Bronco toilet tissue (Letters, 12 July) was manufactured by the British Patent Perforated Paper Company in Hackney Wick before the war and sold millions worldwide. I worked in the office from November 1938 until my call-up in 1941. Raw paper was mostly imported from Sweden, so war supplies were hampered, but production kept going. Sometime in 1940 we had a letter advising the printing of a photo of Hitler on each sheet, a suggestion not accepted, but not without discussion. Bronco and Izal were manila-based papers that did not dissolve in water, so were unsuitable in postwar sewers.
Martin Sheldon
Oxford
• In the 1930s Izal would interweave into their toilet rolls small slips which children used to collect. These slips featured nursery rhymes and full sets could be sent to the massive Thorncliffe works of Newton Chambers (north Sheffield) where Izal disinfectant was first distilled in the 1890s. In return children were sent a book called Rhyme Time.
Sylvia Dunkley
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
• As a keen child artist in the 1950s with an insatiable need for drawing paper, my thrifty mother suggested I draw on the matt side of Izal, perfect for my copious friezes and narrative drawings. I have also read that the great artist Stanley Spencer found it suitable for writing down his lengthy streams of thoughts and ideas.
Lin Aldridge
Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire
• When I visited the Dounreay power station in 1969, my disappointment at not being allowed to enter the actual nuclear reactor was offset by bringing back some toilet paper stamped “UKAEA” (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority).
Win Wood
Dalgety Bay, Fife
• The Northumberland holiday house that my family rented in 1936 had Izal lavatory paper, “medicated with Izal germicide”, with this rhyme: “An errant kite, / A thorny tree, / A nasty scratch, / Now let me see, / Some Izal would improve that knee”.
David Cairns
London
• At my Essex primary school in the 1950s, if you knew you would need paper when using the outside toilets, you had to ask the teacher. She then handed out two sheets of hard, shiny paper. Usually not quite enough.
Peta Benson
Holt, Norfolk
• Please, no more Izal letters. Surely you’ve reached the bottom.
Richard Ellerker
Warboys, Cambridgeshire
