The re-Imagined Village

Subject: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 04:45 AM

A proper English village (that would have Dickens purring in his grave), with a proper English pub - overlooking a gently flowing river, licked by weeping willows, and glided upon by mute swans...a pot of Hedera helix on the windowsill, a glass of mead and a plate of chips on the table, a Northumberland/Durham/Lancashire clog dancer by my side ;-)> and the homely timbre of an English flute or concertina in my ear...

And as for my abode (although I'm mostly vegan, these days)...

Poem cum Song/Chant 101 of 230: JUST SUBSIST

(TUNE:

D F# G G A A G G
D A B B A A G G
D B B B A A G G
D A A A B A G G
D A A A B A G G)

At times when I've had time to take,
    I've thought of a plot by a lake:
The plot would be of fertile ground;
    The lake would have some trout around.

The plot's house would be made of brick -
    Well insulated, in good nick.
And, round this abode, there'd be built -
    Solar panels, kept at best tilt.

Inside large coops would run the legs
    Of chooks and quails - for fresh eggs.
A vine for grapes plus summer shade;
    And, in thin beds, vegetables laid.

Up at dawn, to use all sunlight -
    Fish and farm by day, read at night.
A spouse with me I'd not resist -
    In retirement, we'd just subsist.

From http://walkaboutsverse.sitegoz.com (e-scroll)
Or http://blogs.myspace.com/walkaboutsverse (e-book)

How about you?...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Smedley
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 04:56 AM

You wouldn't get 'chooks' in an English village - that's an Australian term for chickens.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Darowyn
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:15 AM

Chips! = French fried potatoes?
Shouldn't it be a proper English food- roast beef for the rich, boiled turnips (pronounced 'turmut', of course) for the poor?
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:21 AM

Mead with my chips? What an awful sounding lunch!

Mead with pottage maybe, but definitely beer with my chips! A bottle of Newkie Brown...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:47 AM

My maternal Grandfather was a champion Durham clog-dancer, as were his brothers, raised as they were in a colliery village where you'd only ever find Hedera helix growing up outside walls and the only thing you drank with chips was tea or, for an extra special treat, Dandelion & Burdock. In Traditional Northumbrian Folk-life, mead is something only ever drank in minuscule free samples during days out on Holy Island; it might even be brought back in a souvenir gift set but seldom, if ever, is it actually consumed. Cygnus olor aren't uniquely English; and Salix sepulcralis is a non-native hybrid. Add into the mix the wholly non-traditional E. Flute & E. Concertina and the whole thing smacks of fantasy rather than imagination & is thus entirely at odds with the actual & historical realities of English life, rural or otherwise, which are, I think you'll find, very wonderful things indeed.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:01 AM

A bottle of Newkie Brown...

Known to us Geordies as Dog and as fine a complement to chips as any, especially if one ups the anti with the salt and vinegar; lashings I believe is the word we are looking for here, in which case a bottle of Dog is your only man - even up in Auld Reekie where brown sauce is the condiment of choice. These days I only drink Newcastle Brown Ale in rare moments of wistfulness for my native Tyneside; and only ever in a half-pint glass, as is traditional.

Chips; a non-native cuisine developed from a non-native root vegetable introduced from the New World, which just about sums up the wonders of English Culture & Cuisine.

with pottage maybe

Not the best word to use on a WAV thread, CS; no doubt he'll follow it up with food combinations so bizarre as to make chips & mead sound acceptable. Time will tell...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:16 AM

I think if you want to get a handle on the realities of English rural life, it's worth reading Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe - written in 1974 but with memories going back to the First World War. Life was tough for rural communities and agricultural workers in Suffolk and Norfolk, for example, were treated virtually as slaves.

I have family letters, written from Norfolk to Canada - starting in 1837 and continuing to 1890 - which paint a very interesting picture of the precariousness of rural life indeed. Why 1837? Because around 40,000 people left East Anglia around then - paid for - to find a better life in Canada and Australia.

