Back passages: laneways, vennels, alleys, and twittens

One spring, many years ago now, husband and I took our children on a tour called 'Back Passages of Brighton'. In Brit-speak, 'back passage' is a euphemism for the rectum and its anatomical environs, just as 'waterworks' refers to anything urinary. Grown-ups use these terms when talking to other grown-ups, not specifically to children ("Separated by a Common Language", Lynne Murphy). Getting back to back passages, as part of the annual Brighton Festival, we signed up for a tour with a knowledgeable guide who led us through the dark, high-walled intestines of the city, called 'twittens', narrow routes hidden from casual view. Generally they run behind buildings, parallel to roads. Hence, back passages. Giggle, giggle. Right.

But the term 'twitten' doesn't travel, even within the UK. In the northeast of England, such passageways are called vennels, which as far as I know, has no scatalogical implications. (Digression: my favourite café in Durham is called Vennels, which had the only espresso machine in town when I first visited, back in the Dark Ages. That's pretty much why I decided to take the job at Durham University. The machine had broken by the time I actually arrived to start work, and was not replaced for about, oh, a decade.)

In Los Angeles, the queenly city of the car, the closest analogue to twittens and vennels is the plain old alley, which to my mind has an unsavoury connotation, being the type of place where  Philip Marlowe encountered the bodies of victims and the perpetrators of crimes.

Here in Toronto, alleys are generally called laneways, and their star is rising. Our neighbourhood association   has taken particular interest in 'greening' its laneways, and they are becoming less back passage-y, less like crime scenes, and more appealing. In fact, some people are building 'laneway houses', small abodes usually converted from garages, whose front doors face 'backward' into the laneway rather than forward, toward the road.

Our own garage is still a garage, and we use our laneway to drive or cycle to and from home. Sometimes I realize days have gone by without my going out the front door.

It's a bit backwards, but it works.

Commune in a laneway. The Junction.

Working laneway. Behind Baldwin Street.

Hidden treasure in Baldwin laneway

Home sweet laneway. Harbord Village.