Author: kevinhobbs

Hanging the Monkey

/ kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | Dear Mister Thoms # 33, 1994

In his book Who Hung The Monkey?, Paul Screeton notes that the story of a monkey being hanged is linked to four places in Britain, Boddam (North East Scotland), Hartlepool (North East England) and Mevagissey (South West England), and possibly an unnamed village in Derbyshire (Note 1). Scottish Memories, a recently started monthly popular magazine, adds a further location, Greenock in the West of Scotland.

A short unsigned article, in the June 1993 issue, entitled “Just fancy that…”, dates the event as occurring in 1760. Unlike the stories set in some other places, no shipwreck is involved. A wily native of Port Glasgow hoaxed a gullible citizen of nearby Greenock by telling him that a French spy has swum ashore and is hiding. A posse of Greenock inhabitants catch, try and hang a monkey, believing it to be the French spy. The article also mentions a successful trick later played on Port Glasgow by a Greenock citizen posing as an expert campanologist. On his advice, the Portonians, to clean a bell which was not ringing true, boiled water in it over a fire. The bell cracked and never rang again. (This mirrors the joke and counter-joke associated with other versions of the story, for example the following cited by Drummond, 1982:

Peterhead man: Aye, aye, man! Are ye looking for a monkey?

Boddam fisherman: Foo, fit’s wrang. Hae ye lost yer brither?)

The article in Scottish Memories gave rise to a variety of spin offs, in The Guardian, The Mail of Hartlepool and Scottish Memories itself. The role of the Hartlepool Mail was crucial to this for a reason which can be discerned in the title of the piece it ran, “Hands off our monkey!” (Hickey, 1993). The article is short on evidence and long on assertiveness; for example: “We all know who hung the monkey” said a spokesman for Hartlepool Borough Council. “And it wasn’t the Scots!”

The response by Scottish Memories is hardly impressive if one is interested in quality of argument. The only historical evidence offered is that a French naval squadron was in the area in 1760. Otherwise we have to rely on the fact that “many local folk recall the story being passed down the generations”. One example quoted is of someone hearing it from her father who heard it from his father. Since the informant’s father was born in 1910, the grandfather was presumably born in the second half of the nineteenth century, about a century short of the supposed date of the hanging. Showing a little more balance of judgement, Scottish Memories also quoted Lesley Couperwhite, a local librarian, who pointed out that the story was told “about a number of places from Aberdeen to Cornwall”. (Actually, Boddam is north of Aberdeen, and there is a version from slightly further north than that.)

When Maeve Kennedy, Diarist of The Guardian newspaper picked up on this controversy (8 July 1993) she asked for, and got “more monkeys please”. Only a few of the monkey items she subsequently published concerned monkey hanging, however. On 14 July, she reported the hanging of a monkey, escaped from a circus, in the Cotswold village of Ruardean. On 27 July, she cited Derek Froome on both Megavissey and Boddam. Although she ran items in her Diary until 13 August, no other sites of monkey-hanging were mentioned (although stories involving killing monkeys by other means do mention other places). Paul Screeton reproduces in Folklore Frontiers, No.20, an article from The Journal (Newcastle) in which is added an unidentified fishing port in Dorset. A further location is mentioned by Healey and Galvill in their Urban Myths (pp 87-88). Although they focus upon the Hartlepool story, they state that some natives of Kent claim it happened in that county. (When they later dealt with the Hartlepool story in their Urban Myths feature in The Guardian, they did not mention the Kent version.)

Although these various texts together provide quite a long list of towns or villages (Boddam, Greenock, Hartlepool, Magavissey, Ruardean) and counties (Derbyshire, Dorset, Kent) with which the monkey hanging story has been linked, with respect to documentation we appear to be still in the position that Screeton found himself in when writing his book. Hartlepool and Boddam seem at present to have the most substantial links with the story, though of course researchers with access to local sources might come up with more substantial material on the other locations.

Screeton tends to favour Hartlepool as the more likely “original” and it should be stressed that this can not be seen as simply the local patriotism of a native. As a native of Aberdeenshire, I might be expected to favour Boddam, but I must declare myself an agnostic on the issue. I am not persuaded by James Drummond’s 1982 article arguing for a Boddam origin because of his lack of documentation. Those interested in the question should read Screeton’s book. Here I would like to deal with a couple of points from a slightly different perspective from Screeton’s.

The Boddam story might appear to have three pieces of circumstantial evidence favouring it (see Neish, 1950, Graham, 1965). First, we are told the name of the ship the monkey was on, the Anna. Secondly, we are given a date, 1772. Thirdly, we are provided with a distinctive motive for the hanging. Let us start with the last of these. In most of the monkey hanging stories, the hanging comes about because of the stupidity or ignorance of the people who mistake the monkey for a French spy. In some of the Boddam texts, there is what might be thought a somewhat more “rational” explanation. The status of an abandoned ship with livestock on board is different in Scots law from that of a ship without livestock. A case in 1674 had established that a ship with an ox on board could not be deemed a “wreck”. Killing the monkey could be interpreted as an attempt to improve the Boddamers’ legal claim to the ship. Whilst not exactly admirable behaviour, this casts the executioners as something different from the bumkins implied in other texts. But does this make the story more plausible? I would suggest that in isolation it does not, since the explanation could easily have been added to the story in transmission. If the explanation were linked to an authenticated incident, however, that might make the case for Boddam rather stronger. However, that is not the case. In a recent study of shipwrecks in the area, which aims at being comprehensive, Ferguson (1992) found no evidence of a shipwreck at Boddam (or elsewhere on that coast) involving a ship called the Anna or the year 1772. The incident appears in Ferguson’s book solely on the basis of the legend.

Screeton gives considerable prominence to the song by Ned Corvan “Who hung the monkey?” which first appeared in print in 1862 and which he plausibly links to the Hartlepool story. He notes the fact that a similar song is linked to the Boddam story. Drummond suggested that Corvan adapted an earlier song about Boddam. This is purely speculative, however, since no earlier “Boddam” text exists. Both the Boddam and Hartlepool versions are sung to the tune usually called “The Tinker’s Wedding”. Corvan’s chorus has a final line:

The fishermen hung the monkey O!

Screeton refers to Corvan as having put Hartlepudlians “on the map”, which may well be true, but it should be noted that Hartlepool as such is not mentioned in the text Screeton quotes. In contrast, Screeton quotes as the last line of the chorus of the Boddam version:

The Boddamers hanged the monkey o’.

Is this then evidence that the song is “really” about Boddam? Alison (1976) prints three verses with a chorus which ends:

the Boddamers hanged the monkey-o.

However, the provenance of this version gos back no earlier than 1974 (Note 2). Cuthbert Graham writing in 1965 quotes a four-line verse ending:

And the Boddamers hanged the monkey O!

However, Neish (1950), on whom Graham seems largely have drawn for the story and song, does not quote that line. Searching for an earlier Boddam text, I found a single verse and chorus in the Greig-Duncan Folk-Song Collection (Shuldham-Shaw and Lyle, 1981). Here, the chorus ends:

The fishermen hanged the monkey O.

Not only is Boddam not mentioned, but the accompanying note from the Greig manuscript, dated August 1907, reads:

Cullen fisherman who sang it told of ship running ashore off Banffshire. All the crew were drowned. A monkey was saved. Fishermen, unable to place the creature, hanged it.
Here then is a much earlier text from the North East of Scotland which not only does not mention Boddam but places the incident in the neighbouring county and attributes the hanging to the ignorance of the finders.

Let me end by stating a simple goal. For each supposed location of the monkey hanging story, let us try to discover the earliest known text in which the incident is explictly stated to have involved inhabitants of that particular place. This will not in itself establish the “original” version (if there is such a thing). But it might but the discussion on a slightly firmer footing.

