From Paul Tester, author of “The All Day Girls“, in the third installment of his Notting Hill carnival sightings.
The carnival had almost finished and that year the police had forced all the pubs to close early, at I think 6 p.m.
I was standing outside a closed pub where I had arranged to meet a friend, when a blonde girl, about 18, wearing a very short dress, tried to get into the pub. Finding the door firmly locked, she turned to her friends and said “Oh no! I must find a loo, I’m seriously fucking desperate, it’s not a joke”
Dragging her two friends behind her she set of back into the main, crowded, carnival area, and went into a chip shop, first open place they came to and I could see her arguing with the owner, who was shaking his head and more or less ignoring her as he had a shop full of customers, and clearly he was not going to let her us the shop toilet.
Looking very stressed, she came out and next approached a policeman, and I could see her pleading with him, presumably asking for directions to a Ladies. He was not interested, and vaguely indicated further up the road, in the direction she was walking.
The blonde was having difficulty in walking now and almost staggering along the crowded pavement, at last she found a temporary Ladies, but, of course, there was a queue waiting to get into it. She had to join the queue, biting her lip and looking very anxious, but not, to my surprise, doing any more ‘pee holding actions’ like crossing he legs or holding her crotch.
It was difficult to believe that she was ‘seriously fucking desperate,’ but she was because she suddenly said something to her friends behind her in the queue, and ran off into a small side road, with few people in it. There, without hesitation, she couched in the gutter and pulling down her tiny white knickers, had the pee she so badly wanted. Her friend had followed her and looked on in amazement, as anyone would seeing, girl of her age taking a pee in such a public place.
Why did she do this when she was only a few minutes away from a proper Ladies? And had not been showing or acting as if she was really desperate. I can only presume that she was a girl who would never consider holding he crotch to help her wait and without such help she could no longer contain her need to pee. She must have felt herself losing control and had only one choice: squat in the street and pee, or pee in her knickers. It did cross my mind that with the short dress she was wearing she could have peed down her legs, going through her tiny knickers, and probably nobody would have known. It was a hot day, and her knickers would have dried quickly.
From the way she was squatting, with her dress pulled up round he waist and her knickers down round her knees, she did not look experienced at peeing in the street. I she had been she might have simply pulled the crotch of her knickers aside and let her pee pour out without revealing so much.