WELCOME to the THORNE GRAMMAR SCHOOL Website, including Imported Blogs from the old Multiply Site, and the Complete Image Archive (see "View Gallery" below the thumbnails on this page).
WELCOME to the THORNE GRAMMAR SCHOOL Website, including Imported Blogs from the old Multiply Site, and the Complete Image Archive (see "View Gallery" below the thumbnails on this page).
Don't know about the Swedish way of life but the language is not Swedish but Danish.Regards,Peter.
ReplyDeletePeter, Det har Du förstås rätt i, men vi kan knappast vänta oss att Keith skulle veta skillnaden mellan dansk och ärans och hjältarnas språk. Nu undrar han vad i helvetet det är som vi tjatar om.
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteYou continue to underestimate the power of modern technology. It took just 15 seconds to produce the attached, thanks to IMtranslator. And why worry about the difference. I recall the comment by my old friend Per Agrell that Danish is to Swedish what Glaswegian is to English!
"Peter, it is understood you right, but we can hardly expect that Keith would know the difference between Danish and the honor and chivalry language. Now he wonders what the hell it is that we went on about."
K
Bravo Keith and modern technology! I saw some machine translation years ago and it was unusable, but it seems great progress has been made.Only twos slight criticisms - it would be more literal and idiomatic to say "Of couse you're right" and more poetic to say honour and heroes.I'm glad I'm not 60 years younger,I'd be unemployable.
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteOf course, you are right, but it would have taken perhaps an extra minute to edit the translation. What you see is the raw product. As I said to Peter in an e-mail, it was the forbidding grey apartment block that made me think of Stockholm. When I think of Copenhagen, it's that stunning blond in the Tivoli Gardens 55 years ago!
Incidentally, anyone interested in the IMtranslator can find it at:
http://freetranslation.imtranslator.net/lowres.asp
I think it was Brian Lewis who introduced me to it - whatever happened to him ?
Keith
How about Keith changes the name to "The Scandinavian Way of Life" ? Ha det bra og takk (I didn't want Norwegian to be left out).
ReplyDeleteAnne
Kiitos Anne. Ihmettelen, jos IMtranslator voi antaa minulle suomeksi "menossa koko rahan edestä?"
ReplyDeleteIf I knew what the hell you were talking about, I might reply sensibly.
ReplyDeleteMinulla ei ole aavistustakaan
ReplyDeleteLooks as if Scandfinavian is cult at the moment.Ron,jeg troede ,at vi kunne mobbe Keith lidt da han ikke forstår en klap af det hele ,men når han har en snydeoversættelse,så går det ikke.Han kan også finsk minsandten! And we have a new actor...Anne Martindale.I seem to rember your name from somewhere Anne.Did you study at Newcastle University?But your Swedish is impressive,Ron.I suppose you speak Canadalian and Malteser as well.I think the reunion could be a lot of fun.Keith,your friend Per has misunderstood something---Swedish is not a language but a disease of the throat.Real Scandinavian is what used to be called "danska tunga" 1200 years ago and this has developed over the years into Danish,Norwegian,Færoese and Icelandic,Where Swedish turned up God only knows...you can see I'm not biased! Finnish is of course irrelevant in this context as a non Indo-european language.The only comment I have here is something I learned from my Finnish girlfriend Anneli 40 years ago---"en puhu ja ymmara suomea". Is that completely wrong,you language experts?...Peter
ReplyDeleteBy the way Ron,regarding Swedish as the language of chivalry and honour,I think you should reread about the Swedish behaviour under Karl x Gustav I think it was in 1658.Never in the history of human endeavour has honour been trodden so dastardly underfoot.Having said that I must admit that I love Sweden for 2 reasons...a) this is where the Danish Mountaineering club do most of our climbing,and b) they build the SAAB,which has been my preferred mode of transport for over 35 years.Perhaps c) Sweden is the easiest way to get to the mountains of Norway (for me anyhow).
ReplyDeletePeter, I wonder if you have'nt got the wrong language - I know that people who say "ibi indr Schwyz gsi" are told they have a throat affliction by those who think it should be "ich bin in der Sweiz gewesen" but Swedish is the Italian of the Scandinavian languages,melodious with its wide-open vowels, clear,clanging consonants,and two distinct "accents" which are actually tones. Danish, with its stöt and d-sounds smothered into "th" is the language of a surly dog intending to bark but settling for a low growl. Did you ever hear Jussi Björling sing in Danish? - he certainly thrived on Italian, and the only songs known to Danes are about farmers being told to take their wives with them when they go out to the krog "etter öl".
ReplyDeleteJust as Portuguese is the Danish of the romance languages. A carwash attendant used to ask me "Shtooff"? meaning
"E tudo fechado" is everything closed?)
Peter, I'm no philologist, but surely Swedish is much older than Danish - closer to the ancient Indo-European. Perhaps Danish was cooked up by some drunken Icelanders on their way home from the krog. Or on their way to "rulla Svenskerne i Nyhavn".
ReplyDeleteBut it's true that the Swedes made their presence felt in Europe long ago.I was told in a village deep in in Alsace that mothers still tell their children "You'd better behave or the Swedes will get you",
Apologies to all those who dropped off to sleep in the Gaff's Latin class as I dropped off in the maths lessons for turning this site into a language fight. Keith is to blame,or even that infamous south Wales resident who tried to tell us once that the welsh Ll was a guttural catahrral throat-clearing whereas it is in fact a gentle laterally exploded lingual fricative.
Really Ron,how can yousay that Swedish is melodious? Fair does though,Danish is admittedly not the most harmonios language in the world,that honour must go to English spokenby someone from the Hebrides,just as the ugliest sounds extant must be those issuing forth fro the mouth of a denizen of Belfast or Meanthug city (Glasgie to you).I have only heard Jussi singing in Italian...his early death was a tragedy by the by.Still now we've got Rolando Villazon and die Anna - don't you just love her?Regarding the glottal stop,it is only actually used in two restricted areas in Denmark...this is a misconception,like for example that German is a gutteral language or that Frensh is beautiful.(who says i*m not biased,bigotted even?)Sorry about my awful spelling - I never learned to use a typewriter and when I write without looking at the screen,the most awful rubbish turns up,but there are perhaps other reasons for that too.The funny Danish d sound has actually an impeccable genealogy: a) it's what's left of the Icelandic "thorn" and is inevitably a result of the second sound shift,which among other things has changed water to Wasser some places and apple to Apfel...which all goes to prove that you can't win 'em all.Keep smiling,Peter.
ReplyDeleteJust seen your missive of 12.32 PM Ron...Danish is older than Swedish,even the Swedes admit thit .Just read Bengtson's "The long Ships" - or ¨Röde Orm as the Swedes know it by.Here you have the Dane Rolf Krake emigrating to what we now call Sweden cos the land was COMPLETELY EMPTY.How much of this is genuine history is a moot point ,you see what I'm getting at?What you say about "behave or the Swedes will get you " is absolutely histirical,just think of such peaceloving regents as Gustavus Vasa,Karl X Gustav or Karl XII.Even the famous Wallenstein (according to Schiller) was planning to betray his Emperor to another peaceloving Swede,the General and Admiral Wrangel,who for my money is in the same league as Mugabe,Amin,Mao,Pol Pot ,Stalin and dear old Adolf.Apropos dropping off to sleep in the Gaff's Latin class - we were only 3 so we didn't dare.Peter.
ReplyDeleteOh and just remember "man får kun det sjov,man selv laver,ikke sandt?".
ReplyDeleteBy the way Ron,do you know the most famous Maltese in GB? He's called Stevie Haston.Ring a bell?
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Stevie - the name sounds like that of some pop singer in which case I wouldnt want to know him.I hope you get to hear a recording some day of Jussi singing Värmeland du sköna etc. Of course, I defer to your superior knowledge of the origins of the scand languages but still wonder why Danish seems to have lost some older forms that Swedish has retained. Perhaps that Danska tunga has survived better in Sweden than in DK? Stranger things have happened such as here, where whatever language was spoken originally was replaced by a north African dialect that had first rooted itself in Sicily before landing here. As for the stöt, is not one of the small areas Copenhagen, where more than a third of Danes live (tho it may have been imported from Jutland?)
ReplyDeleteI started to acquire my slight familiarity with Danish in the Tivoli Gardens listening to children who instead of dancing around and singing Jag ska dessa båda två sammamviga, du ska vara far,du ska vara mor o du ska vara tjänstepiga.....sang Jeg ska disse...etc and I think I was first drawn to the study of languages when I was five,
when my Dad,( who came from north Yorkshire) seeing some lads throwing stones and fearing for his greenhouse shouted Gi'ower firin' stanes and was answered We ain't firin stanes, we're chuckin' bricks.. Now the teacher would have said Stop throwing stones...so I grew up trilingual.