Notes

  1. The qualification “possibly” seems appropriate, since Screeton actually refers to an “ape” being “tried, sentenced and executed”. This seems to me pretty close to stories about monkeys being hanged.
  2. Alison acknowledges as his source a BBC broadcast in 1974 or 1975.

References

Alison, James N. (Ed.), Poetry of Northeast Scotland. London: Heinemann Educational, 1976.
Drummond, James, The Tale of a Monkey, Scots Magazine, October 1982, pp 62-70.
Ferguson, David M., Shipwrecks of North East Scotland 1444-1990. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1991; Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1992.
Graham, Cuthbert, The Blossoming of Boddam, The Press and Journal, 10 April 1965 (Cutting in Aberdeen Public Library Local Collection).
Healey, Phil and Glanvill, Rick, Urban Myths. London: Virgin, 1992.
Healey and Glanvill, Urban Myths 39: Monkey business, The Guardian, 12 June 1993, Weekend Section, p 75.
Hickey, Phillip, Hands off our Monkey! The Mail, 2 July 1993; reprinted in Folklore Frontiers, No. 19, 1993.
Neish, Robert, Old Peterhead. Peterhead: P. Scrogie, 1950.
Screeton, Paul, Who Hung The Monkey? A Hartlepool Legend. Hartlepool: Printability Publishing, 1991.
Screeton, Paul, Monkey Hanging Scam, Folklore Frontiers, No. 20, 1993.
Shuldham-Shaw, Patrick, and Lyle, Emily B. (Eds.) The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection, Volume 1. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1981.

Sex stories told in pubs

/ kevinhobbs

Brian McConnell | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 1, 1995

Sex stories told by men in public houses are often suspect. Even when there is some public published record of an extrordinary sexual occurrence, there is a suspicion of embroidery by the story-teller.

My elders always assured me that during the 1920s and 1930s the following two stories were witnessed in courts.

An Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was charged with an act of indecency in Hyde Park. The magistrate found him guilty and had an undoubted duty to inquire into any previous criminality by the prisoner before passing sentence. Even so, the police must have been surprised to hear the beak ask, “Anything previously known about the prisoner?”

Another magistrate died while having sexual intercourse with a prostitute. At a subsequent inquest, the coroner asked the doxy, “When did you first think that there was anything wrong with the deceased?” Through her tears, the lady replied, “Just as I thought he was coming, he was…”, sob, sob, “going”.

Stories about people dying during the sexual act, usually couple with a pay-off line, “What a way to go!” are seldom believed. Nor are stories about couples being inescapably joined in the sexual act and taken together on one stretcher by the ambulance men to the hospital to be separated. Perhaps someone should compile a list of such stories and legends in the hope the veracity can be checked.

Before we dismiss all stories of sexual oddities as fiction, however, I offer the attached story from my journalistic alma mater with the old-fashioned mandatory quotation from a named authority to substantiate the account.

South London Press, 18 February 1994.
FREE WILLY! PERVERT PADLOCKS PRIVATES
EXCLUSIVE by RICHARD ALLEN

A red-faced patient found himself in a bit of a tight spot when he limped into hospital – with a padlock stuck on his private parts. Staff at St Thomas’ Hospital, Waterloo, called in firefighters on Tuesday morning after they failed to find a delicate way of freeing the elderly man’s manhood.

But after a bit of trial and error the Lambeth fire crew found the right key in their spare set.
A fire brigade spokesman said, “He was obviously some kind of masochist who put this thing on and then found he didn’t have the key. “He was lucky it was a standard lock, otherwise we would have had to use the cutting equipment.”

Dr Caroline Bradbeer, of St Thomas’ genito-urinary medicine department, said the case was not unusual. She said, “Sometimes people do it because they are trying to improve their erection – but then they find it wont go down again.” “Bathing it in ice cubes can work, if it hasn’t gone to far.”

Three years ago, Lewisham firefighters were called to Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, to free a 55-year-old man who had a steel ring stuck in a similar way.

In a 90-minute operation a medical team managed to cut him free using an air-driven surgical saw while firefighters held the ring with a mole grip and doused the metal with water to keep it cool.

Folklore in the Third Reich

/ kevinhobbs

Bill Nicolaisen | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 1, 1995

The Nazification of an Academic Discipline: Folklore in the Third Reich. Edited and translated by James R. Dow and Hannjost Lixfeld. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994. xx + 354, bibliography, name index. Obtainable from Open University Press, Celtic Court, 22-26 Ballmoor, Buckingham, MK18 1XW. £32.50. ISBN 0-253-31821-1.

In the late ’forties and early ’fifties, the study of folklore at German academic institutions was in crisis. Hardly any courses were on offer because many of the professors and lecturers who should have been teaching them had, if they had survived the war, not yet been cleared by the “denazification” panels. The crisis did, however, have deeper roots than a temporary lack of qualified instructors; it was a crisis of the very discipline itself which, during the years 1933-1945, and to a certain extent perhaps even earlier, had been hijacked by political ideologists who has successfully seized the element Volk- in Volkskunde to identify it with their notion of their term, as in the slogan “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer” which was used to hammer home their aspirations for one people in one nation under one leader, with all the consequences of territorial acquisition, ethnic cleansing, and the derogatory stigmatisation of “others” which this implied. Immediately after the war, there had even been calls for the removal of the discipline from the academic curriculum.

In English, the word “folk” has never had the connotation of nationality (natio) and chauinistic worldview although when Thoms first coined the term “folklore” in 1846, the concept was not completely free from anti-classical bias and purifying prejudice. Any political baggage which it may have been given to carry since then has been derived generally more from class-conscious and anti-elitist thinking than from narrow-minded, simplistic nationalism. If one wants to understand both the power and the vulnerability of the German Volk therefore, English folk is not a good starting point because it is likely to puzzle and confuse rather than clarify. In this respect, it is also significant that several of the Departments or Institutes of Volkskunde in German universities have in the post-war years changed their names.

The enforced appropriation of both Volk and (to such an extent that an ordinary citizen of the Third Reich was addressed as Volksgenosse or VG, roughly “folk-comrade”) and Volkskunde for arrogant, xenophobic, political purposes in national-socialist Germany left the discipline so tainted that it took many years to imbue it with unchallengeable qualities of academic respectability again, often not surprisingly in a kind of ideological rebound via leftist and Marxist leanings, and it was not until 1986 that the German Folklore Society chose “Volkskunde und Nationalsozialismus” as the central topic of one of its biennial congresses. The German originals of the papers included in the anthology under review were also, with two exceptions, not published until the late ‘eighties or early ‘nineties, with several of them deriving from the congress just mentioned. It takes a considerable amount of temporal distance to create an atmosphere conducive to a constructive intellectual confrontation of such a phenomenon as the coercive, starry-eyed but morally brutalising take-over and conversion of a whole discipline and the materials it studies for the purposes of political advancement and cultural subversion. Evem when much water has flowed under the bridge, objectivity has become a slippery commodity and the emotional response to appalling horror and academic debasement, intermingled with the seduction of good minds and of personal tragedy (the folksong scholar Kurt Huber was shot in 1943) keeps simmering under the surface.