The re-imagined village is a nice idea - but "in retirement" you might be near starvation in those days! To retire meant to stop work - and to stop work might mean being out of your tied cottage - and into the workhouse... :-)

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:17 AM

"a bottle of Dog is your only man"

I love a man who paraphrases Flann O'Brien...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:17 AM

Isn't easy to tell WAV is not English, every time he writes of something ' essentially English '

Dave H

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:30 AM

As for beer, I've got this fantastic book of ancient herbal ritual beers: Secrets of ancient fermentation Never got around to brewing any as yet. But very tempted to go hunting nettles or coltsfoot one suitably totemic day/full Moon/whatnot and give it a shot.

There is something of an essential primordial magic in fermentation that captures the sacred imagination. One of the reasons I love to bake a ceremonial loaf on 'pagan' feast days - just a token gesture, but there's something of prayer and communion in bread baking - which certainly predates the 'breaking of bread' by a long way, and is far more profound by way of partaking in 'the mystery' than any crumby bit of lembas proffered by the hands on an intercessor.. IMO! Plus hunting nettles or other foraged foods for adding to the dough, make it fun. The inclusion of bloody offerings from bramble scored fingers also seem somewhat essential..

Haven't had any Newkie for a while, but I too was taught the method of topping up a half pint glass to keep the bubbles lively.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:36 AM

I love a man who paraphrases Flann O'Brien...

When your village exists only inside of your head,
and your clog dancer turns out to be a man;
When even the swans are apt to migrate -
A bottle of Dog is your only man.

When your English Concertina is full of Chinese reads,
And your English Flute is made in Japan,
When nothing you believe in is quite what it seems -
A bottle of Dog is your only man.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 07:43 AM

Don't worry too much about the reeds being Chinese, even if the concertina were English made then the chances are that the reeds are Italian and made from Swedish steel.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 07:55 AM

Glorious, SOP.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 08:09 AM

Bless 'im. Wor Davey, the Aussie wannabe Brit, does provide some welcome light relief at times. It's astonishing how someone can try so very hard and simply, essentially - even utterly - just not get it. I picture him as a bumbling spy in one of those wartime Ealing escapades; the hapless Herman given away time and again by some shibboleth.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: doc.tom
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 08:30 AM

"You wouldn't get 'chooks' in an English village - that's an Australian term for chickens."

Actually, it's Scottish.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 10:41 AM

DANDELION and BURDOCK......... My favourite. My Grandma always kept in a supply of this when I was a boy. She called it HOREHOUND. Anybody else heard of that name?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:04 AM

Oh bless 'im, 'es been watching way too many Ealing films *LOL*

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:40 AM

Besides, a true Englishman would write better poetry.


A

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:46 AM

burl - you used to be able to get sticks of horehound candy at an old fashioned candy store near where I grew up in New Jersey. I've never seen that name in the UK, so never even twigged that it was the same thing as Dandelion and Burdock!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 11:59 AM

"(that would have Dickens purring in his grave)"

you need to read your Dickens, sunshine, before you make outlandish and wildly inaccurate statements like this....purple prose or what!!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:07 PM

Horehound - Marrumbium vulgare - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrubium_vulgare.

I don't think the Traditional English Dandelion & Burdock that quenched many a childhood thirst had much to do with either of its eponymous components. I might still buy a can today actually, chilled, from the corner shop with a quarter of peanut brittle (or whatever metric measure come close). I've a yen for such things; McDonald's was never the same when they stopped serving Root Beer - nothing quite like a Big Mac & Fries washed down with a large slop of what tasted for all the world like liquid Germolene.

I was once told that Dandelion & Burdock was just thing for marinading freshly killed hare. One thing I did used to do was to douse a red hot poker in it, after watching my grandmother doing likewise with her Mackeson's. Nice on a winter's afternoon...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:09 PM

that would have Dickens purring in his grave

I'd actually read that as gravey and didn't bat an eyelid that WAV would have written such a thing!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:15 PM

I think there is a fine but important line between fostering idiosyncracy (or even eccentricity), and promoting mediocrity.


A

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:20 PM

"I think there is a fine but important line between fostering idiosyncracy (or even eccentricity), and promoting mediocrity..."

and encouraging idiocy? *LOL*

"I'd actually read that as gravey and didn't bat an eyelid that WAV would have written such a thing!"

Geez..!! you been readin' too much of WAV's 'poetry' 'ave you?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 12:35 PM

How much is too much in this instance, I wonder? He does have his admirers though; that said he was roundly sent packing a few days ago for daring to post on the BS: Gardening, 2009 thread - an over-reaction which even I found a tad churlish I must say, and I said as much at the time.