The reason why Danish has lost some of its older forms unlike Swedish is partly cos for over 300 years here it was not comme il faut to speak Danish.You spoke French to your friends,German to the servants and Danish to the dog.That answer some questions?Your story about your Dad reminds mew of similar situations when my grandad Pearson(who only left the environs of Donny 3 times in his 86 year old life)said things like "gå fetch a sti".I understood of course,but it wasn't until I started learning Danish that I realized that his English was part Danish.Its all very fascinating,but can youexplain why there are certain similarities between Swedish and Dutch of all things?Seems as if Denmark and Germanyare irrelevantCopenhagen by the way is considered by us Jutlanders to be half Swedish at least,and the part that isn't is the best part.An Old saying here is that if you are in Copenhagen and want to find a Jutlander,just ask for the Boss.This is borne out in my family where my eldest son found a wife in Copenhagen and within 5 years he is responsible for the budget of Greater Copenhagen(he is an economist by profession of course). Stevie Haston is not a pop singer tho' he would piss himself laffin' if he heard that.He is probably the greatest living British all round mountaineer.His cousin was Dougal Haston,the first Brit to stand on the top of Everest in 1975.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why Danish has lost some of its older forms unlike Swedish is partly cos for over 300 years here it was not comme il faut to speak Danish.You spoke French to your friends,German to the servants and Danish to the dog.That answer some questions?Your story about your Dad reminds mew of similar situations when my grandad Pearson(who only left the environs of Donny 3 times in his 86 year old life)said things like "gå fetch a sti".I understood of course,but it wasn't until I started learning Danish that I realized that his English was part Danish.Its all very fascinating,but can youexplain why there are certain similarities between Swedish and Dutch of all things?Seems as if Denmark and Germanyare irrelevantCopenhagen by the way is considered by us Jutlanders to be half Swedish at least,and the part that isn't is the best part.An Old saying here is that if you are in Copenhagen and want to find a Jutlander,just ask for the Boss.This is borne out in my family where my eldest son found a wife in Copenhagen and within 5 years he is responsible for the budget of Greater Copenhagen(he is an economist by profession of course). Stevie Haston is not a pop singer tho' he would piss himself laffin' if he heard that.He is probably the greatest living British all round mountaineer.His cousin was Dougal Haston,the first Brit to stand on the top of Everest in 1975.
ReplyDeletePS Your laterally exploded lingual fricative is in my opinion on of the most beautiful sounds in language.Our next door neighbour in Armthorpe was a girl from Rhosllanerchrugog,and I always loved her way of speaking English.I also has years ago a tape of Dylan Thomas reciring his " A Child's Christmas in Wales" - So beautiful you could cry.
ReplyDeleteNot Denmark. Not Sweden. Not Norway.
ReplyDeleteAny car owner living in a country with substantial winter snow will first open their car, get out the snow brush / ice scraper, perhaps start the engine to warm up the interior, and then scrape the snow and ice off.
Using a key,as the gentleman appears to do, is a definite no-no. It's England during that last snowstorm.
Mick.
Another unrelated thought- Back in 1960 I was hitch-hiking just south of Stockholm and headed for Copenhagen. It was getting dark and raining and I was sheltering at a gas station when another hitcher about my age also took shelter. Matti Mokkenen was from Finland and spoke no English but we both had a bit of German. Based on this we teamed up and I ended up staying with his grandfather in Copenhagen, smoking some pre war Woodbines, meeting several cousins, doing a park that I was told was the Danes preferred park to Tivoli but the name escapes me, and finally continuing back to England with a supply of those open faced Danish sandwiches that lasted me all the way home.
My apologies to Stevie.I know nothing about mountaineering,Peter, but I have great respect for mountaineers. And I did climb Popocatepetl -well l took the bus up to Amecameca and then walked an hour or so on rather level ground...and I also ascended Kilimanjaro- well, I mean I took an ancient Mercedes taxi from Arusha to Moshe and then strolled through the jungle for a while, and even ventured out of Bangor onto the lower slopes of Snowdon when there wasn't too much risk of rain..and actually got to the top of some nameless volcano in Guatemala, a feat resembling a walk up a south yorkshire coaltip.
ReplyDeleteIt's not surprising that the dominant merchants and sailors at one time, the Dutch, strewed a lot of words around.Wasn't it Peter the Great who wanted to get rid of low-down Russian and high-class French and make Dutch the national language - what a pity he didn't succeed ! But I'm rather glad KingWilly didn't try it on in England.
I'm still not convinced about the antiquity of Danish - was there really anything older than old Norse up there? My friend Peter Holgersen once summed up Scandinavian history for me in a typically Danish manner:"It all once belonged to Denmark, but they got away"
Anyway I think that there is nothing more strangled and worthy of strangulation than that mongrel, Skånska.You may think it is purified Swedish, I think it's putrified Danish.
Mick, I know about scraping snow and ice -I spen 25 winters in Quebec though I generally managed to get away for a month or so. Then, my hard labour sentence completed, I went to a place where February was the month when you had to take a moment to brush the mimosa flowers off your windscreen....I haven't always been lucky, but this was not a bad swap.
ReplyDeleteMy (probable) final comment on the Danish language.Not actually mine, but from a certain Monsieur Rabelais a few centuries ago, after commenting on the qualities of various other languages:
ReplyDelete"Et finalement,n'oublions pas le danois, cette langue,qui, si le bon dieu eut voulu que nous parlassions par le cul, serait devenue la langue universelle"
Your logic is irrefutable Mick,but the reason I plumped for Denmark was that the text and following advert were in Danish,dut perhaps these had nothing to do with the video,but were extraneous,just like when Facebook tells you that one of your acquaintances wants to be "friends" and they don't know anything about it. I don'y know what the name of the pafk is ,but if we're talking about gays then it's Ørstedparken..Otherwise Kongens Have or the Botanical Gardens.When I was hitching thro Sweden to Finland in Easter 1969 I had an interesting experience,but you can hear about that at the reunion.Peter.
ReplyDeleteYou certainly have a down on the Danish language,Ron,but can you really take Pantagruel's fæcal utterances seriously?
ReplyDeleteRon,if you have any idea about what came before Old Norse,grab it before it gets away like all those Danish colonies did - you would be famous overnight,just like the greatest linguisticians ever - Karl Werner and Rasmus Rask,who are much more deserving of intern.fame than H c Anderson et al. Incidentally,I think that today it would be easier to ascend a central American Volcano than a South Yorkshire coal tip - the one in Armthorpe has been landscaped away - is nothing sacred anymore?
ReplyDeleteYour logic is irrefutable Mick,but the reason I plumped for Denmark was that the text and following advert were in Danish,dut perhaps these had nothing to do with the video,but were extraneous,just like when Facebook tells you that one of your acquaintances wants to be "friends" and they don't know anything about it. I don'y know what the name of the pafk is ,but if we're talking about gays then it's Ørstedparken..Otherwise Kongens Have or the Botanical Gardens.When I was hitching thro Sweden to Finland in Easter 1969 I had an interesting experience,but you can hear about that at the reunion.Peter.
ReplyDeleteNo,No,No Peter, I love the Danish language especially when I hear a beautiful female voice reading from Hans Christian Andersen.From the age of five I found that Grimm's fairy tales were terrifying, but Andersen's enchanting. And Swedish films are depressing, but not Babette's feast or a few others I saw long ago.Did you ever hear a haunting little song about the seafarer who comes and goes,with a refrain "vinduet står tue för brisen" I wish I knew the rest of the words!And I knew a fine Danish poet,Maria Wine, who was married (more or less)to Artur Lundkvist of the Swedish Academy....and what place could be nicer, in summer, than that leafy stretch between Copenhagen and Helsingör or the beach at Hundestedt? and you must know the old story illustrating the difference beteen Swedes and Danes: a policeman in Copenhagen sees a drunk on the street and says " He is happy!"), a policeman in Stockholm sees a happy man on the street and says "He is drunk!".
ReplyDeleteWow, don't you two even pause for breath! Ron lad, a million stories higher up you tried to get a cheap one over me. A pound to a pinch of the proverbial, I bet your the type who goes up into mid Wales and ask directions to Doll-ger-loo (Dolgellau). That's another pint you buy me in Sept,
ReplyDeleteBe Happy Allan
Allan,I never knew much Welsh and have forgotten the little I learnt as a cadet in the RWF 67 years ago but I have been in Dolgellau,had no trouble getting there, and if we have a real welshman at the Reunion to act as referee I will have the honour of challenging you to a pronunciation contest in Welsh (or any other European language). When I was last in Wales I seem to remember that beer was fourpence a pint so I'll bring two shillings with me for 3 pints each and another tuppence for a half for the winner of the contest
ReplyDeletePeter, just to please Allan - I never like to disappoint him -we should perhaps now open Phase 2 of our Scandinavian cogitations.I heard long ago that all those ancient stories ( the boy who cried wolf, the dog in the manger, three-headed dogs,Charon the boatman Ariadne with her thread and Penny with her knitting etc etc actually originated in the High North- they weren't written, but had passed mouth to mouth for a few thousand years in the dark nordic nights and then stealthily filtered south. So what's the real story? Instead of having to put up with Ship banging Latin into us, should we have had a Lorelei mermaid to sing to us in Old Norse.?