The authors whose articles are included in this volume know this, and it is to be regarded as an act of courage on their part rather than of defensiveness that they have been prepared to tackle problems caused by an as yet mostly unaddressed past. Most of them belong to that articulate group of eminent German and Austrian folklorists who have given the discipline of Folklore a fresh start in great adversity and a new standing in German universities; it is probably also worth mentioning that their presentations and arguments were, in the first place, intended for a German or Austrian audience, and that by having made these papers available in English, Dow and Lixfeld have allowed outside spectators to observe these sensitive and sometimes painful intra-German processes. “It couldn’t happen here” would, however, be a short-sighted and completely inappropriate response. The urge to please one’s political masters, especially if they also hold the purse-strings to finance research and the key to professional appointment and promotion, is not confined to Hitler’s Germany, quite apart from the sad fact that some of the practitioners of Volkskunde in the Third Reich Reich may have shared their masters’ ideologies (“ideological drummers”, as Bausinger calls them).

It is gratifying to see that what we have in the volume under review is not a series of general accusations and denunciations from the safety of time-encrusted positions, of their misguided, perhaps even infamous predecessors by the generation who followed them and had to pull the disciplinary cart out of the mire in which it had been left for them irresponsibly, but a set of genuine, cogently argued expositions by their successors, not so much to come to terms with a disturbing past as to begin to understand it. The authors, many of them now in their fifities and sixties, although some of them are younger, do not, it seems, interpret their task as the apportionment of blame or the condemnation of those most guilty in the intellectual rape of a discipline but as a quest to uncover the fundamental causes in what went wrong, and to elucidate the personal and institutional involvement in this development of tendentious distortion.

The tone for such an outlook was set by Hermann Bausinger, himself only in his teens at the end of the war, as early as 1965 in his article “Nazi Folk Ideology and Folk Research” (pp. 11-33) which to this day has remained the most telling contribution to the subject. The basis of Bausinger’s careful analysis and thoughtful argumentation is the realisation that, in contrast to other disciplines, in Volkskunde the National Socialist phenomenon was not an assault from outside, and introduction of foreign elements or a strengthening of the fringe but a perverting emphasis of the primary ideas within the discipline itself. He also points out that the stress on the national and racial aspects of folk-cultural research and the glorification of peasants and their culture did not begin just in 1933 although the National Socialist Volkskunde did not only continue what the leading representatives of the discipline had developed in the previous decades, either. What was important to the practitioners of National Socialism was, according Bausinger, “the absolute priority of political-ideological practice over any attempt at theoretical, neutral, or objective understanding” (p. 28).

That the seduction of folklore studies and of folklorists did not begin in 1933 is the main point of Hermann Strobach’s paper the title of which asks provocatively: “… but when does prewar begin?” (pp. 55-68). For readers familiar with some of the names and figures involved in Volkskunde in Germany in the late ‘twenties and early ‘thirties this is a fascinating account of personal interactions, maintained or shifting positions, and institutional actions and reactions. For the outsider, judging the scene from a more impersonal and external perspective, the almost unstoppable inevitability of the developments and of the events to come is frightening when viewed with hindsight. — The status of one particular collection, the “Weigel Symbol Archive” of over 50,000 photos and index cards, which was made over to the Folklore Department in the University of Gottingen after World War II, is examined by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich (pp. 97-111). Symbols played an important part in the Third Reich, and Brednich’s article highlights the nature, accretion, and ultimate institutionalisation of symbol research in that period. — The late Peter Assion (pp. 112-134) investigates the role of one of the most notorious Nazi scholar-ideologists, Eugen Fehrle, who was appointed Professor of Folklore at the University of Heidelberg in the mid-thirties, openly promoted the nationalistic policies and racial concepts of the Third Reich, and was intered in a camp for political prisoners from 1946 to 1948 – a biography that was unfortunately not exceptional.

For lack of space, it must suffice to list the authors and titles of the remaining papers: the latter are usually self-explanatory: Helge Gerndt, “Folklore and National Socialism” (pp. 1-10); Wolfgang Emmerich, “The Mythos of Germanic Continuity” (pp. 34-54); Christoph Daxelmuller, “Nazi Conceptions of Culture and the Erasure of Jewish Folklore” (pp. 69-86); Hermann Bausinger, “Folk-National Work during the Third Reich” (pp. 87-96); Olof Bockhorn, “The Battle for the ‘Ostmark'” (pp. 135-155); Helmut Eberhart, “Folklore at the Universities of Graz and Salzburg at the time of the Nazi Takeover” (pp. 156-188); Anke Oesterle, “The Office of Ancestral Inheritance and Folklore Scholarship” (pp. 189-246); Wolfgang Jacobeit, “Confronting National Socialism in the Folklore of the German Democratic Republic” (pp. 247-263); and James R. Dow and Hannjost Lixfeld “Epilogue: Overcoming the Past of National Socialist Folklore” (pp. 264-296). The last of these, written especially for this volume ties many strands together and offers pragmatic and theoretical outlooks for the future. It also makes it clear that German post-war folklorists have not been united in their stance and that a few attempts not so much at “white-washing”, but at deflecting, or softening the criticism of, the past have occurred, although these can be described as minority positions. (This reviewer was present on one of these occasions.)

For anybody interested in the fate of German Volkskunde as an academic subject in the Nazi-period the extensive “Bibliography” included in the volume under review (pp. 308-345) is particularly useful; as is to be expected, most of the items it lists are in German. Dow and Lixfeld have done non-German speaking folklorists a great service by making so many of these seminal papers on the subject available in translation. For anybody familiar with the German originals reading them in English is a somewhat schizophrenic experience and, without wishing to detract from the very real merit of this volume and the hard work the translators have put into it, one cannot help suspecting that, in places, knowledge of the original German is beneficial in sensing some of the fine nuances and delicate verbal variations involved in the treatment of such a sensitive and volatile topic. This is particularly true of the translations of some of the official names of National Socialist institutions and titles. What does anybody, for example, make of “Cultivating Bureau for South German Folk Goods” (Pflegant fur suddeutsches Volksgut) or of “Reich Farmer Bank” (Reichsnahrstand) when the German titles are practically untranslatable, as are concepts like Volklstum, Volkhaftigkeit, or Volksmensch, and the like, which are so central to those aspects of National Socialist ideology which affected German folklore scholaship between 1933 and 1945 most; in their period- and ideology-specificity they are also part of a language which, instead of reflecting reality, became a substitute for it. These almost unavoidable minor flaws apart, Dow and Lixfeld have, through the publication of this anthology, issued an invitation to those who were not there at the time or are not directly affected by the consequences of what happened, to take a closer look themselves and to abstain from simplistic, uninformed, generalised judgements.

Folk Initialese

/ kevinhobbs

Jean-Bruno Renard | Letters to Ambrose merton # 11, 1997

In March 1997, my friend and colleague, Frederic Monneyron, Professor of Comparative Literature at Universitie Stendhal, Grenoble, and an experienced globetrotter, sent me a little list which plays on the initials or names of airline companies. They are all in English and, in all probability, their invention has been spread over a period of thirty years.

  • TAP (Transportos Aeros Portugues: Air Portugal): Take Another Plane.
  • PIA (Pakistani International Airlines): “Please Inform Allah”.
  • BOAC (British Overseas Aircraft Corporation): “Better On A Camel”.
  • El Al (Israeli Airlines): “Every Landing Always Late”.
  • SAS (Scandanavian Air System): “Sex And Sun”.
  • Lufthansa (German Airlines): “Let Us Fuck The Hostesses As No Steward Available”.

If we regard these word plays as ironic, they can be seen as on the one hand critical of flight safety, of their speed and of their respect for timetables, and on the other hand as bawdy. The themes correspond to the popular image of aircraft, the black image of malfunction and danger, the rosy image of exotic eroticism. One finds these themes in narrative folklore, comic stories, rumours, contemporary legends. Airlines and the wordplay on initials share a common feature, they are international, a fact which is reinforced by their use of the language of world transportation, English.

