The Colloquial Carman

My grandfather was a Cockney, a true Londoner. He ran his own coal delivery business, operating from King's Cross station to which coal was delivered from the mining areas of the north by train. On census records his occupation is recorded as a carman. And what, pray tell, might that be?

The word car predates the automobile or motorcar by many centuries and just means a wheeled vehicle, so is related to cart and carriage. A carman was someone who owned and made his living from a horse-drawn cart and by my grandfather's time this mainly meant distributing goods, which had been brought into the railway stations, to all parts of London. Although he delivered coal as his main occupation he would swap to transporting fruit and vegetables during the summer.

Interestingly, although "car" is used for an automobile in most of England, in London it's often referred to as a "motor". Which brings us on to the subject of language and the fact that you might also hear a car being called a "jam jar" in some parts of London, an example of Cockney rhyming slang ( car = jam jar). 

A car like Granddad's

So here, in no particular order, are some more examples of Cockney as-she-was-spoke. I never met my grandfather as he died before I was born but these are all phrases he used as I learned them from my mother.

Some make a kind of poetic sense: if you were going out to one of the major fairs (as Granddad and family are doing in the photo at the top of this post) then you'd want to look your best, so it makes sense that Barnet fair is the rhyming slang for hair, though it's often shortened to just Barnet, which then gives no clue as to its origin. If you really wanted to get whistled at you'd wear your whistle and flute (suit). There's something comical about the sedate progress of frogs and toads so frog-and-toad became the slang for road.  I'll only get myself in deep water if I try to explain why it's trouble-and-strife for wife. Or alternatively she might be the love-and-kisses (Mrs). And the finest of all of them is dog-and-bone to mean telephone; old-fashioned phones really did look a bit like a dog sitting with a bone held in its jaws.

Skin-and-blister for sister suggests something very close to you, while north-and-south for mouth gives a picture of someone with a very large mouth indeed. Elephants trunk means drunk and creates an image of something or someone who could take up a vast quantity of liquid. Tiddly also means drunk and that's rhyming slang too, coming from tiddly-wink for a drink. There are quite a lot of these unexpected examples of rhyming slang, phrases in everyday use which no one ever considers to have a Cockney origin.

How many gangsters or hippies knew that when they were using the word bread to mean money, they were using the language of London street-traders - bread-and-honey means money. Using your loaf, on the other hand, comes from loaf-of-bread for head. And how many elderly aunts have amused children by blowing raspberries without realising that it's derived from raspberry-tart meaning fart? 

The word to scarper, meaning to run away from the scene of the crime, is sometimes said to come from Scarpa Flow (up and go). If you up and go it maybe because you just haven't got the bottle to fight - that's rhyming slang too, bottle-and-glass = class.

Your mate might be referred too as your china (china plate for mate) or else you might call them my old fruit (fruit gum instead of chum). If you haven't got any friends you'd be on your tod (probably from Tod Sloan an American jockey who famously rode 5 consecutive winners at Newmarket in 1898 - he was quite literally out there on his own!). 

Here's a few more:

                  daisy roots = boots

                  apples and pears = stairs
                  Rosie Lee = cup of tea
                  tea leaf = thief
                  I should coco = I should think so (used sarcastically to actually mean 'Not likely!' as in "Work all day for no pay? I should coco!" It probably originates from Coco the Clown.
                  brown bread = dead

                  mince pies = eyes

                  Joanna = piano

                  boat race = face

                  kettle = pocket watch, that's from kettle-and-hob for fob, a fob watch. Would you Adam-and Eve it?

Take care.



                  
                  

Streets Of Cambridge.

A Husky Hero

At last! The true hero of polar exploration has been honoured with this statue outside the Scott Polar Museum in Cambridge's Lensfield Road. As the poet Les Barker explains, (and you can hear the entire poem, recited by the entire poet, here)  Amundsen wasn't the first to reach the South Pole....

It was an elementary mistake

That put Roald out of the hunt
How can the man at the back of the sledge
Beat the dog he has tied to the front?

