I think there was a time carole, when you got money, pots or something similar in exchange for rags.
I have a memories of the ‘Rag and bone man’ being mentioned.
X
I have memories of the rag and bone men being mentioned, I think today they are now called ‘scrap men’ don’t think they ‘offer’ payment now either!!
I’ve been trying to rack my brains for something for this thread, unfortunately I’m a bit brain dead at the moment, will get there eventually.
There was money in rags for the mills.
They mixed the rags with cotton or wool to make shoddy for cheap cloth. Such as service uniforms in the first war.
Us folk in north wa good mill workers yah knows
when we asked mum "Whats for tea " we would get the reply A walk round the table and a bite of the leg,i would lve to know the origin of this.
Or when one of us would say IF she would say
If ,ifs and ans were pots and pans there,d be nay work for tinkers.
Barbara.xx
if one of us said that she thought …
mum would say “you know what thought did”
one day we asked what thought did.
answer “he followed t’muck cart and thought it was a wedding”.
then we had to ask what the muck cart was!
(pretty gross)
poor mum must have wished she’d never said anything.
carole x
Just remembered when I was little I used to ask my grandma to tell me a story at bedtime and she say only if you don’t speak in the middle of it! Then I would wait and she would say nothing so I would ask her to tell me the story and she would say I spoke in the middle of her story, kiss me good night and go down stairs!!
and If I said to my mam you know what? She would reply not personally but I think he invented the light bulb!!!
My grandad used to say “put the wood in the hole” when he wanted the door shut.
My mother would say. " look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves"
closely followed by my dad saying " you’ll have money when it’s gone out of fashion"
Jan x
You are right, of course, Carole.
This thread just got me to thinking whether Dad had any catchphrases, and he didn’t have many, but two that sprang to mind were: “Don’t worry it may never happen”, and: “You’ve got to go of something.” It just seemed a bit ironic that someone whose advice had always been not to worry ended up getting such a raw deal.
It doesn’t make his advice wrong - it just seems a cruel twist of fate that someone who’d always tried to encourage others not to worry, and keep things in perspective, ended up getting really a rare thing that was the stuff of nightmares.
Of course, it wouldn’t have made his life better if he had worried about it. We were lucky to have had so many years with no idea what was in store (I feel the same about my MS). I don’t think it always helps to know what’s coming - we might not do anything with our lives!
Tina
x
I’ve just remembered my grandad saying, of anything particularly moreish and easy to eat, that it: “slides down like a wheelbarrow”. I’ve never heard anyone else use the phrase, and always used to wonder about it, because swallowing a wheelbarrow sounds far from easy! An odd comparison.
He also used to have, not exactly a phrase, but I suppose a sort of mannerism, which was the exclamation: “Byyyyyyy!”
Not to say goodbye to somebody. “Byyyyyyy!” was an exclamation of surprise or amazement, a bit like: “You don’t say!”, or that descending whistle some people do.
I’ve always wondered if it was a regional thing, as although he was a Londoner - never came from further afield than Twickenham - his people originally came from Norfolk. So I wonder if: “Byyyyyyy!” has its origins in rural Norfolk?
Tina
x
tina’s post just brought loads of dialect to mind.
the following are spelt phonetically
“sithi jimmy put t’prewin stones on t’ess hole”
“look here jimmy put the prune stones on the hearth (ash hole)” = translation
a rich heritage we have!!
carole x
ha ha! i’ve become a thomas myself.
usually because i got in the wrong lane and its either an unscheduled jaunt to blackpool or do a thomas!
carole x
Morning.
I remember when my younger brother was quite young. He said this swear word in the house.
Now, trying to tell a child not to say a word once they’ve said it, is difficult. At a certain age, they just don’t understand about bad words. He’d obviously picked it up in school.
We, his older sisters convinced him that the word ‘ornament’ was a very bad word and you must never say it. Well, after that if couldn’t get his own way, guess what we got called…bless
X
also small children (some of them) will use the bad word for fun.
my two boys were age 2 and 3 when they used to meet a 3 year old neighbour to go behind the garages to swap new swear words.
shouldn’t imagine that they said “ornament”!
my nephew at age 3 wouldn’t stop saying that rhyme “tarzan in the jungle got belly ache, looking for a toilet, pppppth too late”
his mum couldnt get serious about it because she used to sing the same thing (me too).
carole x
i haven’t managed to get to my laptop for a few days, it’s brilliant to see so many great posts, it’s really put a grin on my face. whenever we were noisy as kids, we were told ‘wheesht’, which means ‘be quiet’! i think it came to her via her welsh heritage?! it was my ‘go to’ word whenever i needed my daughter to hush up, it just kind of popped out automatically. i recently asked her if she thought she’d use the word with her kids, and she thought that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself, it helps that it came from her favourite grandparent, of course.
wendy xx