This list set me thinking about “twisted initials” and here is the result.

To begin with some French examples.

  • VFD (Vehicule Ferroviaire du Dauphine: a transport company): “Veritable Feraille Dauphinoise” (Grenoble, 1980-1990). A “ferraille” here means a vehicle ready for scrap. This play on the initials is known only in the region of France where these coaches operate.
  • TATI (a chain of bargain stores): “Tous les Arabes Trainent Ici” (All the Arabs hang about here) or “Trop d’Arabes Trainent Ici” (Too many Arabs hang about here). This xenophobic wordplay alludes to the presence of North African workers in TATI shops.
  • CRS (Compagnies Republicaines de Securite): “Camions/Cars Remplis des Singes” (Lorries/coaches full of monkeys). The CRS is a mobile police unit charged with maintaining public order. They are mainly involved with the surveillance of, and sometimes the repression of, street demonstrations. This twist expresses the classic disparaging attitude of the French people to police authority. The attitude was sometimes expressed in a tougher form in May 1968 with the slogan “CRS = SS”.
  • PTT (Postes, Telegraphes et Telephone, French postal service): “Petit Travail Tranquille” (Quiet little job). A classic quip to mock the employees of PTT, who have the status of civil servants. (Date? The acronym PTT was introduced in 1899.)
  • RATP (Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, Paris regional transport authority): “Rentre Avec Tes Pieds” (Go home on foot). Heard in Paris in the 1960s, this gives comic expression to the irritation felt by Parisians in the face of bus and metro strikes.
  • CD (Corps Diplomatique, the distinguishing letters appearing on the registration plates of cars driven by the staff of foreign embassies): “Cornichon Diplome”. In French, “cornichon” literally means a gherkin but it is used figuratively to mean idiot or imbecile. Thus this wordplay can be translated roughly as “Certified idiot”. A handy oath for drivers upset by the behaviour of cars with CD plates.
  • URSS (Union des Republiques Socialistes Sovietique, in English, USSR): “Union Ratatinee des Saucissons Secs” (A shrivelled up union of dried sausages). This joke has given joy to several generations of French school children. I heard it myself in the 1950s. After the fall of the USSR in 1991, this joke is no doubt destined to disappear.

A play on initials was witnessed in the Second World War in Alsace, the region of France annexed by the Third Reich in 1941. Around 130,000 Alsatians were forced to wear German uniforms and serve in the Wehrmacht. These Alsatians turned NSDAP (National Sozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiter Partei) into “Nous Sommes Des Allemands Provisoire” (We are temporary Germans).

Another celebrated play on initials is that concerning the word Nylon. This new textile material was invented in 1937 by chemists from the firm Du Pont de Nemours. The discovery was made public in 1938. Here are two versions of the origin of the name. According to the first, the term was originally “no run”, then distorted phonetically in “nolen”, then “nolon” and finally “nylon”. According to the second version, which is more poetic, the word “nylon” was an acronym forded from the initials of the names of the wives of the chemists who worked to produce it: Nancy, Yvonne, Louella, Olivia, Nina. Whichever it is, the American people twisted “nylon” into the phrases “Now you lousy old Nippons” or “Now you lost old Nippons”. These twists were naturally the expression not only of a feeling of economic and technical victory, since nylon would replace the silk manufactured in the Far East, but also of a deeper anti-Japanese feeling which was very strong in the years up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The famous morse code signal of distress used throughout the world (three dots, three dashes, three dots) was chosen because of its extreme simplicity. It was not because it corresponded to the letters SOS in the morse alphabet and, not widely known, it was not until much later that it was translated as “Save Our Souls”.

The most recent manifestation of twisting initials as a folklore activity is in the naming of the “crews” of “writers” responsible for the graffiti appearing in the big cities of America and Europe in the 1970s. Here are a few examples:

In New York:

  • CIA: “Crazy Inside Artists”.
  • TNT: “The Nation’s Top”.

In Paris:

  • BBC: “Bad Boys Crew”.
  • COP: “Controle of Paris”.
  • CRS: “Crew Return Style”.
  • DCA: (Defense Contre Avions, Anti-aircraft defence): “Da Criminal Artists”.
  • FBI: “Fabulous Bomb Inability”.
  • MOS (Metal Oxide Semi-conductor): “Master Of Style”.
  • MST (Maladies Sexuellement Transmissibles, Sexually transmitted diseases): “Massacre Sans Tronconneuse” (Massacre without a chainsaw).
  • SAS “Sex And Shit”.
  • SOS “Secret Of Style”.
  • TCA (Taxe sur le Chiffre d’Affaires, Turnover tax): “The Chrome Angelz”.
  • TSA (Technologie de Systemes Automatises): “The Stoned Angelz”.
  • TVA (Taxe a la Valeur Ajoutee, in English, VAT): “The Vaginal Art”.

However, it must be stated that many of the initials used by these groups of “writers” do not correspond to acronyms already in existence. Consequently, it is possible that in some cases, the similarity between the initials used by a “crew” and a pre-existing acronym was simply a coincidence (for example, MOS, TCA or TSA, which are little known and little used acronyms, in contrast to BBC, FBI or MST). Note, by the way, the attraction to Parisian groups of American English, especially employing its slang, in imitation of American popular culture. Note too the appeal of three letter acronyms. As is well known, a ternary rhythm is common in folk products such as tales and songs.

Initials have been known since antiquity. The Hebrews, Greeks and above all the Romans often used abbreviations texts, public or private. Their misuse caused such difficulties in understanding that the emperor Justinian (5th Century A.D.) forbade their use in the Byzantine Empire. Today the abuse of abbreviations is proclaimed by the English expression “alphabet soup”. Specialists in ancient history have concluded that wrongly deciphered initials have caused errors in historical interpretation. It is now established that the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Boissard (1558-1602), who was one of the founders of epigraphy (the science of ancient inscriptions) completed in an erroneous manner numerous incomplete or abbreviated Latin inscriptions which he collected on Roman monuments in Italy.

There also exist anecdotes, real or legendary, about erroneous interpretations of pseudo-antique inscriptions, either made accidentally or provoked by deliberate hoaxers. Larousse’s Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX siecle recounts some in its article “Inscriptions”.

The Montmartre inscription merits a mention. It was an old block on which the following characters had been engraved:

CHEMI
NDESA
NES

An illustrious scholar, after much patient research, succeeded in producing this brilliant interpretation:
“Carmina Homeri et maronis illustrata nominibus ducum et scriptorum arte nullo exstinguentur saeculo”.
However, a local worthy took the block and read with ease:
“Chemin des anes” (Road for donkeys).

A mistake of the same kind was made by an archaeologist who came across an old crockery plate with the letters POMANS is large capitals. He judged its provenance to be Roman. In order to interpret the inscription, he believed it was necessary to add punctuation; P. O. MANS. S. This he deciphered as “Publii Ovidii manibus sacris” (To the sacred shades of Publius Ovidus). He was beside himself with joy to see, in our part of the world, a monument commemorating Ovid, the author of Metamorphoses. Imagine his mortification when he learned that this piece of pottery was quite simply manufactured in the Champagne region by a certain Monsieur Pomans.

One time, when a member of l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres was being examined, he was asked to be so good as to explain a curious little pot, elegant in form, and decorated with the letters M.J.D.D. in relief. The solution was readily apparent. This pot had without a doubt been consecrated to Jupiter and the four letters signified “Magni Jovi Deorum Deo” (To the great Jupiter, god of gods). “Good lord, no”, replied the hoaxer, “That should just read, Moutarde jaune de Dijon!” (Yellow Dijon mustard.)

