The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #2173 Message #2600146
Posted By: Austin P
29-Mar-09 - 09:48 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Poverty Knock
Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock
One of my favourite songs, - I grew up amongst' cotton mills: I've a couple of questions for the 'catters:
"Tuner should tackle my loom"
I learnt it in my callow youth as:
"Tackler should fettle* me Loom"
Which, to me, makes more sense. A 'tackler' was the roving supervisor/mechanic in a weaving shed, often despised and the butt of jokes (search for 'tacklers tales'). Mind you, that's Lancashire usage, it may be have been slightly different all of 10 miles away in W. Yorkshire ...
Another thing (to my shame), I never sing the verse:
We've got to wet our own yarn,
By dippin' it into the tarn
It's wet an' soggy and makes us feel groggy,
and there's mice in that dirty old barn.
Because I have no idea what it means. I remember steam being hissed into the weaving shed to keep the cotton damp (to stop it breaking), but as to wetting your own yarn? And what's a Barn got to do with it? I've always been baffled by that.
And, being a bit pedantic (joke alert) Looms don't go 'knock', they go: THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM
Austin P
*fix, tune, repair.