Chicken Shit and Brown Ale

You can tell we live in the country because last night in the pub the conversation turned to chicken shit.  Chickens really do produce an awful lot of it.  This was the general gist of the small talk. 

Some Chickens

I was also talking of an interesting little-known fact.  When reading a regency-time draper's catalogue (don't we all?)  one of the colours listed in fabrics was goose-turd.  From my personal experience of goose turds, I would hazard a guess that they were talking about green and white speckled fabric.  It did amuse me that all these Downton Abbey fans who think that the past, especially in Jane Austen times, was so refined are all wrong.  There I've proved it, anyone who watches any programme by Julian Fellowes is just wrong.  And probably a secret southron too. 

Talk then turned to drinks which used to be our regular drink in times long past.  Aimo remembered Mann's Brown Ale, which he thought was served in Vaux pubs in Sunderland many moons ago.  Mark said how years could go by now without him even thinking about Newcastle Brown Ale, whereas once anybody drinking anything other than a bottle of dog would routinely get their head kicked in for being some kind of chicken-shit southron.  So long ago...

Yet we wandered down the booze aisle at Morrisons today, and there Mann's Brown Ale was.  It had never gone away, it was just sat there waiting to be bought. 

We didn't buy any.

Seasick Steve and A Piano-player in a Whorehouse

I don't know if it's thinking about roads and travelling, but I have been listening to Seasick Steve all morning:

A Good Album

Another Good Album

Another Good Album

Another Good Album

I can particularly recommend:

Started Out With Nothing
St Louis Slim
Dog House Boogie
Diddley Bo
Seasick Boogie

especially to wash up to.  I can't understand why anyone would want a dishwasher when you could put some rockin boogie-woogie on loud in the kitchen and wash the pots.  When we arrived at Aimo's House there was a dishwasher installed as it is a new property.  The dishwasher has never been used (except as a cold storage cupboard for booze).  We always wash the pots in the old-timey way, and Miss and Master Aimson have been brought up that way.  Miss Aimson favours Them Crooked Vultures and The Dead Weather VERY loud while washing up, but they're too heavy for me.  Some Seasick Steve, a bit of ZZ Top or maybe Alternative 80s does for me.

I really enjoy the corny puns, humorous innuendo and silly wordplay of classic rock 'n' roll.  In fact, the first record I ever bought was My Ding-a-Ling by Chuck Berry.  A fairly classy choice for an 8-year-old and certainly nothing to be ashamed of, unlike The Bay City Rollers or Donny Osmond who were around at the time.  Anyway, back to the wordplay.  I like:

I started out with nothing, and I still got most of it left...

I also like wordplay in books, e.g.

Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs (She Thinks I'm a Piano-player in a Whorehouse)

by Paul Carter.  My aunt had sent the audio-books over from Australia some years ago and I enjoyed them.  I saw yesterday in Macc that they are available in shops over here now.  Listen to them for some hair-raising adventures, shaggy dog stories and fleamsy puns.

Roads, Highwaymen and Birthdays

This year our road is The Most Dangerous Road in Britain again.  And it is more dangerous than ever:

Our Paper

In Fleams the road is also dangerous but for other reasons.  Like outlaws, cut-throats, cut-purses, cannibals, highwaymen and the like.  Very few attempt to travel The Docksey Pass after dark for this reason.

The road is named after the famous inn at the head of the pass, The Doxey's Arms.  Rather than face the perils of the road in darkness, most travellers are forced to spend the night in The Doxey's Arms.  At least that's what they tell their wives.

Famous outlaws of the area include Poole, who lived in a cave with his cat when he wasn't robbing people.  You can learn more about him at Poole's Cavern visitor centre and café.  I just celebrated a friend's birthday there with a spicy sweet potato soup.  We didn't meet an outlaw or highwayman, but I suppose it was daylight.

Happy Birthday Cheryl!  & Emma!  & Aimo! & Laura! & Bernard! & Cordelia! and my friend from uni Claire!  Busy week for birthdays.

The Old Jawbone

In researching my book about Fleams, I have been looking up the jawbone as an instrument.  I was first alerted to this possibility by the film Silent Tongue.

A Good Western by Sam Shepherd

This film is highly recommended, with a brilliant Fleamsy travelling medicine show/circus.  Alan Bates (a Derbyshire native) is the leader of the medicine show.  The medicine show band are played by real-life band The Red Clay Ramblers.  They have a song called The Old Jawbone.  I bought one of their CDs and then found out some more about the jawbone as an instrument.

The jawbone is classified as an idiophone, shaken idiophone, rattle idiophone and percussion instrument.

The jawbone has been used as an instrument for several centuries in many cultures.  this instrument was originally created from the jaw of a horse, mule or donkey.  When the bone was removed from the skull, cleaned and thoroughly dried, the teeth became loose and when shaken or struck, produced a loud rattling sound.  this instrument continues to be popular in Latin American music and will often be adorned with small bells to add a different character to the sound.  It was also used as a type of tambourine in the minstrel shows of the late 19th century in the United States.

I am working on a lino-print of a jawbone musical instrument currently for my Fleams ABC project.

 

Ogles, Moons and Lover's Leaps

When we were at Bolsover Castle, we noticed several of the coats of arms contained a symbol that looked like a crescent moon.  I have been doing some checking...

 

Three Stags' Heads and a Moon

I knew the three stags' heads is the crest of the Devonshire family (as in Chatsworth House).. It is seen around here locally.  It is the name of a great pub in Wardlow Mires.  I could tell you some tales about nights there.  Well, one of them I couldn't because it's probably libellous.  Say no more...  Pub well-recommended anyway.