A learned school was shown the copy of an inscription picked up, so it appeared, from an old Roman fountain. It looked like this:

RES
ER
VO
IR

The explanation is easy, said our scholar after a moment’s reflection. This was an abbreviated inscription which should be read thus: RESpublica ERigere VOluit ad IRrigandum. In other words; The Republic has decided to erect (this monument) for irrigation. Then it was pointed out to the scholar that if one were to read the inscription perpendicularly, one got the French (and indeed, English) word, RESERVOIR. But when did a scholar ever seek a simple interpretation?

With regard to abbreviation, without some knowledge of the background, initials are incomprehensible. No recourse to etymology helps to penetrate the secret of the meaning. The invention of a second meaning for the initials, a hidden message, fits a variety of motives. It may perhaps be a simple play on words intended to amuse. That is the case of the majority of twisted initials which one tells like a riddle, “Do you know what the initials […] stand for?” It may also be a play on words intended to create a secret recognition sign, for erxample, the initials of the “writer” groups in cities. This was no doubt the motivation for the early Christians when they invented the monogram for Christ “Ichthus”, which means “fish” in Greek but which is also the initials “Jesous Christos Theou Uios Soter” (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour).

I hope that this short note will encourage folklorists, amateur and professional, to collect “twisted initials” and explore this curious form of popular creation.

Note

Sandy Hobbs writes:

I have three points to add. The first is another suggestion I have heard as to the origin of the word “nylon”. Since it was developed as a result of the joint efforts of American and British scientists, it was decided to name it after the two major cities: New York, providing the NY, and London, providing the LON.

My second contribution is to recall, from the 1950s, the suggestion that the letters SPQR found on the standards of Roman legions did not stand for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the senate and people of Rome, as the textbooks claimed. The alternative explanation offered by my Latin teacher was “Small Profit, Quick Returns”, the Romans having been a nation of shopkeepers long before the British. I had the impression that this was an old joke.

Thirdly, may I suggest that “Massacre sans tronconneuse” for MST is a reference to the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre, known in France as Massacre a la Tronconneuse. If so, it must date from 1974 at the earliest.

A Special Harley Davidson

/ kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 7, 1996

According to the Dutch newspaper, de Volkskrant, 23 October 1996, the following story had recently been circulating on the Internet. The newspaper refers to it as a “broodje aap“, the name by which contemporary legends are known in the Netherlands. Translation by Lois Hobbs.

A biker rides across the New Hampshire plain and sees, standing by a farm building, an old Harley Davidson. He rings at the adjoining house to ask if the owner of the motorbike wants to sell it. The owner will sell the bike for 800 dollars. Once home, the new owner cannot find the number necessary for a registration certificate. He rings a local Harley dealer and asks which places he should look. That leads to nothing.

As a last resort, he telephones the manufacturer and asks the person on the line to give him details about the performance of the motorcycle, especially about the saddle. He is surprised when the Davidson man asks “Can you look under the bike? See if there is anything written on the under side.” The biker confirms that he can see an engraving “To Elvis, Thanks. Harley Davidson”. Whereupon the Davidson company offer him 350 thousand dollars for it. The owner replies, “I just want to think it over”.

Afterwards, he phoned the Elvis Presley museum at Graceland in Memphis, and asked if the rock star ever had had a Harley. It is explained to him that the Harley Davidson firm had built him four special models by way of a present. Three already stand in the museum. “I have the fourth”, says the new owner. Graceland offers him three million dollars for it.

“I have to think it over.”

On the Fringes of Urban Legend: Homage to Brunvand

/ kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | # ,

Some time around 1980, I started to organize a growing pile of notes into what I called the MODERN FOLK TALE file. Over subsequent years I have added to that file, not always very systematically and never managing to empty out the Miscellaneous file which feeds it. The MFT file now stands at well over 400 items. Some of these I have written about, many more have been written about by other people. Of course, the name “modern folk tale” now seems rather old fashioned. They are much more frequency called legends, with the qualification “contemporary”, “rumour”, “urban”, “modern” and “belief”. (“CRUMB” legends is what Gillian Bennett and I once called them.)

The term “urban legend” is being used here in acknowledgement of the work of Jan Harold Brunvand, who has employed that phrase. His book The Baby Train (1993) contains the closest attempt that I know of to a systematic listing of these stories. What follows is based on Brunvand’s listing, in that it contains some examples from the MFT file which DO NOT occur there.

The MFT file has been a working instrument. It has included items about which I had mused “Is that a modern folk tale?”. Sometimes that judgement turned out to be probably wrong, but it was nevertheless worth making, because it meant I kept an eye open for more evidence one way or the other.

In general, I have erred on the side of overinclusiveness. This has meant noting material which was perhaps too local or lacked a sufficiently strong narrative to become part of the urban legend corpus. Nevertheless, it seemed to me to be worthwhile to look at some of the “failed” items and reflect on why they didn’t make the Brunvand collection.

UL stands for Urban Legend(s); the number before each item is its MFT code; CLFB refers to Bennett and Smith (1993); LTAM stands for Letters to Ambrose Merton, DMT stands for its predecessor, Dear Mr Thoms…

007 HOWLERS

David Cornwell and I wrote about these in LTAM 1:1-5 and LTAM 2:26-36. Whilst they seem to circulate like UL, it probably makes sense to classify them apart from UL. However, the dividing line is fuzzy. In The Choking Doberman (1984: 26-27), Brunvand tells a story of how the Lord Chancellor processing through the Houses of Parliament shouted “Neil!” when he saw his friend, Neil Marten, M.P., only to find tourists around him falling to their knees. The same Neil/kneel mistake has appeared in a book of howlers, attributing it to new pupils in a primary school (see Hobbs, 1989).

010 TITANIC HEADLINE

A story to illustrate the parochial outlook of local newspapers is that when the Titanic sank, a local newspaper in Aberdeen headlined the report:

Aberdeenshire Man Drowns At Sea
He Was A Butcher In Union Street

Hamilton (1982) included this in a collection of “myths about the Titanic”. He reports that one of the two local papers in Aberdeen ran the headline:

Mid-Atlantic Disaster: Titanic Sunk By Iceberg

A rival paper had a similar headline. However, like UL, this “myth” has survival powers. I have seen or heard it attributed to papers in Bideford, Gateshead, Greenock and Norwich. Most recently I spotted it, ascribed to Aberdeen, in The Herald newspaper, 13 April 1987.

021 MURDERED SON

The story of the son returning home unrecognized, who is murdered by his parents, is most certainly a legend (see CLFB entry 782). But is it modern? It may no longer be currently “told as true”, perhaps because of its use by Camus in his famous play Le Malentendu (translated as Cross Purpose).

060 SECRET TUNNELS

The earliest use of the phrase “contemporary legend” I have come across is by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby (first published in 1925). Gatsby’s notoriety, writes Fitzgerald, “fell just short of being news” and “contemporary legends…attached themselves to him…” As an example of such a legend, Fitzgerald gives the “underground pipe-line to Canada”. I have never come across other references to underground pipe-lines, but the similar idea of a secret tunnel is quite widespread in Britain.

Many years ago, Alistair Steven gave me a reprint of an undated article he had written for a local newspaper in Scotland, in which he discussed tunnel claims. He argues that Scottish topographical writing is “plagued by a surfeit of stories which do not bear the weight of any close scrutiny…” As an example he casts doubt on the story of tunnels between castles in Perthshire.