Whatever the case, in matters of idiosyncrasy, eccentricity and idiocy it seems WAV requires little by way of fostering, promotion or indeed encouragement.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 01:40 PM

Prior to 1900 the English concertina was largely a middle class classical instrument. The ordinary folk were playing the Anglo German system.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 01:58 PM

I used to drink Dandelion & Burdock - it's a very "northern" drink. Does anyone else remember Sarsaperilla - known colloquially as "Sasparella"?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:00 PM

I bought som Sarsaparilla cordial (and some dandelion and burdock flavour as well) at Fitzpatrick's Temerance Bar in Rawtenstall when I went to see the Bacup Coco-nutters this year.

Very nice it is, too.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:04 PM

Dandelion and Burdock tastes like medicine IMO - a generic kind of cure-all 'medicine', out of a little brown bottle. Love elderflower cordial or HOT ginger beer though.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:11 PM

Saraparilla, D&B and root beer are all from the same, slightly medicinal family.

I miss root beer.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:20 PM

I've had a PM from a Mudcat member regarding my mention of family letters from Norfolk to Ontario in the 19th century.

If anyone would like to see a snapshot of rural life and rural family life in Norfolk over a period of around 50 years, you'll find some fascinating source material in these letters at:

The Broughton Letters

It doesn't take a lot of imagining or re-imagining - to get the flavour of the times.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:28 PM

I remember one brilliantly sunny Summer Solstice, walking down one of the lanes near Glastonbury Tor and hearing loud music blasting out from around a green corner...

A jolly Nun was perched atop a step ladder gathering heads of Eldeflowers, while trilling brightly away to herself as her car stereo pumped out some rousing mass for many voices.
She explained she was listening to holy music while gathering elderflowers off the holy hill on a holy day, to make elderflower cordial with - she'd already bottled the holy water she needed from the famous springs.
I bet that elderflower cordial had 'medicinal' value, or at least some kind of holy juju.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:28 PM

Sarsaperilla - aka Sasperella, as you say Will - with a big dollop of Wall's vanilla ice cream in there. Sainsbury's used to do a passable Root Beer, maybe they still do... Next time I'm out shopping I'll be on the hunt for such wonders. Watch this space for my consumer report!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:30 PM

I'm about to bottle mine tonight. Lovely stuff - especially with a shot of vodka and some soda water (which isn't very holy).

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:37 PM

Suibhne O'Piobaireachd - yes - with Walls ice cream! Do you know, I'd forgotten that combination! Lord, how I hated Walls ice cream blocks - used to make me feel sick.

Now the memories are flooding back... licquorice - as "straps", as "pipes", as tubes. we used to call it "Spanish" (why?). Then there was sherbert in bags, pear drops, "Imps" (very hot and tiny)... aniseed balls (hated them).

It's becoming a Proustian evening...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Banjiman
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 02:41 PM

I'm just eating Blackjacks and Fruit Salads.... bought while visiting my Mother at the w/e in Lincoln.

The shop had pear drops (bought those as well), liquorice straps (and them), aniseed balls, giant gob stoppers, sherbert bon bons, pineapple cubes.......etc fab it was!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: BB
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 03:34 PM

Flying saucers to you lot! Oh, and lemon sherberts (a version of sherbert bonbons?).

And as a child in Wiltshire, hens were chook-chooks, or chookies.

Barbara

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 03:36 PM

There is no spiritual communion greater than revisiting the sweets we used to eat in our childhood; collectively known as Ket, at least they were in our neck of the woods.

Spanish I remember as the red stuff, though where this name came from I've no idea. Was it branded Spanish? Or was the name folkloric?   

As a fan of vintage Oor Wullie I note that back in the 40s / 50s sugarelly was the sweet of choice; in 60s / 70s reprints this becomes licourice. One story from the 40s features the home manufacture of Sugarelly Water - simply licorice dissolved into water. I've tried this and can't in all honesty recommend it, though a Google search revals an entry in Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarelly

I hope you're taking notes here, WAV - if you fancy meeting up during a lull in the DFP singarounds I'll give a tour of the best sweetshops of the outlying villages. Newhouse General Stores in Esh Winning is especially fine in this respect.