ReplyDeleteYou know,those ancient tales were just as horrible as any old Greek Zorba could have told you -there's an old Icelandic saga about a chap who was riding along and didn't notice that the head of his adversary that he had recently cut off and hung from his saddle was scraping his leg a bit,and since that head contained a rotten tooth, the rider caught a bad infection and died - a hilarious tale of a dead man killing a living one!.We were fed some grim tales in our pre-thorne education, like the one of the lad who had his stomach eaten but said nothing about it when the cops found him poaching and he had stuffed the wolf-cub up his jumper, or the Roman soldier who got burnt to death because nobody ordered him to leave his post while Rome burnt.I suppose these tales were meant to teach us stoicism and obedience, but actually they vaccinated us against such foolishness.I prefer the old Danish ballad about taking your wife to the pub with you so she won't stay at home and yield to temptation when the young student calls.
ReplyDeleteI take back any insulting remarks directed at the Danes and their language skills. Today the inspector arrived to perform the newly legislated "controle" of my "fosse septique" here in Brittany. The charming near-teenage female who certified that my sewage disposal arrangements met all statutory requirements addressed me throughout the process in perfect Queen's English, which she attributed to nine months spent on a course in Denmark learning her trade.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean by vaccination is that having heard these old tales I will never fall prey to the idea of riding around with other people's heads hanging from my saddle, and I fear that the generation that followed us grew up to be much more violent than we were - nobody ever got mugged on Broadway or even in Stainforth or Moorends in the old days because our teachers had told us how Beowulf tore Grendel the monster's arm off when he tried to escape... but teachers troday tell the kids about Joan and Jack helping their ma in the kitchen and you see how they turn out....
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteI think you are letting that silky growth under your chin delude you into seeing yourself as a Viking warrior, when the rest of us see you as a benign old word smith with too much time on his hands.
Life in Broadway in the 30s/40s was often solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and, to complete Hobbes aphorism, short for some with things like diphtheria and tuberculosis to contend with. The raiding parties from Broadway that threw large stones at other callow youths because they came from Dunsville have been commented on before. And I doubt whether you would see a ring of 20 kids surround a couple of boys knocking the daylights out of each other at the top of Broadway these days (as Bert Snell and I did when I, as a first former, refused to surrender my school bus seat to him, a second former). Grown ups would break things up before they got out of hand, rather than pass by looking the other way. If people didn't get mugged in those days it wasn't through fear of a Beowulf style dismemberment, it was because nobody carried anything worth mugging for - no mobile phones, credit cards, iPods or mp3 players, and very little money if any.
K
Ah, yes, those old stories. The lad with the fox cub up his tunic was supposedly Spartan. The trainees weren't given enough to eat to toughen them up and stealing was allowed, but if you were caught, you were punished. The Spartans saw the story as an example of Spartan fortitude, but other Greeks were surprised that someone would be so hungry as to eat a fox ! As for the soldier still on post, that was Pompeii and he was a town guard. He stayed on post for some reason, but one of the pyroclastic surges got him, along with about 2000 other townsfolk who hadn't fled in time.
ReplyDeletePeter, I did study Classics in Newcastle, but it was still King's College at the time and part of the University of Durham. Durham had two campuses, but Newcastle became independent in 1963, the year I graduated. Existing students who graduated after this could opt to have either a Durham or Newcastle degree. At the time Durham ranked closely after Oxbridge and the majority chose Dunelm. I did my Dip. Ed (the forerunner of the modern PGCE) at Newcastle University and left in summer 1964 - just before you arrived as a bright-eyed fresher in autumn. I stayed in the north east until I was hooked by a naval officer (my second marriage) and moved to Portsmouth in 1980. My present mother-in-law has become a good friend, but, on reflection, the first one had much in common with the wolf Fenrir of Norse legend !
Keep walking, Crescat !
Keith, I don't remember any Broadway-Dunsville hostilities, they must have been started by you lot. Dunsville was inhabited solely by old ladies with cats,dogs being officially denied Droit de cité by Lady Dunn herself.
ReplyDeleteWe were much more peaceful - We lived at No 431 and I have no memory of scrapping with anyone from No 432 onwards.
Anne, what a bizarre idea to toughen by starving. Sounds a bit like TGS (Thorne Grammar,Sparta) where one of the first lessons was that you got a miniscule dinner ( the third formers and above threatening us newcomers by clenching their fists and pointing to the tureens as we said Benedic Domine and sat down )until you reached the third or fourth form.
I first heard the Cry Wolf story not at TGS but at the age of about five,from my mother, who came from Whitby,an ancient Viking town, and did not have a classical education. Peter will agree with me that this proves that the old legends came from the North.
Ron, Spartan boys were only given plain food and not much of it. They were encouraged to steal, but punished severely if caught in the act and praised if they managed it without being found out. The reason for this was that the Spartan army on the whole travelled without a baggage train and had to find their own provisions. People along the way naturally hid their food and valuables and so Spartan soldiers had to steal to live.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who has seen the film 300 might also think that they travelled in little else but a helmet, boots and Speedos, but they were fully armoured in reality. This isn't a bad film to watch, as long as you don't take it seriously - it certainly gives the impression that rhinoceri and 20' tall elephants could not only be trained for war but were also easily transported by sea ! I quite like the 9' tall Xerxes, whose orientation was distinctly dubious !
Aeschylus, where art thou .... ?
Anne, your mention of Fenrir brings us back from the savagery of the Spartans to the Scandinavian way of life, and though you are a classical scholar you may agree that we have all suffered long enough from the southern invasions and subsequent suppressions and perversions of free and honest thought to be ready.
ReplyDeletefor a flash of light from the North. In interiore Ultimae Thule est veritas.
Ron, it's interesting to note that Thorne was within the Danelaw and so most of us possibly have a few Viking genes. -thorpe derives from Norse and means village or settlement, hence Armthorpe and Edenthorpe.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion of mythologies is interesting and there are similarities between the Greek and Norse beliefs - 3 Norns/Fates in each, for example, similar Creation myths, a supreme male ruler with a wife whose power was only a little less than his own. The Greeks, though, saw their deities as a fairly happy lot on the whole, while the Northmen saw them as darker and harsher - maybe a reflection of the very different climates. However, the Greek myths do appear to be the oldest and so it is likely that major elements of the Norse cycle were derived from the Graeco-Roman tales, rather than the other way round.
Sorry about the delay Ron,but I'm in our summer house and don't go online very often.I love the story about the drunks - it will go into my stock repertoire.Babette's feast by the way is Danish,as is the story itself ( by Isak Dinesen otherwise known as Karen Blixen).Sorry I don't know the seafarer's song - is it by Bellman? If so it should be easy to find?Swedish films have had a renaisance recently - they are not as depressing as they were.Bo Widerberg's "Lärerinden" is a really good film,and there is a relatively new one about a bachelor farmer trying to find awife.,the Danish title is "Ensom landman med Bil".
ReplyDeleteAnne,Please don't confuse Armthorpe (where I was born) with anything from Norway! I love the country,but the Norwegians are difficult to say the least.Armthorpe is actually Saxon Ernulfstorp.
ReplyDeleteTo everybody ...I've been offline for a fortnight and all the erudition n our little discussion is mindblowing.I think I'll give Ron best and agree that all our stories,history and mythology originate in the far,dark northern woods.The Romans could certainly make no headway up here(though someone one found a cache of 3 Roman coins buried in the south of Iceland!I don't have to have my arm twisted to praise Scandinavia an the fount of almost everything good (and Sibelius is my favourite composer),but whilst writing this mail I'm listening to La Traviata wiyh Netrebko and Villazon."It don't cum much better that that.So Fair do's...Italy is more than vinegary wine ,typhoid and earthquakes.
ReplyDeletePeter,Sibelius made Finland free, and Verdi chased the huns out of Italy....Did anyone suggest to your "Danish farm hand with car" that he might be better off staying just as he is,like the Swedish smallholder:
ReplyDelete"Jag är torpare jag, o jag har det så bra
ligger på soffan,för så ska de' va
Gräset de växer o råget de grå
sätt på kaffepanna mor, sätt på kaffepanna ,mor!"
Peter
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I have to disagree. This is what virtually every historical reference to Armthorpe online says : The settlement of Armthorpe was first recorded in 1086 as 'Ernulfestorp' (or 'Einulvestorp'), showing the influence of the Vikings on the region. Its probable origination means outlying farmstead or hamlet (from the Old Scandinavian - thorp) of a man named Earnwulf or Arnulfr.
1086 indeed! Such a fine place as Armthorpe must have been inhabited for centuries before the bureaucratic bâtard started recording anything. We're lucky he didn't decide to frenchify everything. One can imagine that the Danes gave it a name after kicking out the Saxons,who had given it a name after kicking out the Celts, who had given it a name after kicking out the ???
