holes and bury the contents in a plantation on the plot of ground above the cottages in what are now the grounds of the chapel.
Margaret Ward - One camp chair in the living room

Toilet paper was very basic, consisting of newspaper cut into squares. A piece of string was threaded through a hole in the corner and this would hang from a nail... There was toilet soap and toilet rolls in the bathroom eventually, but in the outside toilet there were never hand-washing facilities.
Marjory Batchelor - A Life Behind Bars