One of the (only) things I like about the Harry Potter books is their enduring fondness for sweets. There is a very passable Honeydukes in The Shambles in York...

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Frozen Gin (inactive)
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 03:53 PM

They was chookie-eggs when I was a sprog *LOL*

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 04:54 PM

No notes, SO, but I've read everything and intend to try some of the above concoctions, including Dandelion & Burdock; not a big fan of sweets, but I recall going into a corner-shop with school mates (yes, in Australia), and struggling to keep our faces straight as we asked for a Golden Gay-time - ice-cream, on a stick, coated with some kind of crumbs.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:37 PM

Thanks for the poem WAV.

In my daydreams I design the perfect house. I doubt that I will ever build it, because my present house is quite nice and it would be so much work to build the dream house and move into it.

At the moment, the cat is in the dining room, enjoying a patch of sunshine. Birds are singing outside. The air conditioning is humming quietly. Daylilies are in gorgeous bloom on the west side of the house. Tomatoes will soon be ripe. All this in the heart of a liveable city. What more could one ask?

Do you know the poem that starts 'Oh, to have a little house'? It expresses such longing in so few words.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:45 PM

"A proper English village (that would have Dickens purring in his grave), with a proper English pub ..."

Yes, a very odd choice of phrase, that! Dickens was, of course, a Londoner - a city dweller - who probably thought that the countryside was unsophisticated (that's a guess - I haven't really read enough Dickens to know for sure).

I've always been fascinated by fictional models of Britain constructed by people who've never actually been here. You know, Cockneys who get lost on the 'moors' at night before being devoured by werewolves or 'Lords and Ladies' who are obviously modelled on well off Californians, of a few decades ago, and who live in Beverley Hills type mock Tudor mansions with butlers.

These examples are, obviously, American. How novel, for an afficionado like me, to encounter an Australian example! Thanks, Walkabouts Verse!

... Have I ever told you the one about the Ozzy, with the corks on his hat, who subdued the salt water crocodile ('crockys, I think they're called ... or something like that?), that was attacking the guests at his 'barby', by jamming his 'stubby' over its nose?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:47 PM

If Ruth can advertise Sidmouth on another thread can I give a plug for our Dandelion and Burdock(which we had to market as Sasperella in the South)which I am pleased to say appears to be making a comeback and which is especially popular with the younger (under thirties)members of our family.
Among others we make it for Asda, Morrison's and under the Ben Shaw's label; one of our other factories makes Root Beer but just in cans. D&B is far nicer than Root Beer and it used to be a special treat for us kids back in the North East.
BTW well done SOP for explaining the correct way to drink Newcastle Brown Ale (not from the bottle as some Southerners would have you believe) and for giving it its correct name. Newkie is in Cornwall!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:53 PM

I'm afraid I've never really liked the root beer you get at supermarkets in the UK. But there's a shop in Nottingham where you can get A&W, or so my daughter tells me.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:58 PM

I think that probably the smaller village with access to larger cities is the way most of us would prefer to live...I live in a village however that is one block wide and 20 miles long and it doesn't work too well for various aspects of life. mg

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 05:58 PM

Thanks Leeneia - your "moment" sounds good; I don't know of that poem, though..?
Shimrod - I've actually spent 16 years now living in the country of my birth, England. Dickens cared about people and the conditions they were in, so would he not have been for better conditions in both town and country..?

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:02 PM

What a thoroughly refreshing thread this is turning out to be; I will be sure to check out the Ben Shaw range on my next visit to ASDA - which could well be tomorrow morning...

A&W? Order it online!

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 30 Jun 09 - 06:15 PM

"A proper English village (that would have Dickens purring in his grave), with a proper English pub - overlooking a gently flowing river, licked by weeping willows, and glided upon by mute swans..."

Lovely, Wav.

The willows are kissing the gently flowing river, here in Sidmouth...and the larks are ascending

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 01:52 AM

Ben Shaw's do the best canned pop. The Cream Soda is topper.

Subject: RE: The re-Imagined Village
From: s&r
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 03:19 AM

Isn't mostly vegan a bit like slightly pregnant?

Or is it mostly Vogon?

Stu