ReplyDeleteVery few places in England were as lucky as London to retain their Celtic name after all the invaders had trampled all over the place.
Unless, of course, Armthorpe was under water - the sort of slough that Beowulf shoved Grendel into. I remember walking in the woods there in 1935 or 6 and being told by my friend Cyril Dodds that people had to be dragged out of the wet bits by teams of horses.I was glad to be living in Broadway, which was originally called Highanddrystreet by the Ancients.
Wait a minute.Hold your horses.Armthorpe was one of the few places around that had a big enough hill to sled down. And as for origins the little wooden Junior Boys school on Mere Lane was definitely Druidic in origin. These verdant lands were walked over by stone age hunters who, not having webbed feet, tended to avoid the watery wastelands across Hatfield Chase.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Romans, when they built the Great North Road, decided that the land to the west was too hilly and that anything to the east was bog, and you would be up to the neck in it, so it had to go through what became Doncaster. It also seemed that the Doncaster to Thorne Road ran along a ridge - could it be the watershed between the Ouse and the Trent? Broadway sloped down so you could freewheel from the top down almost to the crescent and the bottom of Broadway was sometimes flooded. The Straight Mile ended after the Lings with another declivity down to the area of Happy Days Pool. So perhaps the ridge turned south towards the Lincolnshire border? I have a clear memory of that walk in the dark woods of Armthorpe - the ground was black,stained with half a century of coal dust and it yielded when you walked - but I have to admit that my memory of 1935 is also a bit shaky: was it all a dream, a nightmare ? We need a topographical expert.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever get to Armthorpe again, in Winter, I' ll take my skis with me and make for the sledding hill, not for the slough of Despond.
Ron, I wonder if you were walking through Sandal Beat all those years ago. Your description is a reasonable fit.The woods wrapped around the pit on the opposite side to the village and it had a number of straight paths cut through it,each path being bordered by drainage cuts that were full of water all year round. The pit tip buried part of the woods and you were always within the smell and sometimes the sound of the pit and the rail line that ran from the pit through the wood. As a pre TGS boy that wood was on my doorstep for weekend walks and also as a short cut through to the free end of Doncaster race course.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side of the village there was Hatfield wood or Chestnut wood which ran east of the village across to the Doncaster-Thorne road near Edenthorpe. This wasn't boggy or smelly. I was under the impression ,probably wrong, that this wood was a remnant of the Kings hunt in past centuries. The other woodland was Bluebell Wood which stretched across from Armthorpe to near the boating lake, once again on the Docaster-Thorne road but on the other side of Edenthorpe.
I almost forgot, for those few in the know, there was also Little Wood, 2 fields away from Hawthorne Avenue and centre of a thousand adventures.
ReplyDeleteI found the Scandinavian(?) languages and culture discussion erudite and interesting but, having had any interest in foreign languages beaten out me by Ship on my first day at TGS (Latin) and by Davis (French) subsequently, I am delighted to see the discussion needle has begun to swing back towards the real world of Armthorpe and Dunscroft. I too have walked through the bosky Armthorpe woods with Cyril Dodds and Piggy Harris. Quite weird after dark!.I Iost touch with Cyril when I sought a new life in London in 1950. Do any of the older generation know his subsequent history? Mention of the Happy Days Lido rings many bells. It was a fair walk frm Stainforth Old Village on a hot Saturday afternoon..... Anyway please keep the discussion going. TOMMO
ReplyDeleteHello Tommo, nice to see you on here again. Are you coming to the reunion? It would be nice to meet you, and you could meet your old schoolmate, the one that you can't remember.
ReplyDeleteThe plot thickeneth. There were 3 of us, if not 4 on that walk with Cyril in the wood.One might have been you. At one point we came to a railway line. Was it some other time when we were biking, and came to a place called Moss?Is it my memory or it is Armthorpe that is such a murky place?
ReplyDeleteIsn't Moss somewhere out towards Bentley. You can't get there from Stainforth. In fact Ron you are the first person I have ever heard from who has been there (and returned to tell the tale). Names like Moss and Ouse and Fishlake certainly paint a pretty picture don't they. You can almost smell the river, the mud, the tangles of damp vegetation, the cooing of wood pidgeons and the overall fecundity of these bottom lands.
ReplyDeleteMoss is a small hamlet twixt Barnby Dun and Askern. One can get to Moss from Stainforth via Kirkhouse Green. It is still easily missed despite the appearance of new houses which have doubled its size. Every village around Doncaster has changed; they are building everywhere. Ron and Mick would not recognise Armthorpe and Edenthorpe, (where I was raised). Armthorpe pit and its sledging pit-heap have disappeared and Armthorpe is finally going up-market. I spent a couple of terms at Mere Lane Junior School in the early 50's prior to going to TGS. If it was Druidic in origin, as Mick suggests, little maintenance had been done in the meantime. The solid fuel stove in the corner of the classroom was useless even though it glowed red-hot. One could see through the cracks in the walls of the corrugated iron classrooms. One certainly knew when winter had arrived in those days! Despite its run-down appearance, it managed to fill a number of Felix Motors' double-deckers with TGS pupils.
ReplyDeleteRon,you really are Biedermeier - you know,be happy with what God gave youand don't aim too high in life cos as sure as eggs is eggs,some bugger is going to try to shoot you down.Incidentally,jag är torpare jag,for serious.Because the Danish Mountaineering Club has a hut near Kullen (n.of Hälsingborg) we are all members of "Danska Torpare" with the advantages that entails. Anne could probably explain the finer points of Biedermeier - she has most probably studied Grillparzer's "Der Traum ein Leben",at King's just like I did.
ReplyDeleteNot a bad word about Fishlake - that's where one of my good friends used to live.Interesting comments flying about re Armthorpe,whose church dates back to 874 AD,so there was some culture there long ago.You can still see the remains of the Seven Yards Roman Road so they were there too.But you all know the cheap,dirty,brutish end of the village.Nutwell is the place with our own bluebell wood (New Close Wood officially). Sandal Beat was always dangerous - I nearly disappeared down a burning hole as a kid - literally - when going from Nutwell to the Beat,but it's different now and a nice walk too over the landscaped pit tip (spoil heap,I think it's called officially),and the reason why it's all nice now is cos Arthur Scargill thought he could beat a certain "lady", but she wiped him out .Npw that's a tin of worms I've just opened! Anne,I must give you best re Armthorpe*s origin - local history says Saxon,but what do the locals Know? I suppose the Dictionary of English place names will tell us.Most of the neighbouring villages are 100% Danish,such as Lindholme,Sandtoft etc,and that supports you.Also an area over our backs is called the Gunhills,fron a Danenamed Gunnar,so yes,probably Danish unless anyone has an alternative theory?
ReplyDeleteChes 60,who are you please? The bit about Mere Lane Corrugated School really brought back memories.Was Howard Guy the Head master when you were there? I was there from 1953 to 1957,so perhaps we met?
ReplyDeleteMust make a final comment after reading you mails about bogs.My mum who hails from Sykehouse tells about a horse and cart driven home from Donny market by an inebriated farmer ,who together with his wife and the 2 horses just drove off the road and were never seen again.In the 1930's that would have been.
ReplyDeletePeter,I'm not sure what you mean by Biedermeier, Grillparzer and Ein Traum,das Leben, which sounds suspiciously like La vida es Sueno but if I have a Weltanschauung it would rather be on the lines of accepting life as a dream than as a (more or less) satisfying gift from Above.And nothing can remind us better than blogs and emails that it's all a walking shadow,a poor player.....
ReplyDeletePeter, My name is Hugh Chesney, commonly known as Ches. I attended Mere Lane Juniors for only a couple of terms. Mr Guy was headmaster. Mr Arthur was my form teacher. He was a really nice chap who went on to become the first headmaster of Hunger Hill Secondary School at Edenthorpe. Did not know many Armthorpers as I lived in Edenthorpe. Sat the 11-plus at Mere Lane which must have been running a bit late as I had already taken the exam in Bradford. Am trying to keep up with what you Scandinavia buffs are rabbiting on about. Am an ex-Ministry of Defence Civil Servant who spent the last 30-odd years on computer programming and system design - light years away from the above.
ReplyDeleteMr.Guy became headmaster at Armthorpe Junior Boys school in the late 1940,s. As a pupil at the time I remember his very first day when he assembled the school on that bit of playground where you had to line up when the bell went-between the school and the old air raid shelter. He said he had only a small tongue which he stuck out a bit but that he had A LOUD VOICE. That put us all on our best behaviour for at least 5 minutes. The previous headmaster, i believe, was Wacker Waring.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad told me a funny story of the school as he taught there briefly pre-war. He was told to go to a certain classroom to assist that teacher. As he got nearer the room the noise got louder and louder.Opening the door revealed a chaotic scene with the teacher chasing a boy up and down the desk rows and swishing at him with a cane. Seeing my Dad his comment was "Ah, Mr. Horner. Come in, grab a cane and whack a few"
As for the 'burning hole' (peterb,April 25) we had strict instructions to keep off the pit tips as they were on fire burning below the surface with acrid smoke drifting out in different spots. However we knew those tips well. The soft spots and the firm. The big flat topped tip down the lane alongside the pit managers (Mr.Dale) garden had a network of narrow gauge rail lines and abandoned cars which we managed to put back on the tracks for lots of highly dangerous,although we were bullet proof, fun.Up there we were above everyone, parents,Bobby Lascelles, pit watchmen.No one could see what we were up to. No one to say no. What fun.