What advantage would tunnels between castles have given which would have compensated for the immense amount of work involved? The greatest tunnel of the old world which the Romans drove under Monte Salviano to drain Lake Rucino went for three and a half miles…but it is said to have involved 30,000 labourers for 11 years. The kind of mind capable of constructing it was also capable of recording the construction. If there was anything at all approaching a Newton-Ardblair tunnel in Scotland why is nothing satisfactorily known about the system? James I would not have been murdered in Blackfriars Monastery had even the short sewage system there not been blocked. Had they been in use as an escape route, bigger castles than the Newton, whose lairds commanded regiments of men, would have had them. The Drummonds purchased the lands of Newton of Blair about 1550 and would build the original keep thereafter. George Drummond was on so poor terms with practically all his neighbours that four years later they banded together and murdered him…Amongst the murderous band was the laird of Ardblair. There is no record subsequently of any strong links between the families…How then could the tunnel be made?

Steven pours the cold water of historical detail over these tunnels. However, the story is not unique. For example, Enid Porter, in her Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore (1969) has two examples. On page 143 she refers to vaulted cellars under “Old Abbey House, a 17th century building built on the site of a 12th Century priory. A bricked up arch is traditionally regarded as the entrance to an underground tunnel. This is rather vague. Where did the tunnel go? However, on page 183, there is a more detailed tunnel story. It was supposed to run from Grantchester Manor to King’s College Chapel, in Cambridge. Furthermore, there is a narrative to go with the tunnel. A fiddler went to explore the tunnel and was never seen again. There is a local field name, Fiddler’s Close. This is the widespread legend of the Lughnasa Musician discussed very fully by David Buchan (1970).

The Lughnasa Musician is not always lost in a tunnel; sometimes there is a cave. However, the tunnel is a common feature. It may be objected that this is clearly a traditional, rather than a contemporary, legend. However, is there a sharp dividing line? One version David Buchan cites was collected orally only two years earlier than the publication of his paper. It concerned a tunnel between Paisley Abbey and Crookston Castle, two or three miles away.

066 A TAXI TO WICK

I opened a file on this story on the basis of a newspaper clipping I made and lost. The file was intended to alert me to look out for it appearing again. However, the file remains empty. The story is very simple. A London newspaper editor rings a journalist in Glasgow about a story he wants followed up. “I want you to take a taxi to Wick..,” he begins. That is the story. If it means nothing to you, it is because you don’t know Scotland. Wick is about as far from Glasgow as you can get on mainland Scotland. The taxi journey would be long and expensive. Perhaps the story is to elementary and its “meaning” too crude to have allowed it to develop into a fuller legend narrative. That London editor is an outsider who does not understand Scotland. There are lots of people in Scotland indulge in the hobby of anti-Englishness; perhaps if had moved in those circles I would have had a better chance of hearing about the taxi to Wick again.

067 SALMON TWICE A WEEK

This file contains notes of a conversation, a radio programme and a television programme. The least vague refers to the television programme I saw on BBC 1 on 27 June 1983 but which had apparently been first shown on BBC 2 in May 1979. Called “The River Keeper”, it was in a series called “A Year in the Life of…”. The keeper was Bernard Aldrich of Broadlands Estate. The narrator, appropriately enough, was called Tom Salmon. The programme referred to the decline in salmon stocks and said that at one time salmon was so plentiful it was food for apprentices and they complained about having to eat it every day.

My other notes refer to (a) apprentices having written into their indenture agreements a clause stipulating they would be fed salmon no more than twice a week, and (b) a similar stipulation being made by farm servants in the North Est of Scotland.

085 ORDERED NOT TO FAINT

On 14 July 1989, The Times newspaper reported that 300 children between the ages of seven and fifteen years had collapsed while marching in a jazz band competition at a carnival in Nottinghamshire. One explanation offered, and hotly disputed, was that it was a case of mass hysteria. During the debate which followed, one reader wrote the following letter, published 2 August 1980:

Sir, Between 1924 and 1929 I was a pupil at Cheltenham Ladies College.
One morning, a girl fainted during prayers, and there was a certain amount of confusion in taking her out of the hall. Next morning two girls fainted, and thereafter there was not a morning, but that two or three girls succumbed.
On the Friday, after prayers were over and she had given out the usual notices, the Principal, Miss Sparks said, “In the future, no girl will faint in College”.
No girl did – in my time,
Yours faithfully,
Mary Crisp…

My suspicion that this might be apocryphal was given support by a letter appearing on 6 August 1980.

Sir, When I was at Cheltenham Ladies’ College from 1917 to 1923, the story of the fainting girls was told in almost exactly Mrs Crisp’s detail of Miss Dorothea Beale, the great founding Principal who died in – I think – 1912.
Miss Sparks was maintaining a well-established tradition.
Yours sincerely,
I.K. Stephenson…

086 FISHING FOOTBALLS FROM THE RIVER

This is a very straightforward example of a story reported by a friend in the belief that it might be apocryphal. Listening to a radio commentary on 27 January 1979 of an F.A. Cup match between Shrewbury Town and Manchester City, he heard it claimed that the Shrewsbury club was so poor that it employed a man to fish footballs out of the river that ran past the ground. He was suspicious of this as he thought he had heard the same said of another team, possible Wigan Rugby League. I filed the story and waited.
On 13 February 1982, I heard a preview of an F.A. Cup match between Shrewsbury and Ipswich. The item included an interview an elder gentleman called Fred Davis, reminiscing about his job: fishing footballs from the river. Apparently in one match the ball went into the river eight time. The story was apparently true.

089 RATION BOOK FOR 1984

This file contains just three letters. Note that they are dated 1982.

8 February 1982
Dear Sandy,
Have you encountered at all recently the folk tale about someone (in the case brought to me “A fellow college student’s mother”) having sent to the appropriate government office for a Child Benefit form and receiving instead a food ration book dated 1984, and all properly made out with her name and address? I’d be interested to know if you have encountered this recently, because it used to resurrect itself from time to time.
Regards,
Norman [Norman Buchan M.P.]

12.2.82
Dear Norman,
I am sorry but I can’t give you much help on the ration book story. Although I can remember seeing references to it at least twice, I didn’t keep records because its “folk” status escaped me. One appearance was in Socialist Worker, I think, told with an obvious political point. More recently, I noticed a journalist appealing for someone who had actually seen a ration book to come forward. Now you’ve alerted me, I’ll be on the look out and let you know of any further sightings.
Yours sincerely,
Sandy Hobbs.

February 25 1982
Dear Sandy
Thanks very much for your note. Regarding its folk status:
(a)It’s a fairly common tale;
(b)It’s always happening to someone at second or third remove;
(c)It usually is accompanied by an embellishment to the effect that a policeman called next day and threatened them with dire consequences if they didn’t keep silent about it – as in this case.
I suppose it is all a rather bureaucratic concept for a folk tale!
Best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Norman.

In fact I don’t seem to have come across it again. Presumably, Brunvand would have classed this with his Government Legends.

115 JAM JARS AT THE CINEMA

In the essay “Enough to constitute a legend?”, which I contributed to The Questing Beast (Bennett and Smith, 1989), I took a critical look at the debate about whether British cinemas ever accepted empty jam jars as payment for admission. That debate goes on.

What follows is abridged from “Mystery of the jeelie jar” by Frank McGroarty, which appeared in The Herald newspaper, 16 December 1995, in a special supplement celebrating the centenary of the cinema.

Every household takes for granted the common jam jar. However, during the early years of the century it was more than just a way to store preserves. It was a form of currency.

In those days, the jam (jeelie) jar was a prized possession among youngsters. They were exchanged for money or sweets at the local grocer’s, would pay for fairground rides, and according to many mature members of today’s society, the jars would pay for the price of a cinema admission ticket.

The connection between jeelie jars and the cinema is the only part of that legend that is hotly disputed, even till this day. For every former patron who said that it did not happen, there were those regular customers who have strong recollections of paying their way in with jam-jars and in some cases lemonade bottles.

