Yes pit ponies lived underground most if not all their lives - used for pulling carts of coal about on tramlines laid in the mines. Grim conditions! I recommend you googling such things - those times are not so long ago really and many people have no idea, assuming the forebears have always lived as we do now. It is a recent thing, this absolute LUXURY we have these days - I mean luxury compared to the norm just 100 or 150 years back, even 60 years ago, really. The house I grew up in had the toilet outside, admittedly off the back veranda so access was all covered. But it was a house by itself, not shared, not attached to the neighbours, had its own small land around it - big for these days though! Mum grew up in the same house (she and Dad bought it from her parents when they retired) - it was built about 1920 I THINK. Dawn __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6935 (20120303) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com