The Seven Yards Roman Road has me at a loss though. I never heard of it but would like to know more. Where was it located?
The correct name for the Bluebell Wood that stretched from Armthorpe towards Kirk Sandal and the boating lake was Shaw Wood. That wood was filled with tall ferns and a few Hazelnut trees if you knew where to look. Hatfield Lane Wood was better known for chestnuts and leaf mould-don't ask!
When I left England in the 60's Nutwell was still just a few houses stuck on the bottom end of the village on the way to the 'Horse and Groom' and Old Cantley village. Driving through it on my way to the last reunion I could hardly recognise it with new subdivisions spreading back from the road.
Ay up Mick lad ~~~~~~must have been lucky up Nutwell as we had a couple of woods to laik around in. These were t'first wood [ aka bluebell wood] and with cast-iron logic, t'second wood. The M18 obliterated the latter, but the former is still to be seen just before turning off the M18 fer Armthorpe. I keep a very nostalgic eye open as I pass that way. About 1947 we wanted a substantial pole with which to hoist a wireless aerial. Obvious solution? Away to bluebell wood where we just knew of a 30 ft. pine tree which was on the point of falling down. No messing around, the thing just fell down after rocking it to and fro for a while. The four of us, all TGS lads, humped said tree on our shoulders, and away back home with it ~~~~~~~~ and nobody raised an eyebrow. Peter would have been able to see this thing from his back window. In my very early days, we lived in Holly Cottage, almost opposite the Horse and Groom, with the blacksmith as our next door neighbour ~~ a Bill Cawthorne if I recall aright. Now as for the seven yards. You ran into this reputed roman Road right at the bottom of Whiphill Lane. I think it got its name from being 7 yards wide, was largely full of oak trees and went along to join aforesaid first wood.
ReplyDeleteAm sure that somebody knows a lot more about it than I do. Keep well etc. geoff.
Looked up the seven yards roman road on google to satisfy my curiosity. According to the source I read, a few years old, its authenticity had not yet been confirmed. The location was in an area that ,for us at least, was beyond the edge of known countryside. The village was smaller in those days and the new road that runs by the site hadn't been built.
ReplyDeleteIn searching for the road I came across a reference to the death of a well liked teacher at Armthorpe Junior School and that was Charles Maltby. He died in 2008 and i think he was 84 or 88 at that time so he would have been in his late 20's or maybe 30 when I was in his class. I knew he had been in Malaya during the war because he would tell us about the monsoon rains washing through their tents at night and how they would race matchsticks in the current. He didn't tell us that he had been captured by the Japanese and spent several years in captivity under brutal conditions.
Eyup Geoff, thanks for the info. I was typing the above when your message flashed up on the screen. I can imagine you bringing that pole home, dragging it by the trunk with the top trailing behind. We used to keep those woods clear of fallen branches and would note any windfalls for collection as November 5th got nearer. Now I'm going to google map whiphill lane.
That was an education. Whiphill lane ends and there are no details until one comes to the motorway. What surprised me is the size of Nutwell. It looks like it spreads over a greater area than Armthorpe now although not as densely settled. Property values-wow. Also all those new(?) subdivisions going west and then a new road which arrives back in Armthorpe at the bottom of the hill where the library and post office used to be. That used to be a country lane and you could get to Sandal Beat that way. I think it went by some of the older pit tips on the right hand side.
ReplyDeleteThe only Biedermeier I've heard of was the central European artistic style referring to furniture, architecture, music, the visual arts etc, which followed the Romantic period. It came into being because the middle classes wanted something that both looked good and was simple. (Does that sound like you, Ron ?) The term Biedermeier came to symbolise the middle classes, reliable, with plenty of common sense - and boring ! In actual fact, though, the Biedermeier style was popular at all levels of society.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I read Classics at Kings, not Modern Languages !
Ygoiou're right of course,Ron,but you knew that .didn't you? Grillparezer was indeed influenced,nay inspired by La vida es Sue~¨no(how the heck do you write a tilde on these machines? must be difficult being Spanish - particularly when you can't even beat Chelsea at home!)So let's all strut our hour on the stage and then be heard no more.But please keep going,Ron.I'm looking forward to meeting you in September
ReplyDeleteJust read all youre mails - just soggy with nostalgia! Too right I remember your aerial Geoff! for years we expected it to come down in a gale but it lasted until only a few years ago.The Groom is nearly in the middle of Armtrhorpe now.I certainly remember Mr Arthur - not to be confused with len Atha,and Charlie Maltby was an OK guy as our illiterate cousins over the water would say.Howard Guy was really a great head..He was to a large extent inspiration for me - particularly his sense of justice - perhaps you'll hear s couple of my stories about him some time..Going out on Armthorpe tip was common years back in spite of the danger.When I was little we lived in Brook House next to the church,so the tip was literally only yards away,and when I was very small and my dad was still sailing the high seas,my mum used to take me in my pram up the tip to collect coal,(the winters of 46 and 47 were very cold.I'm sure you'll remember.By tne way my form teacher at Armthorpe corrugated was Christine Wright...anyone remember her?Talking of old teachers,Geoff,if you went to Armthorpe C of E,then you'll remember Annie Hammond.She was really something.For my money the best teacher EVER.I kept in regular touch with her until she died 3 years ago aged 94 and still sharp.We visited her in Goathland only months before she died.I just hope when I'm rabbitting on like this that conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant,but you've hit the Biedermeier nail on the head,Anne,perticularly re3garding the boring part.Grillparzer never held my attention like for exampl Schiller or ever Ed.Mörike.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Mick ,the Seven Yards Road is kosher.Tears ago I took a dressed pi9ece of limestone from it and imported it to Denmark where one of my colleagues who read archeaology said that it looked like a genuine piece of a Roman Road,and that's good enough for me.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about all this Scandinavian stuff,Ches,it's just our way of trying to keep all this computer world at bay.As our previous Foreign Minister once said,"If you can't join them,beat them."
ReplyDeleteI endorse your effortsregarding computers. When I escaped from the MOD I vowed never to touch another computer. However it is well nigh impossible to manage without one and life would certainly be less enjoyable and interesting. This site is something else; deepest Scandinavian lore, art and Lord knows what else, intermingled with Armthorpe Schools, burning pit-heaps and a mythical seven yard long, (or wide), Roman road. All we need is one of you boffins to set it to music and we'd have a hit to rival Mama Mia. Oh dear. Back to Scandinavia!!
ReplyDeleteStufff Scandinavia, we aint finished with Armthorpe just yet. Now, having only left Armthorpe C. of E. in mid '41, and destined for 3 years in the newer tin rattler, before bussing it to Thorne, I'm afraid I knew naught of Miss Hammond. The two ladies in charge during my time were misses Goodchild and Longbottom I kid you not. Thanks for the limestone bit about the 7 yards wide road, Peter. Do you recall the dressed walls outside the old farms in Armthorpe ~~~~~~ a Pearson among them I think. There was certainly one in front of the trough pump of Credlands farm up Nutwell. Deliciously cold drink on a hot summers day, and not a fridge in sight, We had one of these stones as a souvenier you understand, and used it for many years to chop sticks on. Those axe marks might have given your archeological friend a few moments thought.
ReplyDeletekeep well. ~~~~~~~ geoff.
I'd never heard of Seven Yards Road (I've never been to Armthorpe, come to that) and while Googling it, I came across this news report, which might interest people.
ReplyDelete16th-22nd June 1999, reported in local + national press + Fortean Times
On 16 June, Raymond Cibor, 45, was driving a fork-lift truck down a country lane at Seven Yards Farm, Armthorpe, when a mud-spattered tiger leapt from undergrowth, reared up on its hind legs, snarled and lashed out with its claws at the vehicle. He reversed as the feline roared and attacked the truck again before disappearing into a nearby copse.
"I could see its mouth open wide and its claws looked like razors," said the ex-soldier. "It was definitely a tiger, there is no doubt in my mind. It was about 6ft in length and 3ft high. It was orange and yellow with black stripes."
After studying big cat pictures on his computer, he concluded it was a Bengal tiger. The police found "fairly large paw prints", later identified by an expert as a dog's. There were no travelling circuses booked in the area and no nearby theme parks with any tigers (present or missing), so a police helicopter was scrambled to comb the area and an armed response unit put on alert.
As nearly always with these ABC searches, nothing was found. "We do not believe this was a hoax," said a police spokesman, "because the man was genuinely terrified." A week later, James Sutcliffe, 13, was left in tears after apparently coming face to a face with a tiger while cycling home in Auckley, only three miles from Seven Yards Farm.
