Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)

Subject: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:27 AM

Thatching glossary

Fleeking, Stulch, Leggett, Liggers, Yealm. What a wonderous language they had.

All trades have jargon - it is easier than spelling it out with a dozen words when you have to just get on with the job. But other peoples' dialect is always fascinating.

What trade & jargon interests you?

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:31 AM

Damn. And here I thought it was a political thread that needed to be sent down below.

Yes, the jargon of trades can be fascinating, and the jargon of thatchers and weavers particularly so.

I hope we get more.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Howard Jones
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 03:49 AM

I'm rather fond of the traditional names for sizes of roofing slates, named after the ranks of the female nobility. This gives wonderful terms such as "narrow ladies" and "broad countessess", all the way up to "princessess" and "empresses".

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 04:07 AM

Johnny Coppin wrote a song about them. Maybe this album (song called Cotswold Tiles)

In Fyfe they had an expression "Nipping the Siles" which related. I think it was placing the coping tiles.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 04:12 AM

Pity this wasn't posted a fortnight ago! Two County Clare thatchers were overhauling the roof of a traditional farmhouse across the boreen. They graciously allowed me to compile a set of photographs of the work. I never thought to ask them for words!

Regards

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: vectis
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 04:34 AM

The new pottery trade invented a whole new language. I know about sagger maker's bottom knocker but not the rest. I believe it would be a rich seam to mine to mix a metaphore.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 05:07 AM

I was a potter, wanted it to be my trade but ...... don't get me started on that aspect.

Potters jargon eh?
pug mill for doing a some of the wedging, what a baker would call kneading
dottle is a easier to say than "sponge on a stick".
dipping fairly obvious alternative to spraying.
bat - tile for putting thrown (eg) pots on to dry. A kiln bat is a removable shelf.
biscuit/bisk when fired to about 600C to remove chemically bonded water and make adding glaze easier (eg dipping).
frit - glaze ground to powder - used when toxicity or solubility are issues. eg lead glazes.
pot bank pottery premises

and just for the humour - slip (any liquid clay) - the casting variety is thixotropic - it is unbelievably leather hard until you stir it then it goes like single cream. The unit of thixotropy (in pottery terms) is "degree twaddle" - ^oTw

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 05:24 AM

Cornish mining developed many terms that went on to be used world wide.
This was largely spread by the migrating miners as the mines declined.
The main legacy is the Cambourne school of mines, part of Essex University.
Adits and Adventurers and Bal-maidens and deads, to name but a few!

There are several glossaries on the internet but none seem to want to link.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Monique
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 05:38 AM

Glossary 1-html, (you can get the pdf from there), Glossary 2-html (ditto)

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 05:41 AM

In my early working life I was employed by a local council building maintenance department. I was never sure if some of the phrases were to do with the trades or, as the council bordered on the town of Bolton, if they were Bolton dialect rather than my local Manchester one.

Anyhow, one that sticks in mind was used by the joiners when something didn't fit quite right and it needed an extra bit of pressure - 'Give it a good thrutch'. Meaning force it, quite often with a mallet. Just looked it up now and one of the meanings is push, press, or squeeze into a space when climbing. "I thrutched up the final crack to a small pinnacle" so it sort of fits in.

Amazing what you find out on these threads :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 06:02 AM

Monique. Many thanks. I tried several ways to get the link but retired defeated.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 08:05 AM

skif, skip, chip in farming terms would be the basket that the fruit was put in as it was being collected or sold. Bigger than a punnet.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 08:37 AM

My father indulged in his interest in printing to the extent of having a printing press when he was head of art at Huish's Grammar School. There is a huge set of words connected with printing with movable type.
For example the spaces between the letters when spacing words apart: thin, mid, thick, en, em.
Terry Pratchet obviously knew a bit about it as shown in his disk world book "The Truth".

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 10:05 AM

There is also the indecipherable language peculiar to folks who have just imbibed 12 pints of Thatchers Cheddar Valley cider... 😜

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 10:23 AM

pfr in Somerset he'd be known as a bibbler.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 11:16 AM

Iains - Can't recall if I've ever heard that one before, learnt something new today...

bibbler...