I looked up the crescent and it is the crest of the Ogle family.  In a way, I thought that it was quite amusing that "Big Billy" Cavendish, he who liked boobs so much, should have married an Ogle and gained an Ogle family crest; but then I knew that Ogle is a long-standing family in Northumberland and you're not allowed to make jokes about the name, unless you want to sound like a Southron.

I'm not sure what the crescent moon is doing in the Ogle family crest, we will have to see what further research brings up.  It did cross my mind that it might be linked to the pub name The Moon in Stoney Middleton.

Stoney Middleton has some interesting history.  The pub is haunted by the ghost of a Scottish pedlar who was murdered in the pub while the landlord failed to intervene.  His body was disposed of in a cavern or mine-shaft.  The medieval packhorse track or holloway which the pedlars, or jaggermen or chapmen would have used, still exists. 

The villagers of Stoney Middleton co-operated with the village of Eyam during The Plague, when they quarantined themselves to avoid spreading the disease.  They left food and provisions at the boundary stone, and the villagers of Eyam left payment in hollows in the boundary stone filled with vinegar.  The villagers of Stoney Middleton were happy to co-operate with this, but they did stone any villagers from Eyam that were spotted trying to leave their village boundaries.

Later, Stoney Middleton became famous for the story of Lover's Leap.  A jilted girl tried to commit suicide by leaping from the cliffs, but her skirt became a parachute and saved her.  Miss Aimson did a large painting of said event in her Art "A" Level, and the picture hangings on our stairs.  Buxton also has it's Lover's Leap, but I'm not sure about that one.

Further reading required...

Dirty Parsnips and More Cockayne

Another drive in the rain today.  Started off at Leek with a Staffordshire oatcake (double with crispy bacon) and a look at The Longworth Gallery.  It was so posh prices were NOT displayed.  There was a really good taxidermy dome (dead bird and chandelier) in the window.  I didn't ask if it was a Polly Morgan.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was because everything was pretty top-notch.  We didn't actually speak inside the gallery except to say "Hello" and "Goodbye" to the nice man.

Then back into the rain.  Hurried past the market, pausing only to look at some Dirty Parsnips.  Yes, they were actually labelled Dirty Parsnips.  They were quite big.  And not really that dirty, I thought, but then my dad has a vegetable garden, so I've seen dirty vegetables before.  Onwards to Cromford via Onecote and Bottomhouse.  Any excuse to go to Bottomhouse.  I'm childish like that.  Past Wetton and Thor's Cave which I have just been reading about in Legendary Britain by John Matthews and R J Stewart, where The Lair of The White Worm was set by Bram Stoker, and where Ken Russell filmed The Lair of the White Worm.  His clever filming makes the cave seem a whole lot bigger than it seems when you're actually in there.

At Cromford, we were headed for Arkwright Mill, and my favourite shop Arum-Lilie Designs. 

A Very Cool Shop

Browsed the great stuff in the shop, planned a few Christmas presents, talked to the very nice Lizzie and Tim, and bought a Halloween special chapbook from Candlestick Press:

A Chapbook which Contains Spookiness

Then drove (in the rain) to Bakewell via Stanton-in-the-Peak (home of The Nine Ladies), past Haddon Hall (home of Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester) to visit The Old House Museum.  Said hello to my favourite smock, Newark woad-dyed, amazing embroidery on the boxes, and saw a 1840s wedding dress that would have quite suited Jane Eyre, and a couple 1810 dresses.  Beautiful.  Then there was a section on church music in pre-Victorian times, and there had a musical instrument called a serpent on display.  Great place to see a serpent in the flesh as it were.  Loads of good stuff, all donated by local people to the museum of local stuff.  Well-recommended.  One of the samplers was by a 13-year-old girl with the surname Cockayne.  More clues to The Land Of Cockayne.  I'll get there one day.


Hello Brazil!  Come back soon!

Worms, Skeletons, Plague and Piggins

Aimo and I had a trip to Eyam in the rain today.  On the way there we passed Wormhill, presumably the ancient site of some worm-related legend.  We were going to Eyam to see the wall-paintings in the church, that Cheryl had recommended:

Death with his Scythe?

There was a good memento mori  figure of Death.  The other surviving wall-paintings are shields representing the 12 tribes of Israel.  While we were there we photographed some gravestones in the rain:

Skull and Cross Bones Gravestone

Time Flies on the other side of the Gravestone

Unusual Carving - Laurel leaves?

In the church are information boards about the history of the village and the Plague.  There is the very touching love story of Emmott Sydall, who died in the plague, leaving her sweetheart from Stoney Middleton heartbroken.

We went to have a look at Eyam Hall, which just passed into the care of The National Trust this March.  The Wright family had lived there from some time shortly after The Plague until this February, some there are some great items preserved there.

I saw samplers, needlework bed-coverings, tapestries, and some great furniture.  In the Tapestry Room the walls are completely covered in a patchwork of tapestries, cut up to fit the room exactly.  The effect is very cosy, and really gives the idea of why people liked tapestry furnishing.  One of the samplers was by Emily Cockayne in 1827.  Did she come from The land of Cockayne? (see earlier posts about Cockayne)

As you walk in the entrance door, you see straight ahead of you two remarkable pieces of furniture, either side of the fireplace - two bacon settles.  They are settles, with, in addition to storage in the seats, cupboards at the back to hold flitches of bacon.  Master Aimson's dream furniture - seating with bacon storage!  Settees with added bacon! 

During The Plague one villager had buried all of her family one by one, then was ill and weak herself, too weak to cook for herself, so she heated a piggin of lard and drank that.  She recovered from the plague.  So could she have found a bacon fat cure for the plague?  Also, how cool is a piggin as a name for a container - a small wooden container, with one the staves long like a handle - a piggin.

When Master Aimson has his own house one day, I bet it will  be full of bacon settles and piggins.