Any comments, folks ?
Being a Kings grad I'm sure you heard the tale of the Lampton Worm on a Saturday night in the Bun Room. The Armthorpe Tiger is a far more ferocious beast recorded as showing itself on or about mid summers day and first appearing as a brief notice in the Armthorpe Lepers Gazette of 1423. It seems a pair of the Indian tigers had escaped from a Chinese Junk that had sailed up the Humber as part of an early exploration fleet. The tigers made their way inland passing through Thorne, Hatfield and Dunsville and the first remotely inhabitable area they came across was Armthorpe and that's where they have lived ever since.
ReplyDeleteNever been to Armthorpe? It used to be the centre of the Universe. Now it's Nutwell.
More likely a tipsy Old Thornensian in a Mowbray House rugby shirt on his way home after a session in The Groom. Sleeping it off in the undergrowth when disturbed by the rattly fork-lift truck.
ReplyDeleteABCs (alien big cats, alien not meaning ETs but out of their natural habitat) seem to abound in South Yorkshire, for a 9 year old girl claims to have seen a jaguar near Cusworth Hall. Police had this to say :
ReplyDeleteBut South Yorkshire Police spokesman David Lodge said this sighting was not that unusual. He said: "Over the past years large cats have been reported in various locations throughout Doncaster. But mostly in the Thorne areas, near the moors.
"It is quite possible she has seen some kind of wild animal, maybe even a jaguar, that has escaped a private collection or has been set free by someone who doesn't have a proper wild animals licence".
First I knew that Thorne people had sighted big cats - has anyone else heard of this ?
You must admit,Ches,that our tastes are catholic (in the non religious sense of the word) and you never know what's going to come up next.And it all started with Mick sending a 30 sec videwo of a snowed up car.I always hated computers,or at least they hated me,but now I find them very entertaining at least
ReplyDeleteThe farm wall is still there,Geoff,though everything else to do with Jonkey is long gone,and he died a couple of years ago in Somerset.Mentioning the Lampton Worm and the Bun Room certainly brings back memories,and the stories of the Armthorpe tiger bring the Dragon of Wortley to mind.Your dad probably saw it on one of his hundreds of walks in the Peak,Geoff.Thwere has beem rumours of jaguars and lynxes circulating overe here in central Jutland for years,but nary a photo or body,so I think most people opt for hoaxes or a local version of Cheses inebriated OT in a Mowbray rugby shirt,and talking of Brooke house which we weren't,my rugby shirt ended up with my girlfriend in Helsinki,but they are both probably completey worn out by now.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure some of the ABC sightings are hoaxes or the result of too much alcohol, but I've got an open mind about others. I used to own a very large tabby tomcat, Tommy - even the vet said he was the biggest cat he'd ever seen. Under normal circumstances, Tommy was just a remarkably large cat, but if seen from some distance, when running, say, across a paddock, he seemed much longer than he really was. Even my son once denied that the animal we were watching was Tommy. It was him, though, and it could be that some of the ABC sightings result from something similar. I also wonder if wildcats really are extinct in England after all, for once on the way to Gatwick at 5 in the morning, we all spotted a large cat in the headlights which certainly looked like one. As for no dead bodies being found, I've seen hundreds of wild deer in my time, but despite tramping over places like Dartmoor, I've yet to see a dead one ! I must admit, though, that this doesn't explain the tiger or jaguar, which are distinctive and don't resemble any type of domestic cat. I do know, though, that not too long ago, people didn't need a licence to keep a dangerous animal at home. When that legislation came in, big cat owners usually had only two choices - give the animal to a zoo or have it put down. Zoos soon were inundated and had to refuse to take in more big cats and so it's possible that rather than have them put down, owners drove to wilder spots and just released them. I still haven't heard of anyone in the Thorne/Moorends area keeping a big cat, though, and according to the police, the moors area is where most of the local sightings take place.
ReplyDeleteI'm no scientist ,but I believe that evolution is going on all the time and there's not much we can do about it, though at Broadway school, among all the other lies, we we told that everything happened in 6 days.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it possible that Anne's giant tomcat, one hot night on the tiles of Armthorpe Corrugated initiated a couple of mutations that resulted in a race of supercats that one day will become VIPs and rule the world (why is it that the faces of some recent UK Prime Ministers come to mind?)
We even had on this site an armthorpian member called Treaclybigeoff, who I believe played a mean miowly bagpipe. What a splendid name for a super-jaguar!
If Tommy did initiate a couple of mutations on the tiles of Armthorpe, then he was a very clever cat indeed. Not only would he have travelled up from Hampshire behind my back, he would also have regenerated his testicles !
ReplyDeleteAnd why not? At Broadway school they taught us about virgin births (although most of us had no idea that there was any other sort), rising from the dead, walking on water, feeding five thousand on a few miserable fish, as well as creating the earth in six days. Regenerating a pair of testicles would be child's play by comparison.
ReplyDeleteA design oversight, my son. I had meant to make them self-regenerable. ~~~~~~~~~ TBG.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if Tommy had been the original Schrodinger Cat, famed in song, fable and quantum physics, then all things would have been possible .....
ReplyDeleteIn my youth, and this is going back a bit, there were wild-cats aplenty in Armthorpe, (and, I suspect, in Dunscroft). They could be seen in most public bars dragging home husbands who were late for Sunday lunch. A fearsome breed with a tendency to spit and scratch and normally sporting plastic hair-rollers and fluffy pink carpet slippers.
ReplyDeleteToday, the BBC clarified the issue. It seems that according to the Scottish Wildcat Association the animal is a unique predator that had been resident in Britain for at least two million years, sharing space with everything from woolly mammoths to cave lions and surviving entire ice ages. See:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8026731.stm
Not only was I introduced to the Lambton Worm in the Bun Room, but I first met Ivan Skavinsky Skavar in the Mens bar, and some hot tottty on the Hot Seat. I had forgotten such people and places existed. Ta for the memory jog.
ReplyDeleteBe happy Allan
Don't know about cats of the Scottish, Pink-footed or the mythical Schrodinger variety, but the most exotic thing I ever saw up Nutwell Lane was an extensive line of elephant turds --- left behind by a travelling circus, you see. Worth a £ per cube to enthusiastic gardeners. keep well and warm ~~~~~ geoff.
ReplyDeleteSince Geoff seems to be the One in Charge of Regeneration, I would like respectfully to submit my application to Him for a total cerebral renewal (but with selective memory capability snce there's a lot of stuff I'd rather forget). Also no one in my family so far has lived beyond the age of 98 years so I'd like to make an advance reservation for a complete body mind and soul job from the year 2022. Actually, He doesn't have to bother with the soul bit, I've managed without up to now.
ReplyDeleteIvan Skavinsky Skivar and Abdul Abulbul Amir bring back memories for me, too. However, as the evening wore on, the songs stopped being as innocent as the Lambton Worm and in those dim and distant days, most ladies tended to withdraw from the part occupied by the male voice choir. As for the Men's Bar, some humourist had placed the Ladies' Common Room on the floor immediately above it !
ReplyDeleteIn my day, there was a traditional rivalry between the Medics and the Agrics - was it the same when older members were at King's ?
Anne,your Medic/Agric rivalry was still going strong from 1964 to 1968 at least,and Eskimo Nell springs to mind among other memories.The best we could do was to rawp (a word my dad used to describe Shirley Bassey - comes from Danish "at råbe" = to shout) Clementine to the melody (or otherwise ) of Cwm Rhondda.Try it,it's very impressive!Never saw any elephant turds on Nutwell,Geoff,but plenty of the canine and human variety,the latter metaphorically speaking.As to cats,my best bet is a wild cat based on Thorne Moors,living independently of human interference.Sorry I can't do any better,and certainlyu not down Hampshire way (perhaps in the New Forest?
ReplyDeletePlaying rugby at TGS, away games at least, was good training for Saturday nights in the Bun Room. Among my Bun Room favourites were those songs and bawdy poems that had the following as part of them
ReplyDelete-When a man grows old...
-Twas up on the Queensland border on the banks of the Woolamaroo
Where mi brother Pete had a brothel and a bloody beauty too...
-She married an Italian...
-The engineer told me before he died...(very popular with the Engineers of course)
-We're off to see the wild west show
The elephant and the kangaroo oo oo...
-That was a horrible one. Tell us another one
Just like the other one,tell us another one doo oo...
-Scottswood Road
-Swing low sweet chariot
-There's a grave where a wave of the blue Danube flows.
-Clementine.
-In Dublins Fair City.
-and last one of my all time favourites "The Weavers Trade"
Have to stop there the nostalgia is choking.
Many a boring journey to and from Union conferences was enlivened by such songs as The Court of King of Caractacus and Ivan Skavinsky. My favourite was the Advice to Railway Passengers sung to Dvorak's Humoresque. I can't remember it all but here are a couple of verses:
ReplyDeletePassengers will please refrain
from flushing toilets while the train
is standing in the station, I love you!
