What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw

Subject: RE: What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 20 - 09:18 PM

I'm reading "The Wooden Horse", by Eric Williams, 1958. It's a true story about 3 guys who escaped from a PoW camp in Germany in 1943 by digging a tunnel.

It took place at the same PoW camp, Stalag Luft III, and at the same time as "The Great Escape" tunnel was being dug.

The context is that the prisoners took turns digging down in the tunnel of their own, underneath a wooden horse they placed near the fence every day. A few guys would practice vaulting over the wooden horse while another guy would go down into the tunnel and dig.

Unlike the guys in The Great Escape tunnel, these guys didn't have ventilation or lighting and had to dig in the nude. It was hot and dirty and they were constantly sweating, and, "They grew segs on their elbows and knees and broke their fingernails."

I'm fairly certain "segs" are "calouses".

It's no secret that the three guys made it back to England, so I'm not spoiling the ending. It's still an incredible story; one I highly suggest reading.

Thomas
NYC
.............

Subject: RE: What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Apr 20 - 02:47 AM

I grew up with this word in Liverpool but when I moved to Manchester nobody had heard it; in London, you might as well have been talking Urdu if you did
My mother had a saying when one of us sat around without doing nything; "If you sir around much longer you'll get segs on your arse"

Another word she used was "nesh" - basically referring to someone who complained complained say, about bad weather or hard work.
Thet was occasionally used in Manchester but I never saw it in print until I read Mrs Gaskell's 'Sylvia's Lovers" - she used it as my mother had
Elizabth Gaskell was born in London, but married and lived in Knutsford, Cheshire - she obviously listened to how the people spoke, which was why she wrote such good books

My mam had lots of sayings - we were not too well off and when one of us asked, "What's for dinner" we were invariably told, "Cow's sock and hairy bacon"
I still miss my mam and her lovely way of putting things - mind you, when she first heard me sing she told me, "If you were singing for shit, you'd never get the smell of it"
She changed her mind when I took her to the Spinners Club and sang from the floor though:-)
Jim Caarroll

Subject: RE: What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Apr 20 - 04:17 AM

"Segs" were also the things they brought the coal in in the posh part of Liverpool
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw
From: Snuffy
Date: 28 Apr 20 - 01:58 PM

"Cow's sock and hairy bacon". Bacon? You were lucky; whenever we asked my mum the answer was "Stewed bugs an' onions"

Subject: RE: What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw
From: GUEST,Roger
Date: 28 Apr 20 - 04:29 PM

Segs is wot yer 'ave on yer 'ands if yer woork wid 'em.

Subject: RE: What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw
From: r.padgett
Date: 29 Apr 20 - 09:11 AM

"Cuts and seg" as mentioned in the song clearly refer to the injuries caused to the hands my father had segs which I think referred to the brown callouses caused by shovelling and using the pick to hew at the coal face ~before mechanisation days of course, on his hands

Ray

Subject: RE: What are 'segs'?-Testimony of Patience Kershaw
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Apr 20 - 09:20 AM

Forgot to mention, "segs" was also what posh Liverpool people did in bed
Jim