Many film historians are convinced that this story was myth because according to them, such a practice would have been illegal. At that time cinemas had to give a percentage of the money raised from admission tickets to the Customs and Excise, to pay what was an entertainment tax, which ran from the time of the First World War until the early fifties. So they believed that paying in by the jam jar method deprived the taxman of his cut.
Another point raised was that…a typical cashier’s desk was so small, that there would be nowhere to store the empty jars.

However, Dunfermline sports coach, and film fan, believes in the jamjar story and was able to explain how cinemas used to get round that problem based on regular conversations with his parents.

“They used to say that there were two queues, one leading to the cash desk and one for those with jam jars, which was often referred to as the poor queue,” he said. “They handed the jar to the man who would then place it in a box, and then hand them a ticket. They would then take it to the cash desk where they would be given an admission ticket.”

One former customer, Ray Hannah, used to go to the local cinemas in Blackburn in the forties and remembers often getting himself into trouble when collecting his jars to take to the cinema. “I got many a whack with a bannister brush after being caught supping the jam in the garden shed in order to get the empties,” he said…
Even though noted film historian, Frank Manders, has not discovered any documentary evidence, he is convinced that such a practice did exist.

“There are certainly many cinemas that did not allow jam jars, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that it happened at the small picture houses,” he said.

Memories of admission by jam jar are widespread. When the Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Mail, ran a story on the subject, it was “mobbed” with letters, of which it published five (21 June 1992). One appeared to recall the circumstances in great detail:

“At the Wellfield Cinema in Springburn, Glasgow, you could get in for three jam jars on a Wednesday afternoon between four and 4.30.”

Two indicate that jam jars were not a unique alternative to cash:

“A jeelie jar…got you into the Victoria in Greenock. And so did a label from a packet of Lyons tea.”

“In Saltcoats you could get in for a wrapper from Cowan’s soap as well as a jam jar.”

These could presumably have been the result of promotional schemes by the companies concerned. One reader remembered getting change!

“A one pound jar got you in, and if all you had was a 2lb jar they gave you sweets for change.”

Rather less plausible, apparently, is change the other way round:

“I once went to the pictures with half a crown (30 old pence) and got 29 bottles in change.”

However, Michael Thomson (1988) in his history of cinemas in Aberdeen, cites a story in a local newspaper in March, 1921, in which a boy was said to have received eleven jam jars change when he paid for his ticket with a shilling. Thomson believes the jam jar practice lasted from approximately the First World War until around 1935.

I have also come across references to the jam jar admission in Edinburgh (Community History Project, n.d.), Sheffield (Vickers, 1987) and York (York Oral History Project, 1988). However, these are all memories of members of the audience. I have still to find either documentary evidence or recollections by cinema staff.

120 SHOVE OFF, CHARLIE!

This was collected from a letter to the editor in Expression! The Magazine for American Express Cardmembers, May 1985. The writer starts by stating that this is one of his favourite business anecdotes, but is probably apocryphal. It concerns a young advertising executive, rising fast but as yet relatively unknown.

Hoping to close his biggest deal yet, he booked lunch at the Ritz. Awaiting his guest nervously, wondering how best to create the right impression, he spotted Sir Charles Clore heading for the restaurant, and had his inspiration.

Brashly approaching the great man, he introduced himself, explained his situation, and begged Sir Charles to do him a tremendous favour by somehow indicating (in the client’s presence) that they were mutually acquainted.

The sheer impudence of the request touched a soft spot with Clore – perhaps reminding him of his own early days – and when the young man and his guest sat down to lunch he delivered the favour handsomely, striding across to their table, beaming with outstretched hand, “My dear chap, how nice to see you! How’s everything with you?”

The young man responded with a pained expression. “Oh shove off, Charlie. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

I felt fairly confident that I’d come across this story again, but in fact this clipping sits alone in the file.

413 FALKLANDS VETERAN

David Cornwell provided me with the following text on 21 March 1989. He had heard the story two or three weeks previously from a colleague at Jordanhill College of Education at Glasgow. I had asked him to write it down because I had heard essentially the same story two days earlier from John Widdowson, who reported it as the content of a cartoon.

This guy was sitting on the pavement in Argyle Street with his cap upside down in front of him, begging for money. He was covered in cuts and bruises, all scarred. He had only one arm, and one leg. He was blind. A sign hung around his neck read “Falklands Veteran. Please give generously.” No one paid any attention to him, and no one gave him any money. People just walked by, walked around him. This other guy notices that no one is giving the beggar any money. He says, “Come on, what’s wrong with you all,” shouting at the passersby. “This man has fought for his country. He’s been wounded and suffered greatly…Come on, give him some money.” The passersby seem embarrassed by all of this, and keep a wide berth of the man. They still don’t give any money. “Come on,” shouts the man, “Give him some money. Here! I’ll start this off.” And he pulls out his wallet and takes out a ?10 note. He throws it into the beggar’s hat. The beggar looks up at the mind and says, “Gracias, senor”.

Almost three years later, in his column in The Observer newspaper (19 January 1992), Simon Hoggart told the following version:

You may have heard this joke, but I pass it on anyway because it was told me by one of Lady Thatcher’s best known and most intimate confidantes. It seems that the Lady was passing by some homeless beggars and had a crisp word of advice for each: “Smarten up, there are plenty of jobs to be had”, and so forth. Then she came to a pitiable figure with the words “Falklands Veteran” around his neck.

Overcome by sorrow and gratitude, she instructed an aide to find a ?20 note. The derelict’s eyes popped with astonishment as he sobbed: “Muchas gracias, senora!”

References

Bennett, Gillian & Smith Paul. Contemporary Legend: A Folklore Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1993.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Choking Doberman And Other “New” Urban Legends. New York: Norton, 1984.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Baby Train And Other Lusty Urban Legends. New York: Norton, 1993.

Buchan, David. “The legend of the Lughnasa Musician in Lowland Britain”, Scottish Studies, 23: 15-37, 1970.

Community History Project. Jeelie Jars and Barrie Coats. [This twenty page pamphlet, reporting a project undertaken at Silverlea Day Care Unit, Lothian Region, has neither publisher’s name nor date.]

Hamilton, Alan. “Sunk at last: some myths about the Titanic”, The Times, 15 April 1982.

Hobbs, Sandy. “Enough to constitute a legend?” in G. Bennett and P. Smith (Eds.), The Questing Beast, Perspectives on Contemporary Legend IV, pages 55-75. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989. [Am earlier exploration of the edges of legend.]

Porter, Enid. Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore. London: Routledge, 1969.

Thomson, Michael. Silver Screen in the Silver City: A History of Cinemas in Aberdeen, 1896-1987. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. {Appendix 1, pp 339-340: The Great Jam Jar Controversy.]

Vickers, J. Edward. A Popular History of Sheffield (2nd ed.) Sheffield: Applebaum, 1987.

York Oral History Project. York Memories of Stage and Screen: Personal Accounts of York’s Theatres and Cinemas. York: York Oral History Project, 1988.

Funerary customs among the Nepa

/ kevinhobbs

Bill Ellis | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 19, 1999

There have been some postings recently on the contemporary custom of commemorating those who had died in auto accidents with impromptu roadside shrines. This article appeared in the Hazleton Standard Speaker recently and documents some memorial practices that seem to be related to this complex. Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) is truly an interesting place for folk culture.

Vigil Honors Memory of Edward Speshock Jr.

[Hazleton Standard Speaker, 9 January 1998: 19, 28.]

