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Customs and Sayings

G

GER22VAN

master brummie
Is history really Boring ?  What follows are customs and facts from the 1500 's
It appeares that quite a number of people got married in June ( Not that it was the start of finer weather ) The real reason was that they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled fairly good by June. They were however beginning to have an odor, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.  So thats the custom of carrying a bouquet at the weddings of today.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.  The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the sons and men, then the women and finally the children, last of all the babies.  By this time the water was so dirty you could just about lose someone in there.
So then the saying came "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
 
In those days long gone they cooked in the kitchen, each day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. Their main diet was vegetables
and did not get much meat. At dinner they would eat the stew and leave the rest in the pot overnight to start again the next day.
Sometimes the stew had got food in it that had been there quite some time. As the rhyme go's " Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold.
peas porridge in the pot nine days old "
Sometimes they had a piece of pork, when visitors came they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could "Bring home the bacon" They would cut off a little to share and would all sit around and "Chew the fat"
Those with money had plates made of pewter, food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food causing lead poisoning and death. This happened more so in tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so they were considered poisonous.
 
Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled up high with no wood on the underside.  It was about the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats plus other small animals ( mice and bugs )lived in the roof. When it rained it became very slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.  So comes the saying " Its raining cats and dogs"
There was nothing to stop things falling into the house.  This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other nasty thing could mess up your nice clean bed.  then someone came up with a bed with four posts and a cover over the top to solve the problem.  Thats how the four poster came into being.
The floor was dirt , only the wealthy had a form of floor covering. So thats the origin of " Dirt Poor ".
The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery when wet so they so they covered them with thresh ( straw )
As winter came they added more thresh, then it got so when the door was opened it began slipping outside, so a piece of wood was placed in the doorway. So thats how a " Threshold" came into being.
 
There is another saying,
not quite as old as the others posted

"Anything for the week-end Sir?"
mostly said by the barber
 
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf.then came the family and they got the middle part of the loaf, the guests got the " upper crust".
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey and the combination would usually knock the drinkers out for a few days.
Someone walking along in the street would take them for being dead. They would be laid out on a table and prepared for burial and after the family would gather around then eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up. What became known as " holding a wake"
England was small and old and local folk began to start running out of places to bury the dead. The solution was to dig up the old grave and reuse it. So they would dig up these old coffins and take the bones to a "Bone house "
When reopening these coffins 1 in 25 bore scratch marks inside and they realized that they had been burying people alive. To try to aviod this they would tie a piece of string to the deceased wrist, place it through the coffin and up through the ground then tie it to a bell, someone would have to sit in the graveyard all night " Graveyard shift " to listen for the bell, someone could be " Saved by the bell "or was considered a " Dead ringer"

Thats the truth, is history boring? certainly frightening at times.
SLEEP WELL FOLKS !!
 
Sorry Gervan, but I don't find it amusing for you to decribe my house to all and sundry on a public forum.......Huff......
 
Frantic. Please , Please excuse me, its my age.
l too - Aint got time to fix the shingles
Aint got time to fix the floor
Aint got time to oil the hinges
Nor to mend the window pane

Ernie.
 
re sayings

I just replyed to a thread.and said having a benny,i have not said that for
years.remember him.or that saying. pete
 
sayings

Last summer,i was walking through a caravan site,there was two men sitting on a bench chomping sarnies.One of them said look we both have bad hands,He held up a massive sarnie.i have not heard that before
pete
 
re sayings

Ernie.no nor me i wanderd what he was on about.he come from dudly.and when i spoke to him.he said yo am a brummy.yo dont come from here.i said no from westmids.great chap,and some wierd sayings.
 
Is there any differents between the Black Country and Brummies ? I guess there must be a lot of differents by what you say Peter. Somebody once asked why was it called the " Black Country " and I said it was probably all the smoke, but I dont know if I was right.
 
re sayings

no ernie we are all the same.just speak dif.i hope they come this year.not many people come from brum here.it is nice to see and speak to english.i dont see many now,i must come home soon.i dont want to pop my clogs here ernie. pete
 
Pete. Can I ask where you live now ? We live in Peterborough so dont hear much Brummy said, but we love to hear the brummy accent. I have lost most of mine now.
 
re sayings

ERNIE.no probs i live in the n/wales mountings,10 miles from pwllhwli.on the Llyn peninsuar.i have been here 7years now moved from castle bromwich.
 
We don't get to Birmingham too often now so we dont hear the accent so much. Back in 1957 my wife ( then my girlfriend of coarse ) could hardly understand a word I was saying ( I could never understand her Father - Cambridgeshire Fen Accent) I guess it was my accent that attracted her to me.
 
I lost my temper once with the Father in law about the fact that I said I could drink a bottle full of water and he said that I could not. Well I only simmered down when I realised exactly what I had said.
 
re sayings

My dad was from derby,he spoke broad derbishire,mom was from ward end.how they understood each other in a row i dont know.mom said some daft things.as sayings.
 
peter martin said:
ERNIE.no probs i live in the n/wales mountings,10 miles from pwllhwli.on the Llyn peninsuar.i have been here 7years now moved from castle bromwich.
Click to expand...

Hi pete. two of my brothers moved to Wales one in Abersoch the other in Tywyn . I visit there regular and in tywyn i was amused to find there were more brummies than welsh living there :shocked:
 
peter martin said:
treasa. i live up the lane to abersoch.
Click to expand...
Ahh beautiful place my brother lives near the Harbour, he moved there from brum about 13 yrs ago. He worked in the jewellry quarters and still does it from home today. They send him the work up there.
 
Just been watching " Ice Road Truckers " and one driver mentioned his trip as the " Gravy Train " meaning the gravy brought in the money. Has any heard of that expression before ?
 
re saings

ernie yer get on the gravey train and bring in the wonga,i might go to gwelly in a bit, so if i vanish nos da ,dialch yn fawr for chat
 
PETER. Keep your cool, they only beat you if you let them. Life is " TOO SHORT" to let things get you down. I am sure you are a very nice chap and dont deserve to feel like that.
 
:MusicMarchingBand:anyone heard the saying the whole nine yards,
it,s a yank saying if thats a clue?
there were a lot of them about way back.
regards dereklcg.
 
Customs & Sayings

Pete Martin, I remember years ago when my son was about 3 years old, we were walking round the Reservoir eating ice cream cornets, when a lady said to him you've got a bad hand, and he started to cry, I must admit I hadn't heard that expression before then - 1962.
 
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