While the train is in the station
we encourage constipation,
Moonlight always makes me think of you.
If you must pass water,
kindly inform the porter
and he will place a bucket in the vestibule,
If the porter isn't here
Try the platform to the rear,
The one in front is likely to be full.
In my version, that last word was always "cool", a better rhyme with "vestibule". It continued:
ReplyDeleteIf these efforts are in vain,
Simply break a window pane,
This novel method's
Used by very few.
Yhe grammar isn't very good,but I seem to remember : When the train is in the station we encourage constipation.Please omit to shit.Ditto,please remiss to piss.
ReplyDeleteJust remembered; I have somewhere 2 books :Rugby Songs and More Rugby Songs.The probably have just about every infantile boozing song ever written,including Eskimo Nell complete!
ReplyDeleteJustr been admiring Ron's photo again an tried (successfully to put one of my own in.THIS WASN'T TAKEN YESTERDAY! It's from 1968 in fact,but I haven't got ant oldie pics on the computer.Must try to get some.
ReplyDeleteIn my days there was no prob with Agrics. But Meds. That was blood and snot. Plus the resentment that they had 5 yrs for team building and we only had three. In fact we had Agrics on the team.
ReplyDeleteIt's gone now, but I had the 12" vinyl of the Jock Srapp Ensemble having a sing song. I knew those boys. Played for Central Y.M.C.A. up Tottenham Court Road. Tiger was their Capt and organiser. The record got them chucked out of the Y.M., so Tiger nicked the strips and balls and they were up and running in a week or two, playing on rented pitches on Wanstead Flats. Tiger came to an unfortunate end. Welding a car petrol tank without draining it. Even in death, larger than life. But he had a great East End funeral.
One of the repeatable songs down the Bun Room was "My Grandfathers clock". I exported that into my East London Club and it is the Club Anthem, the Logo on the team strip, and appears on all correspondence. Plus one of the boys has had it archived, along with me, up at Twickenham.
Be happy Allan
Tiger was a real character. He was capt and pottered over to me in the bar the first time we played them, and bet he could drink a pint faster than I could a half. As capt I had the honour of the team to defend, and as a drinker felt he was on a hiding to nothing. So set em up Joe. (Joe was the Landlord). He just beat me. So I had no option but to request a re run. This time I was in front by abt 100 ccs. Now came the scam. Best of the three with expectations of big money being laid. Thank God the boys didn't fall for it. He hammered me. Empty glass on the table and smiling at me struggling. I just had to see this expert in operation, so bought him a pint so he could show me. He had no clack!!! Just opened his mouth and poured it in. Straight from glass to stomach without touching the sides. Next time he was on parade was at the World Beer Drinking Championships - Southwark Fair with Millicent Martin (TWTWTW fame) adjudicating - but thankfully he was in the other half of the draw. But he was a hard man on the field. Took plenty of stick without complaint, as well as handing it out. His wife would always take a shower while we played. (I love taking a shower where the men have been!!!)
ReplyDeleteBe happy Allan
This came to me the other day whule I was showering. Ron'll like it cos it is in pidgin English. Use it to sing along to the French National Anthem...............
ReplyDelete3 French men went to the lava tree,
And they went there to manurez.
But alas there was no paper in the bog,
So they lifted up their voice and they cried,
"Ou est le papier?. Ou est le papier?
Bon Jour, M'sieur
Je fais manure.
Ou est le papier,"
Be happy Allan
Allan, I am,for once, entirely in agreement with you that the horribly bloody,bloody horrible,words of the Marseillaise should be changed ("ces feroces soldats...egorger nos femmes....qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons").
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not sure the Academie Francaise would approve of your suggested text.
National anthems are generally bombastic,zenophobic or servile. But the best of the lot is the unofficial anthem of the State of Quebec ( called the Province of Quebec by outsiders): tap in Gens du Pays and you'll get it. I'll just give you a translaton of the first two lines:"The time we take to speak of love is all that remains at the end of our days..." The music is calm and joyful.
And by the way,I wouldn't say you gave us your version in pidgin english,rather in franglais, tho what you usually write is certainly pidgin.
ReplyDeleteBloomin Hummer Ron. Language is a living entity. Language is volatile. Language changes and develops. You don't go to school and pick up a bit and think it is set in stone for the next 80 years. And I am one of the pioneers of change. Change Management is my forte. Follow me sunshine, and you will be up at the cutting edge of communication. I am expecting a call from Bill Gates any day. Join the gang.
ReplyDeleteBe happy Allan
P.S. The Welsh National Anthem must be near the top for the way it expresses National feelings for the Welsh. And if you disagree, I don't care - it makes a massive declaration of war before the Internationals.
You are indeed at the cutting edge,Allan. I should learn from you so I could make the same kind of mincemeat.
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth are you guys on about!
ReplyDeleteAs one with only a smattering of 'level' French and German, I have enjoyed listening to you language buffs arguing the toss and showing off your knowledge. Then I remembered that my grandad who had hardly any education, (he paid a penny per day to attend school in the afternoon until he was fourteen), could swear like a trooper in at least four languages. He was a Bradford Pals survivor, wounded and captured on the Somme. As a POW, billeted and working down German pits with French, Russian and Germans he had picked up their more commonly used colloquialisms. He embarrassed my Grandma by teaching her beloved budgie said colloquialisms. Its cage had to be covered when her hoity-toity friends came for afternoon tea to save Grandma's blushes!.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as we're now discussing national anthems, let's get back to the Nordic roots of this thread. My first trip overseas was a ski trip to Norway. King's College had a link with Bergen University and a group of their students visited us in summer (as International Secretary on SRC, I had to organise this) and we went over at New Year. It was good fun as regards skiing, though the Norwegians thought us Brits stuffy for refusing to take part in mixed sauna parties. (It was 1962/63, before such things became compulsory). Anyway, among other things, we learned the first verse of "Ja, vi elsker dette landet", the Norwegian national anthem, which can be translated thus :
ReplyDeleteYes, we love with fond devotion
This our land that looms
Rugged, storm-scarred o'er the ocean
With her thousand homes.
Love her, in our love recalling
Those who gave us birth.
And old tales which night, in falling,
Brings as dreams to earth.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I prefer this to the militant "uber alles" type of anthem.
Anne
Very nice translation,but it leaves me a little uneasy - too much embroidery,it loses the essential simplicity of the Norwegian text. I think a litteral version would come nearer to the real essence of Norway:Yes,we love this land as it strides forth,rough and weather-beaten over the water, with its thousand homes: love it,love it, and think of our father and mother and the saga-night that descends over our soil.
ReplyDeleteWell, as Allan and a few others would say this is just me causing trouble again, also with this reflectio n: why should so many English people persist in the error that Deutchland uber alles means Germany above all? Uber can mean over, but not in this case; it means " before all". Exactly the same sentiment as in " I vow to thee my country,all earthly things above.
Just one other thought: the history of the 3 Nordic countries one of murder,treachery and plundering, of mad dogs trying to tear each otherr apart, until a couple of centuries ago.Now they are the most peacful people in the world The same national anthem contains the words
ReplyDeleteNu vi står tre brödre sammen,og ska sådan stå ( now we are three brothers, standing together and shall so remain).. Could the same be said about UK,France and Germany?
The music of "Deutschland uber alles" was composed by Haydn in 1797 as a patriotic song for Austria, The present words were written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben in 1841 and he "borrowed" Haydn's music. At the time Germany was still a collection of quarrelling kingdoms and principalities and the text expresses the desire for a strong, unified Germany, hence the sentiment "Germany (= a united Germany), Germany, above (or before !) all, above everything in the world". The song only became the official German national anthem in 1922. It was during the Nazi era that the anthem acquired its more aggressive interpretation and at the end of WW2 the anthem was banned by the victors. From 1952 West Germany used the 3rd stanza and the music on occasions when a national anthem was needed, but officially they still had no anthem and it was only in 1990, after reunification, that the 3rd stanza, sung to Haydn's music, became the official anthem of the united republic. Singing or using the first stanza is perceived by the Germans themselves as an undesirable expression of right-wing political views - they certainly see it as declaring Germany to be "over" or "above" all and it's a sentiment they want to get away from. One translation of the 3rd stanza, now the official anthem, is :
ReplyDeleteUnity and justice and freedom
for the German fatherland;
This let us all pursue,
brotherly with heart and hand.
Unity and justice and freedom
are the pledge of happiness.
Flourish in this blessing's glory,
Flourish, German fatherland. :|
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit ("unity and justice and freedom") is the official state motto and can be found on the rim of 2-euro coins minted in Germany.
(We debate some very erudite topics here).