After 10 years, the memory of Edward Speshock Jr. lives on in the hearts of his family and friends. A candlelight memorial service held Thursday in honor of the Hazleton man proved it.

Nearly 20 people gathered in the Transfiguration Cemetery in West Hazleton to remember Speshock, who was killed Jan. 8, 1988 in an automobile accident. Thursday marked the 10?year anniversary of his death.

The evening service, which lasted about 20 minutes, was conducted by the candlelight each participant held. Several songs, including Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” were performed with the help of an acoustic guitar.

Several friends and relatives shared personal stories about “Eddie” and told what they remember most about him. A prayer was also recited.

A number of those gathered ritualistically drank half of the alcohol from a shot glass, and poured the rest on the grave.

But most notably, Evelyn, Speshock’s mother, knelt down and kissed the headstone of her son.

People of all ages attended the service. One young girl at the ceremony was merely a toddler at the time of Speshock’s death, but her age did not stop her from honoring a loved one.

At the end of the service, the friends and family of Edward Speshock Jr. left the cemetery the same way they had arrived: together.

Lost Lives

/ kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 22, 2000

David, McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton. Lost Lives: The stories of the men and women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1999, 1630 p. Index.

This is a most unusual book. The authors set out to give an account of every person who has died as a result of the “troubles” in Northern Ireland since the 1960s. The entries are chronological, starting with a first death in June, 1966 and ending with case number 3637 in July 1999. Regrettably this means the work is not definitive, since the deaths continue. The authors seek to set out the facts in calm and measured terms. The book contains statistically analysis classifying both the dead and those responsible for the deaths by religion and other categories. Yet, one can well believe that the authors “shed tears while researching and writing” the book (p. 13) and I cannot imagine any reader failing to be moved by some of the stories which are told in these pages.

This book could be read as a sociological, historical or political document and reviewed accordingly. However, for readers of Ambrose Merton, I wish to draw attention to the fact it contains a great deal of material bearing on the popular culture of Northern Ireland. The deeply felt traditional beliefs which are part of the conflicts in Northern Ireland are in certain respects obvious. They had to be taken into account by David McKittrick and his fellow authors when preparing the book:

“We produced a style guide which, with its regulations and examples, grew into a 12,000-word document. We tried to avoid contentious or disputed words, seeking always usages which would give offence to no one. In this context Northern Ireland’s second largest city defeated us, and we sought refuge in a mixture of an uneasy compromise and random use. In introducing victims we use the word L/Derry; after that, we simply use Londonderry and Derry interchangeably” (p. 19).

The problem they faced was that “Londonderry” is the name favoured by members of the Protestant, Loyalist community and “Derry” is preferred by the Catholic, Republican community. The point may seem trivial to outsiders but not to many of the inhabitants of Northern Ireland. A cultural dispute of this sort lies on a continuum which includes a belief, testified to by many of the cases in the book, that merely to be a member of one or other of these communities would make a person a legitimate target for an assassin.

Many of the entries take for granted an awareness of the assumption made by paramilitary groups that they had a right to enforce “law and order” in their communities. Some deaths appear to have been “punishments” for activities such as drug-dealing or informing. The small photographic sections includes a number of commemorative murals, this form of outdoor art being a prominent feature of the Northern Ireland troubles. There is also a striking photograph of a wake for a man killed while attending a funeral. {Murders committed while the victim is mourning or worshiping have a particular cultural resonance.) His coffin is open and a young child is being shown the corpse.

One of the first victims described in the book (Case No, 3, pp. 28-29) was Matilda Gould, a 77 year old widow, who was a Protestant. It appears that members of the Protestant para-military group, the Ulster Volunteer Forces, intended to set fire to a Catholic owned bar. However, they accidentally fire-bombed the home of Mrs Gould, who happened to live next door. A statement attributed to a man convicted of the murder of a Catholic barman is worth close examination. He was reported as having later pointed to the bar next to Mrs Gould’s home and saying:

“That’s a job I done, but I done a funny wonder. I threw a petrol bomb through the wrong window and an old lady got burned. That’s the window, I put it through there.”

Here we have him acknowledging responsibility for a death. It seems probable that he knew that she was a member of his own religious community. Yet his language habits are so taken for granted that he can use the rhyming slang “funny wonder”, meaning blunder, to refer to his own actions.

Tae a Fert

/ kevinhobbs

Sandy Hobbs | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 22, 2000

Sandy Hobbs
LTAM 22, 2000

This poem has been circulating recently in Paisley as a piece of photocopylore. The first line was missing from the copy supplied to me. However, since this is evidently a parody of Robert Burns’s address to a mouse, it seems likely that it ended in the word “beastie”.

Lurks in yer belly efter the feastie
Just as ye sit doon among yer kin
There sterts to stir and enormous wind*

The neeps and tatties and mushy peas
Stert working like a gentle breeze
But soon the pudding wi sauncie face**
Will have ye blawin all ower the place

Nae matter whit the hell ye dae
A’bodys gonnae have tae pay
Even if ye try to stifle
It’s like a bullet oot a rifle

Hawd yer bum tight tae the chair
Tae try and stop the leakin air
Shifty yersel fae cheek tae cheek
Prae tae God it doesnae reek

But aw yer efforts go assunder
Oot it comes like a clap a thunder
Ricochets aroon the room
Michty me a sonic boom

God almighty it fairly reeks
Hope I huvnae shit ma breeks
Tae the bog I better scurry
Aw whit the hell, its no ma worry

A’body roon aboot me chokin
Wan or two are nearly bokin
I’ll feel better for a while
Cannae help but raise a smile

Wis him! I shout with accusin glower
Alas, too late, hes just keeled ower
Ye dirty bugger they shout and stare
A dinnae feel welcome any mair

Where e’re ye go let yer wind gan’ free
Sounds like just the job for me
Whit a fuss at rabbies perty***
Ower the sake o’ won wee ferty***

* “and” should presumably be “an”.
** the haggis
*** Rabbie’s party, i.e a Burns Supper
**** “won” should presumably be “one”

The White Lady of Longnor

/ kevinhobbs

Gillian Bennett | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 22, 2000

This text appeared in the Buxton Advertiser, 24 June 1933, where it is attributed to “an old copy of the Longnor Parish Magazine”. It was noted by Gillian Bennett, who suggests that the story is reminiscent of The Devil in the Disco.

The White Lady of Longnor comes out of the adjacent Black Pool, and flits about the roads. She was disappointed in love, rural gossips say, and so perambulates at the old trysting time, in hope to meet her faithless swain once more, and find him true.

She has been seen almost within living memory. On one occasion, Hughes, “the parson’s man”, of Longnor saw what he believed to be a graceful and stylish young damsel walking towards him, apparently expectant of a kind welcome.

Hughes was nothing loth to afford it her, so, as she drew near, he opened his arms wide to encircle her with a fervent embrace. But she had “melted into air”, into thin air”; or, in his own words, he thought to clasp warm flesh and blood, “an theer wor nuthin”.

In the same parish there used to be a public house called “The Villa” where much junketing, merrymaking, and dancing was in vogue amongst the rustics on high days and holidays.

Here there suddenly appeared amongst the pleasure party a sweet, fresh lovesome girl, dressed all in white, as if for a festal occasion.

She danced with one swain after another, and the fun grew fast and furious till at length the more sedate members of the party began to exchange suspicious glances, and suddenly the whisper went forth, “The White Lady of Longnor”.

The whisper had barely gone the round when the place of the strange visitor was void. She had disappeared as suddenly and unaccountably as she came. This was her wont, and the party, in compliance, broke up and dispersed.

As a labourer, who was practically a contemporary of the incident, remarked, “Theer was never no more dancin’ at ‘The Villa’ “.