Originally Posted by Del Boy

Aussie Nick - I was not referring to the expression, only the use of the word 'dunny' in it. This is the slang bit I thought was Aussie, as we have never used the word here, traditionally. I was just making the point that I have only heard it used in Aussie references.

That's why i thought the expression we are searching for related to Sydney rather than London. The answer will reveal all!

Oh yeah mate, dunny is used all the time. No idea of the background to it though.

I had great family friends here yesterday, over from Brisbane, but I didn't like to raise the question ; wouldn't been pretty uncool I reckon, even though they didn't seem very captivated by Sydney! Oh, and they were ladies!

Shane Warne is playing here again for Hampshire, but this is the football season, so i won't be seeing him ( he's a big hero here), so I've run out of Aussie sources. I used to have a number of Australian customers, and I used employ some good guys in London, by the day, from the Overseas Club. We had a strong Aussie area in Earls Court then. I bet they would have known!

This might be way off target but didn't Sydney have some fairly major sewage/odour issues around the 1870s and with Hyde Park being close to the harbour it may just be a piece of proximity slang so to speak.

Sounds a possibility.