Apeth = 'ap'orth = ha'pennyworth. (See my previous post.) You won't be old enough to remember this, Dai, but before about 1970 we still had 240 pence to the pound; one penny (1d) being two ha(lf)pence, and 1.1/2d being a penny ha'penny or three ha'pence. I tell my kids about doing long division in £sd and they don't believe me. I can still do it too!

I suspect poke for ice-cream cornet comes from hokey-pokey, which I believe is still common in Scotland? It's supposed to derive from the Italian hoco uno poco - take a piece - which was the cry of the Italian ice-cream sellers; there was a lot of Italian immigration into Britain around the turn of the century, probably for historical reasons of which I am totally ignorant.

So, what's boracic lint then? Presumably some kind of textile impregnated with borax, but what's it for?

Steve