This reminds me of the Terror Toilet of RAF Brize Norton...

It's 1977, and I'm on a Canadian Forces Boeing 707 full of military families bound for the Germany garrison. Soldiers, airforce folks, wives (no civilian husbands that I could see), and lots of small children. Commercial airlines typically configure the 707 with two seats on the port side and three on the starboard side, just so nobody comes down with the screeching heebies. The CF, in its infinite wisdom, has our 707s rigged for maximum load, with three seats on each side of the aisle and the minimum legspace. Imagine the pleasure of a trans-Atlantic flight in your number one uniform, packed into the window seat like an agoraphobic sardine with an exhausted young mum carrying a screaming baby beside you, and a bored six-year-old kicking your seat from behind.

CF trooping flights are supposed to stage through Gatwick, but the British air traffic controllers are on strike -- a common event in those days. So we land at RAF Brize Norton, the strategic military airhead for southern England.

Close to three quarters of the passengers on the Canadian Forces plane are female, many with small children in tow. All the children have been up all night and many are snivelling; some are just plain howling. Exactly one door in the arrivals area of the Air Movements Unit terminal bears the international symbol for a ladies' washroom. Racing ahead of a finance clerk and a nursing officer, I fling it open. It contains one -- count 'em, one -- toilet and a tiny sink. No row of gleaming stalls. No changing table (what a notion).

About six feet away is a door marked with the international symbol for a men's washroom. As the 30 or so male passengers from our flight flock through it, I note that the interior features a double row of gleaming stalls and an extensive counter surface conveniently co-located with about a mile of sinks.

The nursing officer -- obviously a born leader -- commandeered the gents' loo. I'm not sure the Air Movements staff knew what hit them.