Quite so, Mr Barker, quite so.

The Fearful Poet

When the poet Thomas Gray (yes, he who elergised in the country churchyard) was at Peterhouse College he found himself sharing a corridor with some frequently noisy and drunken revellers. Their late-night homecomings filled the delicate poet with dread and he imagined that they might easily upset a candle and set fire to the building. Gray therefore ordered a rope ladder "full thirty-six feet long and fitted with hooks" to be delivered. He then had an iron bar fixed outside his window from which to hang his means of escape. All this did not go unnoticed by his neighbours and early one morning a group of them assembled outside and loudly shouted "Fire!", hoping to see the poet making his escape in his nightshirt.

In the event Gray realised what was happening so the prank failed. However the story was told and re-told till the story ran that he had not only descended, but had fallen into a large vat of cold water placed there for the purpose. These lies became so widespread that they even appeared in a well-respected biography.

Gray left Peterhouse soon after and went across the road to Pembroke College. But the iron bar is still there for anyone walking down Trumpington Street to see.


In And Out Of The Eagle

The Eagle pub in Bene't Street is very old indeed. An inn has stood on the site since at least 1353 and it was certainly known as the Eagle And Child in 1525. As you might expect with a building as old as this there are many stories of ghosts. A few hundred years ago a fire raged through part of one of the upper floors and a child, unable to open the window, perished in the flames. Ever since that day the window has been left open, as you can see at the top-centre of the photo above.

But that was not what my friends and I were thinking about when we gathered there in the early 1970s. Neither were we aware that Francis Crick and James D Watson had compared notes there and even chose it as the place to announce the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA.

I do vaguely remember glancing up at the ceiling in the bar though, which was "decorated" with the names and squadron numbers of British and American pilots who relaxed here during World War II. 



Pitt's Pizzas

This strange "Greek temple" in Jesus Lane is the headquarters of The Pitt Club, named after Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger and one of the most exclusive University clubs. Its aim originally was to ensure that the right sort of people got elected to parliament - by which they meant Tories. 

However their precious "market forces" led them to rent a large part of the building to Pizza Express, though no commercial signage has been allowed. One can almost see the likeness of Pitt, which is above the door, turning up his not inconsiderable nose at the smell of pizza wafting from below.


Back In The Doghouse

A sand-sculptor adds the finishing touches to a hound in repose. This man was in Cambridge for several days and every time I saw him he was re-creating exactly the same sculpture. Now he seems to have moved on elsewhere.


Take care.

Just A Note....

....to regular readers to let them know that I'm still around. Nothing terribly interesting or interestingly terrible is happening in my life; just taking a break from blogging  - but I'll be back quite soon. In the meantime here's something which I found amusing on YouTube, just to let you know how infantile this person dwelling at the other end of hyperspace can be! 

Take care (especially if you're a grandparent!)

The People's Art

A few of the many uncredited "works of art" to be seen on the streets of Cambridge

"International Cuisine"
(10ft x 8ft)
Emulsion paint on rotting boards

"Red, White & Blue" (detail)
(4ft x 7ft)
Gloss paint on  carved wood and plaster

"Instructions For Returning Cat" (trompe l'oeil)

(7ft x 2ft 6in)

Paint on disused door

"Homage To Mark Rothko"

(Big as a house!)

Paint on board and bricks

"Yarn-Bombing, Mill Road Bridge"

(4ft x several yards)

Wool on iron railings

"Warehouse Sunrise" (detail)

12ft x 8ft

Spray paint on textured board

"HAVE YOU BEEN LET DOWN? Again....."

8ft x 6ft

Spray can on re-sculpted garage door

"It 

could 

be wor

se"

8ft x 6ft

Spray can on steel door

Take care

Le Tour - An Insider's Guide

The world's greatest bicycle race, the Tour de France, is coming to Cambridge next week, having this year started in Yorkshire. While these riders have tackled the Alps and the Pyrenees before they've probably never cycled in Cambridge. So here is a guide to all the delights and difficulties of riding through Cycle City.