If I can remember correctly [some miracle these days], the most common phrase I heard in my childhood

was "cider walloper"

as in "Look at the time, your dad is still down the top house with all those old cider wallopers, the fish and chips will be stone cold by the time he comes home.."

Down here in Scrumpyshire there are many words for drinkers of our fabled old trad apple juice+..
oddly enough, mostly negative and insulting [though in an affectionate piss taking kind of way..]

Family legend has it that my grandad had 12 gallons week delivered to his house by the local door to door cider man..

He was blind by the time I was born...????

My Dad started weaning me on it, first a few sips,
then one glass bottomed pewter tankard a week on thursday evenings when my mum went out to the Co-op women's Guild..
I'd have been about 6..???

Gotta respect our traditional regional customs... 😎

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:21 PM

P.F.R, for many years the local(ish) cider obtainable in most pubs near here was Taunton Natural Dry,...Known as "Natch" O.K in its way, but not the best. One evening in the late 60's. I was in a pub in Stoke Fleming in the South Hams, During the evening an elderly lady came in wheeling a pram containing a small wooden barrel the landlord offloaded the barrel, stowing it behind the bar covering it with a towel, and gave the old girl a £5 note and 100 fags !! apparently this was a regular weekly order, and was never offered to tourist and non locals, but kept for regulars, the Landlord told us it was called "Mrs Wades Water" !!

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:34 PM

pfr. Scrumpy should be sold with a health warning attached. Many years ago I used to regularly watch an old boy staggering across a railway bridge in the wye valley. He was clutching a lemonade bottle and on his way to the pub, immediately over the river, on the monmouth side. Inside the bar he would be shaking like a demented dervish as he gave the empty bottle to the landlord to fill with scrumpy. On receiving it back half would end up on the floor and half down his neck. 30 seconds later he would be steady as a rock, get a refill and toddle off back across the river. In total contrast the old boy living next door to the pub only ever drank blackcurrent juice. He obviously learnt young about the demon scrumpy!

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 02:52 PM

Back in the 60's and for a few years after due to an anomaly in the excise duty regulations cider was taxed at a nominal value that made it very cheap, and it was often of almost wine strength when made locally on farms down here in Devon, sometimes up to 10 or 11per cent or even higher, most tourists never realised just how strong it could be and often suffered for their ignorance !! nowadays with the tax based on the Specific Gravity strengths are much lower usually in the 4-5% range comparable with beers.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 03:15 PM

Thatchers - half way compromise between the worst corporate fizzy cider pops and real trad farmhouse - is now usually 6%...

But factory standardization, pubs serving from 'bag in a boxes', trendy re-branding & mass media marketing campaigns,
have reduced it's variable potency and 'authenticity' in recent years....

[damn you thatchers gold and the trendy kids who demand it...]

When I was a boy in the early 60s, my dad's trusty supplier was the farmer who drove his transit round the estate once a week
delivering big glass flagons of his dodgy rot gut...

A dictionary of traditional cider press words, is next on my google agenda after dinner...

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Iains
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 03:45 PM

Some of the cider apples have interesting names. One I like is foxwhelp. I had a couple of these trees many years ago and remnants of a ciderpress, produced very locally from the Millstone Grit. There are still some to be seen in the wye where they ended up in the river instead of the boat.(Too much scrumpy I presume.)

http://www.ciderschool.com/orcharding/apples/

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 05:06 PM

I'm a stonemason and slater to trade, the Scottish traditional slaters worked freehand using all sizes of slate widths and lengths.
The first course consisted of the smallest lengths(under easings)followed by the longest lengths to form one watertight course.
We work up the roof in diminishing lengths to the ridge where we terminate with "The Wee Toppers".

Slaters are always pleased to see the "Wee Toppers", from whence comes the well known Scottish saying....."Yer a wee topper"

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,Nick Dow (Showing off)
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 05:36 PM

OK Here are the Gypsy words for a four wheeled dray (like the bottom of a Gypsy wagon) From the floor down it goes like this...