I wouldn't say it was a sign of great erudition to know that there's a difference between "alles" and "alle" unless one one was inveigled into spending seven years (as I did) learning Latin instead of German at TGS.Grammatically, Deutschland uber alles cannot mean what many people think it means, and the Nazis never got round to amending it to suit their purpose.I doubt very much if the Germans see it as declaring German superiority, just as I doubt whether any but the most stupid of Frenchmen would approve of the Slaves chorus from Nabuco being adopted by LePen and his gang as their signature tune
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether the following words (of Goethe) are considereed by Brits as an expression of aggressiveness or modesty?:
"A German should know all languages,so that he can converse with anyone and no one need feel a stranger in his house."
Of course, in Goethe's day "all languages" meant German, French, and just possibly Italian and English. And Latin was still useful ( e.g spoken as a working language in the Austro-Hungarian parliament). It seems that the French were very poor at it, and the English,though proficient, couldn't make themselves understood because of their awful pronunctiation. JEST was one of the last to cling partly to the old system ( pronouncing everything as if it was English)which made things more confusing than ever.
Many present-day Germans can be very sensitive about the "Deutschland uber alles" stanza, because this is the only stanza sung during the Nazi era. The second and third stanzas didn't fit the Nazi agenda and the Horst Wessel Song was sung in their place. Allied and anti-Nazi propaganda probably had a lot to do with it, but after WW2 the "Germany, Germany above everything else" notion became stigmatised - and not just by Brits either. I see Ron's point of view, though, for das Deutschlandlied is positively tame compared to certain other national anthems. "La Marseillaise" exhorts the French : "March, march, let impure blood water our furrows", while The Star-Spangled Banner contains the line "Their blood has wiped out their foul footsteps' pollution". Possibly people wouldn't object to the first stanza, if they realised it was written in 1841 to show a desire for German unification.
ReplyDeleteKenat - don't even try. We don't even know ourselves most of the time. Enjoyment and fun. That's what we live for.
ReplyDeleteBut Ron. Odd as it seems, and without putting our mother tongue thro the mincer, may I say that the German National Anthem lives on in Rugby Club bars - as strong now as immediately post war. I am not saying any more, except ask you to refer to your friends for a rendition of "Auntie Ada."
Be happy Allan
I had an aunt Ada who ran a cafe in Harrogate but I don't know of any songs about her and I have no rugby club acquaintances at all,nor any connections to any addicts,sorry, I mean aficionados,of primaeval antics. except of course our universal friend Allan Swales.
ReplyDeleteRon - those few kind words nearly reduced me to tears. If I can pluck up the courage I might enlighten you on the 18 Sept. The real Auntie Ada - not some distant relation in a Harrogate Bun Room.
ReplyDeleteYour Bestest Friend Ever Allan
As you do at our age, I try to catch up on gaps in my knowledge. (Uphill task I must admit.) But occasionally I unearth a little gem. I'll share it with you. I think Ron and me could be related. We might have a common ancestor. Go way back to King Frederick of Italy (or Holy Roman Empire if you like) in the 1190's. A bit of a nutter he was - raised in Sicily - became king at the age of 3 - and preferred to rule from Sicily - a bit of a political and cultural gap if ever. In addition he had an enquiring mind and slogged away until he was fluent in Italian, French, German, Greek, Latin and Arabic. So that is you to a tee. But he was also a closet mad scientist. We've all spent hours puzzling over what language Adam and Eve used in the Garden of Eden. No Mum, no Dad, no rellies. All on their tod. Nobody to pass on hand-me-downs even to cover themselves. So what did he do. Locked up babies in pairs, all on their own, and played "wait and see" as to what language they used. He set off to fight a Crusade in the Holy Land and got delayed by illness. Pope Gregory IX thought this pretty poor show so had him excommunicated. When he got better he set off to finish his mission, the Pope had another wobbly and excommunicated him again - this time for going on a crusade while excommunicated. Being excommunicated did little to help him raise an army over there, so he just pottered around a bit with little impact. Except he did what few others could do - got Jerusalem back, but by the diplomatic route!! Before he left Palermo he had wined and dined big wig Arabs and stitched everybody up!!! Right Ron, do you recognise him as a possible forebear?
ReplyDeleteBe happy Allan
What did Adam and Eve speak? I'd say proto-arabic. What did the first homo sapiens speak ? I suppose Niger-Congo Bantoid. Of course, the Neanderthals spoke Broad Yorkshire and lived in Broadway,Armthorpe and Thorne Moorends.
ReplyDeleteSalaam,Allen:Yes,our mutual gggggggrandfather Freddie was a scientist with a little knowledge, a dangerous thing and no common sense whatever, and was also a language scholar with no practical savvy,full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Sounds good to me.
I had eleven aunts, all with different names. Do you know a song about each of them? You could perhaps entertain us,remaining leanand hungry,while we feed in September.
Ron - for once you are not in my League. I had 19 aunties at the last count. My mother was one of ten and so was my father. And my lot all had different names. In fact my maternal Grandma was an absolute genius for names. Eleanor Margaret - Lilian Harriet - Christiana May for the girls & Walter Harold - Thomas William - Richard Hinshliffe for the boys come to mind. My mother being the youngest and last (well I suppose that is pretty obvious) finished with a bang - Edith Edna Mabel Etty. Being unable to read and write, you've got to admire her vocabulary. You never know, I might compose a little ditty. I had a booking last time round for the Corner Pin with Eileen, Anne & R.L.P. as groupies, but it never materialised. I had a bit of a go tho at the start of the meal, which brought the house down.
ReplyDeleteI've just remembered another of Fred's experiments. Being a religious sort of science guy he was very interested in what the spirit looks like, when you die, and it leaves the body. So he would grab somebody, stuff them in a barrel, and nail the lid down. When it was obvious they had snuffed it, so he would gently release the bung and wait for the action. And if you think that a bit cruel, don't forget it's not so many years ago we were force feeding Beagles 20 Capstan Full Strength a day.!!!
Be Happy Allan
No,I'm not conceding defeat,Allan, I am crying FOUL. If your grandmothers had 10 kids each I don't believe you had 19 aunts.Either your maths is of the same standard as your grandmother's literacy (or one of my grandmothers) or you are counting your uncles'wives as your aunts,which shouldnt be allowed. It's like counting your supporters as team players.If I do that I get to 23,so I win. My maternal grandmother had 16 children and my other grandma had 11.
ReplyDeleteThis however doesn't say anything about our own progenitorial prowess. I have only two daughters, and no male nephews, so the once mighty and illustrious name of Bidmade,renowned all the way from Loftus to Skinningrove,and on the other side to Hummersea, more than half a mile away, is dying out. Did you never hear of my Uncle Earnest,the strongest man in Yorkshire,very good at starting fights and a local hero already as a child because he tried (with my Dad) to burn down the school. He was known as Captain Earnest because he served in WW1,rising to the rank of Acting Lance-Corporal, and was also Captain of the Loftus cricket team, never touching the bat with his left hand,scoring six sixes in every Over, one-handed.
No,I'm not conceding defeat,Allan,I'm crying FOUL.
ReplyDeleteIf your grandmothers had 10 children each I don't believe you had nineteen aunts. Either your maths is of the same standard as your grandma's literacy( same as one of my grandmas)or you are counting your uncle's wives, which shouldn't be allowed, it's like counting your supporters as team players. If we do that, my score is 23 so I win.One of my grandmas had 16 children, the other 11.
However, this doesn't say anthing for our own progenitorial prowess.I have two daughters and no male nephews with my surname.This once mighty and illiustrious name, renowned all the way from Loftus to Skinningrove and in the other direction to Hummersea and Liverton, at least half a mile away, is dying out.
Did you never hear of my uncle Earnest, the strongest man in Yorkshire, if not in the world and very good at getting into fights,already a local hero as a child,when (with my Dad) he tried to burn down the school... known as Captain Earnest after serving in WW1, rising briefly to the rank of Acting Lance Corporal...He was also Captain of the Loftus Cricket team, never touching the bat with his left hand but knocked up 5 or 6 sixes every Over one-handed.
Well I don't care Ron. Winning on a technicality like that, just doesn't cut the mustard with me. But on this man thing that mine is bigger than yours, I give in on Auntyage and Uncleage, but challenge you on Parentage. Beat this if you can. My father died when I was three, so my mother struggled on to raise me and my brother (4 yrs older than me - called Ray. Also of T.G.S.). When we'd left home she fell for the milkman. They married so I got a Dad. Donkeys years later my Mum died. After a bit her widower remarried so I got me a Mum and a full house of parents once again. So, sucks to you. And watch your tail when you go back to Canada. My brother emigrated out there, to Red Deer, and raised a family too. You can meet his son by typing in "Pete Swales + Red Deer". Describes himself as vibrant, healthy and loving. So obviously takes after his Uncle Allan!!! And for the curious Red Deer is somewhere near Calgary. Ron somebody should have told you. Engage with Allan and Allan has to win. I would teach my kids how to play Ludo. Then I would teach them how to cheat at Ludo. And from there it was war. I just had to beat them over and over until they got smart and started beating me. My wife played pop that I was ruining them for life and I should cheat so I lost and they won. No hopes.
ReplyDeleteBe Happy Allan