This is where they'll be starting, near the Catholic Church, and here are Cambridge's own experts showing how to get away at the traffic lights before the cars and buses.

Inexperienced riders may find themselves left at the start. You will notice that riding on the path, though not strictly within the law, is quite acceptable in Cambridge; as is going the wrong way down one way streets and ignoring traffic lights.

The "peloton" soon sorts itself out and forms only a minor hazard to other road users.

The landscape is mostly quite flat and there are no slopes which are not surmountable to the bicycle. You may need to practise your hill-parking however.

By this time the front-runners will be setting a cracking pace....

....while more experienced campaigners will await their opportunity.

The Copper Kettle cafe offers a full English breakfast, served all day, or fish and chips if anyone's feeling peckish at this early stage.

The City Council provide useful maps should riders lose their way in the maze of streets.

There are also many unmistakable landmarks to guide you on your way.

Now here's drama as one of the competitors has to stop for repairs!

And is that the yellow jersey of the overall race-leader? He seems to have had enough of Cambridge's traffic and potholes and has stopped for a coffee!

Any rider glancing up in Trinity Street might think he's already in France with the bunting and shuttered windows. But, no, I can see a Union flag up there....

....or maybe we are in France after all!

Meanwhile the Regent Hotel gets into the spirit of the day!

And the leading riders speed off into the distance. Having successfully negotiated the streets of Cambridge it's only another 94 miles (150 Km) to London. And they call that a "short stage"!

Take care.

Tourists

A family out sightseeing in Cambridge this afternoon.

Take care.

Notes From A Strange Country

England is a place full of oddities for those who keep looking. In the small town of Royston, Hertfordshire, is the remarkable building below; one wonders what the history of the building might be, there are all sorts of clues but piecing it all together is beyond me. And if you just wait for the woman with the baby-buggy to get out of the way......

.....you'll see the suicidal-looking front door below. Presumably the front steps have been removed at sometime and no one's ever got around to replacing them. And there must be a very unusual view of pedestrians from that low window.

*****

Meanwhile in Ely these strange characters adorn the roof of a houseboat...

The boat is occupied by "The Willow Man" who weaves these artworks from green willow. He's often to be seen sitting on the riverbank going about his work and chatting to passers-by.

*****

Someone who didn't live on anything like a houseboat was Lord Fairhaven. When we visited his old home at Anglesey Abbey some time ago I failed to show you his magnificent bathroom. Now I've been doing this blog long enough to know the kind of details that some of my readers like to know. So here, for your information and entertainment is.....

....'nuff said!

*****

Raising the tone a little, I noticed this unique clock on the tower of West Acre church in Norfolk. "Watch and Pray"

*****

But in the church at Newton in Cambridgeshire is this notice...

....either a note to deter thieves or a desperate complaint from the vicar!

*****

Here's an interesting piece of work high on Therfield Heath at Royston....

.....a gate in the middle of nowhere. It's on a footpath which crosses the local golf course (watch out for flying golf balls!) but the golf club has never bothered to put any sort of fence around their property. Interestingly from the wear of the grass it seems that many people actually use the gate rather than passing either side which would be much easier!

*****

Then down in Royston town, not a couple of hundred yards away from our first photo, I came across this building. Look closely, there's a strange little door which can only be for elves or fairies!

Take care.

People Are Strange!

My mother was born in London where her grandfather owned four houses. She lived in one of them and her mother used to collect the rent money from the other households. One of these tenants was a particularly awkward and cantankerous lady who came originally from Cambridge. "Oh, Cambridge people are a strange lot!", my grandmother would frequently complain as she returned home from collecting the rent.

When my mother was just nine years old, war with Germany was declared and the children were evacuated to safer areas of the country. For my mother and her brothers the destination was Cambridgeshire. My mother looked everywhere she went, but was surprised to see that people had just one head each and nothing strange about them at all!

But it's always best to be sure so I checked through some of my old photos......

There you are....nothing strange about us at all!

Take care.