I’m trying to get my nephews into the habit but it doesn’t seem to be succeeding since they think the whole thing is an interruption in their daily lives anyway and try to avoid the bathroom as long as possible. To combine THAT with reading is too much for a sensible eight-year-old to bear!

Scholars believe that bathroom reading is relatively new, since most outhouses did not have the space to permit the inhabitants to read in comfort. However the Roman baths did have libraries so that senators could exercise their minds. Then there’s the Life of St Gregory which recommends the solitude of a garderobe in a medieval monastery where one can read about higher things without fear of interruption and so rise above crude bodily functions.

A collection of abridged literary works which had been published in 1991 under the title ‘Compact Classics’ didn’t raise a stir until it was reissued under a new title, The Great American Bathroom Book, whereupon it promptly sold a million copies. Which proves how successful the concept of loo literature actually is — even though few people get down to talking about it!