Although I was confident these foundations belonged to a shower block, it took some time to identify the official abbreviation used by the Army on maps and plans during the World War II period. The term SAL appears frequently in military documentation of the era and was commonly used to denote facilities associated with hygiene and sanitation. Some branches of the Army and possibly sections of the wider community, may still recognise the abbreviation today.

SAL stood for Showers and Latrines, a practical shorthand used to identify combined washing and toilet facilities within camps and battery sites.

The abbreviation has also been associated with informal soldier slang, where it was jokingly reinterpreted in less flattering ways, such as “Shit At Life”, a nickname given to a soldier who seemed to fail at everything.