Choc rail
floorboards
Summers
cradle
main bolster
cross members
Lock king pin
futchels
splinterbar
Draw bar
Barrell eyes
main bolster
ring plates
Sharps
footboard
trace hooks
Britching D's
tug stops
Ferrules
Globe or scrole irons
dumbjacks
springs
dogs
beds
axles
naffs
naff ends
cups
spokes
fellies
roller nipple
roller scotch
Brake and Panbox

If you are interested in a translation ask and you shall receive.
this is 21st century folk lore I think.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 06:15 PM

Two poetic lists. See if you can supply the occupations -- and the meanings:

roll, pitch, yaw, surge, sway, heave

nematic, smectic, cholesteric

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 06:29 PM

Sounds Nautical and Medical to me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 06:34 PM

I was wrong as usual. Just Googled it. I won't spoil the game.
I used to know a couple of Traditional Thatchers by the way. Using willow spars rather than wooden boards to attach the reed.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 07:18 PM

a couple of hedgelaying terms I loved were
to sned
taking the side twigs of a branch
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/snedding  

pleaching
Pleaching or plashing is a technique of interweaving living and dead branches through a hedge for stock control.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleaching 

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 10 Jul 17 - 07:40 PM

... off a branch, or branches off a tree

that was me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 02:12 AM

In Scotland we have snedding and brashing which involves the cleaning of small lower branches from the trunk of growing timber.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 04:12 AM

Ians,
Re Cider Apple names, Round Here (East Devon ) we have Morgan Sweets, Pigsnouts, Gillyflowers, Turnip Apples, and the original Stinking Bishop, which gave its name to the cheese of the same name whose rind was washed in cider made from it it as part of the maturing process, Also Kingston Blacks and Dabinetts.
Cider was rarely made from one variety, but from a blend of various apples each one intended to impart some individual nuance to the final flavour.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Iains
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 05:06 AM

Guest HP of OTT. A lot of those older cider apple varieties were very localised. Foxwhelp was mainly Herefordshire and used to add strength to the brew.
An interesting cider below. Was it named for the reaction on drinking it or it's effect on the metabolism?
http://www.skreach.co.uk/

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Iains
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 06:15 AM

Guest Martin Ryan. Hot from the Dept. of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht:


http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/FindOutMore/Thatch%20-%20A%20Guide%20to%20the%20Repair%20of%20Thatched%20Roofs%20(2015).pdf

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 06:33 AM

A Bristol cider of the early 80s was named "Cripple Cock"...

The name appears to still be in use by an Exeter cider...

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 04:47 PM

Thatchers Cheddar Valley cider... made in the same place as Black Rat - the only difference is the beetroot juice to change the colour to orange. Avoid both! Firmly in the category that give the colloquial name to scrumpy as tanglefoot. Scrumpy does hit the nerves in that way. And legs feel it first.

And didn't I think that Stinking Bishop was soaked in Perry ! The answer is yes

And FWIW cider is not a brew. It is not brewed - the trade insist the term is milled hence the stone roundel to crash the apples called a scratter. Wiki on cider

In Bristol they refer to Thatchers Gold as Natch - would that have originally derived from "natural"?

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,Son of a gun
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 04:57 PM

Here, co messiah with Gnomish attributes...

The only time I used to hear "give it a good thrutch!" was from hopeful and soon to be disappointed damsels....

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jul 17 - 06:09 PM

I went to school in Bolton, Dave, and we used " thrutch" to denote a particularly male solo sexual endeavour.

On Radcliffe parks the gardeners referred to the first watering of newly-planted bedding as "degging in" and the watering can used was the "degging can."

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Jul 17 - 02:56 AM

In NZ I was told that the accent was often referred to as South British - in SA Oz & NZ etc the "South British Insurance Company" thrived hence the term. And in Oz & NZ they refer to the mucky bits of a sheep's fleece (rear) as dag and removing them as dagging which is also used by British farmers if my GF is typical.

And when I was a kid I was dragged along to visit a hospital worker and their large washing machine was called a sluicer and was told "because it sluices !!!".
I recorded a local lady who referred to the spin dryer in a commercial laundry (1940s) as a hydro.

Another recording has a man referring to shoe repair as snobbing which has a pretty wide currency, another(local) man said that they called a last (shoe repair foot/feet) as a snob. When I was a kid our plimsolls we called pumps (very flimsy sports shoes) but locally they call them daps - this man talking of corporal punishment etc

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jul 17 - 03:00 AM

Well, it seems that thrutch refers to fitting something in a tight space in any number of ways...

:D tG

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Noreen
Date: 12 Jul 17 - 03:31 AM

Only context I have ever heard the verb "to thrutch" (Bolton area again):
Blaster Bates - Thrutching The Pike

:)

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 17 - 06:24 AM

Could be a noun, Noreen, as in "he always woke himself up in the morning by having a good thrutch..."

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 13 Jul 17 - 05:53 PM

Sid Calderbank performs a marvellous feat of memory in reciting a poem that lists what is on sale in a Lancashire shop. As I have a much less retentive memory I can't remember the title of the poem.
The one item that I had to ask him to explain was "degging can".

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Murpholly
Date: 14 Jul 17 - 03:24 AM

I remember What's My Line and one contestant being a "sagger maker's bottom knocker.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Jul 17 - 07:24 AM

a sagger is merely a box to put pots in when firing. In coal fired kilns the ash contaminated the glaze so pots needed protection. Made from fireclay. Woodfired kilns same, but without a sagger often the contamination was desired and beneficial.

Yorkshire term for being amazed/excited (no direct synonym) was thralled presumably from "enthralled" or a legacy that enthralled left behind. And nesh meant soft.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jul 17 - 01:08 PM

The GF has a saying "rain before seven, fine before eleven" not a particularly Gloucestershire expression, but this morning she described the very light on/off early morning rain as morning pride.
Anyone ever heard that expression outside Gloucs?

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 17 - 02:30 PM

I don't think it's that local an expression. I've known it all my life. It generally refers to frontal system which, quite often, gallops through within a few hours. Not always, sadly! So, if a front is already passing at seven, it may well have gone through by eleven. But the person who invented the saying clearly hadn't heard of warm sectors or slow-moving occlusions.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Jul 17 - 02:43 AM

and morning pride - how widespread is that?

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Jul 17 - 03:55 AM

At the Finch Foundry in Sticklepath, you can pick up a (right-handed) thatcher's shearing hook.

The Finch Foundry supplied tools for many different industries in the area, one of which was thatching.

The thatcher's shearing hook is used by sweeping the blade across and towards the body to gain a very flat finish and is available in both left and right handed versions.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jul 17 - 05:56 AM

Gosh, Sticklepath. Once on the main road to Exeter, now much quieter I imagine. Last time I went through Sticklepath was when the A30 was closed, and that was the first time in, well, decades probably.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Jul 17 - 09:25 AM

I am sure many people will still remember the congestion on the old road.

On a summer Saturday, the journey from Exeter to Okehampton could take as long as four hours! The museum survived on travellers who broke their journey in Sticklepath.

When the final link is complete, drivers will be able to travel along dual carriageway for over 100 miles between Exeter in Devon and Camborne in Cornwall.

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jul 17 - 11:22 AM

I remember those journeys. We often bypassed Sticklepath by coming (from Bude) via Jacobstowe and getting on the A30 at Whiddon Down. For the first time ever last Wednesday we swooped unencumbered along the new dual carriageway at Temple coming home from Truro. It was still single carriageway going west, mind! It's been a long haul. I think I'll be well into my dotage before I manage a similar swoop from Carland Cross to Chiverton!

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jul 17 - 11:26 AM

Not to avoid Sticklepath you understand,, but to avoid Okehampton!

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 17 Jul 17 - 04:51 AM

This is Sticklepath Dartmoor presumably not Sticklepath Exmoor?

Robin

Subject: RE: Folklore: thatcher's language (roofing)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jul 17 - 05:17 AM

'Tis indeed Dartmoor. Sticklepath is famous in geology for the major fault than runs through the region right across Devon from Torbay to Lundy. The fault zone runs to the east side of the moor and has created valleys along its length and, notably, helped to create the conditions for the formation of the celebrated ball clay deposits at Petrockstowe Basin, a mineral that's rare anyway and which is exceptionally pure in Devon.