Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?

Subject: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,Penny S. (sans cookie)
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 04:17 PM

The other week the BBC transmitted an episode of "Lark Rise to Candleford" which rang a few warning bells for me. I have not yet read the book, to my shame, so I don't know if they have started to extend beyond Flora Thompson's own writing yet. If what was done was in the book, then I am in error, and the time of my grandparents was not as I supposed it. OK, they were in Sussex, not Oxfordshire, however...

Candleford expected the bishop, coming to bless a new font, carved by Robert Timmins. He was having difficulty, as he felt the stone wanted something he hadn't planned. It turned out that the spot which was a problem had a fossil in it, which he worked into the design.

This offended the religious postman, who knew enough about Darwin to have quite modern views (and I mean modern) about the matter. But it was not this that bothered me.

The postman has previously, and in the early, definitely Thompson stuff, appeared to be very religious in a very chapelish sort of way. Probably Methodist, of some type, but could also easily be Congregational or Baptist. He has, I think, preached. For such a man to be eagerly awaiting a bishop, from Oxford, with its leanings towards Catholicism, and regarding him as someone to be looked up to, and meeting him to be an honour, seems unlikely. (In Sussex, people like the postman would have felt very differently. In Cornwall, as recently as the 1920's, men from a chapel could have marched to smash a new papistical font.) This seemed historically wrong, but it wasn't what really bothered me.

There was a tree which started bleeding, and was reputed to hold the spirit of a woman who had died a witch. The postman felt this was an afront to the bishop, and went to chop it down. (I do hope they managed not to really damage a tree - he chopped twice.) Meanwhile, Queenie, the matriarch of Lark Rise, wanted to release the spirit, and this is where my historical sense signalled error to me. I know there are such places in folklore. I know there have been, and until quite recently, folk practices designed to quiet things in some way or another. A few years after the dramatised events, some medium would have been holding a seance. But Queenie turns up and says she has discovered a ritual to solve things, and calls on the compass directions to do so. This offends the postman, but the postmistress explains that paganism simply means things done in the country and should not worry him.

If Queenie had said she remembered something she had been taught, I would have been less bothered, but she sounded as though she had been researching books. If she had called it something that needed to be done, rather than a ritual, it would have sounded better. The word seems wrong. As it was, it seemed more like something derived from the 20th century. I have not seen any record of her sort of behaviour at the time, when people were already recording folk practices. My Dictionary of Sussex dialect, which makes derogatory comments about the ignorance and ways of the locals, mentions no such thing as paganism there. I've not ever heard anyone in the family who would have been alive at the time, or anyone who would have talked to such people, mention any such thing.

Queenie, as a character, knows many remedies, and recites charms, and until this episode had seemed a realistic sort of person, who is apparently based on a real woman, whose descendants still live.

Is it likely that a Victorian would have actually been a pagan in the modern sense? And not regarded in a derogatory fashion by the educated and the churchgoers?

The whole set of views of religion in the episode just seemed wrong.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Y_Not
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 04:21 PM

Not read the book to your shame! Well go and read the book!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Silas
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 04:22 PM

Methinks you take it a tad too seriously

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 04:28 PM

Saw about half of the first episode, but went to sleep.
I might try the book sometime. Often, re-writing for TV changes what the author done writ.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 04:32 PM

I agree. I think by now the characters have turned into caricatures. This episode bears no relation to anything in the books that I remember (willing to be corrected if need be). But both my daughter and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the obvious and preposterous New Age-ing of Queenie.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Y_Not
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 04:32 PM

Good on the BBC they are doing some DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA. Would you prefer some Big Brother?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 04:59 PM

Well now,"Penny S "---
            I don't know what part of Sussex you hail from, but I grew up at Cowdray Park (yes, I lived in Cowdray House !), Midhurst ---although it was actually in the parish of Easebourne . I sang in the choir of the church in Easebourne, and yes, I was ASTOUNDED and ASTONISHED and quite unsettled when, on attending a choir festival in Chichester Cathedral, I was confronted ,for the first time,with such alien (to me ) practices as the burning of Incense ( Shock !! Horror !!) and the playing of music by a BRASS ENSEMBLE ! ( more Shock ! More Horror !). So I take your point !
    Also, I had bad warts,which were "charmed" away from me by a local "mystic" from the village, which was something that no amount of praying in Church ever achieved !!
    I enjoy "Larkrise to Candleford", but a lot of it IS utter Bollocks !!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 05:10 PM

Well I've never read the book. But I have worked in Telly most of my life, and I would be very proud to have been involved in this fine bit of TV Drama. It is not or even tries to be a historical documentary, or accurate re-enactment of life in those times. It is also not a screenplay version of the book.
It is a very pleasant totally harmless bit of escapist entertainment, no killing, no bad language, not even much blood.
So what is the problem?
Long may it run.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 05:32 PM

TV drama is full of anachronisms. I was watching an episode of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (Richard E. Grant as the Pimp), in which Robespierre was talking to a countrywoman in France with a speech which included the word "masochism".

Very odd as Sacher-Masoch, from whom the term "masochism" derives, lived from 1836 – 1895...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: greg stephens
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 06:06 PM

There is a problem with this. It is absolutely nothing to do with the fine book Larkrise to Candleford. It is a total travesty, and highly dishonest to use the same title.It may be fun, but why try to pass it of as something which it is not?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Alan Day
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 06:33 PM

I worry about this all night.
It may only be a story, but why does it never rain. Something spooky about that.
I am really glad when Monday comes around ,it always makes me feel better.
Al

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: gnomad
Date: 11 Feb 10 - 06:40 PM

I'm guessing that Penny's problem is that she has noticed the join.

Flora T's writings are a reasonably coherent description of her experiences (wasn't there, or even born, but they are not incredible)

What I have seen of the BBC series was amiable enough, but codswallop, and only dimly related to the books.

As regards Penny's particular query, I would be somewhat surprised that the postman took any significant notice of such goings-on, I would expect him to condemn them all as being outwith his beliefs. Queenie 'discovers' a ritual? NO, either she knows one, or she invents one, but she's no researcher. She 'explains that paganism simply means things done in the country' NO, the postman is a countryman himself, and anyway that isn't so.

I looked forward to the LR production, unlike MM I had read the books, and hoped that something more than the title and a few character names would coincide. I don't remember how many episodes it took, but I didn't last for many.   Ah, well, perhaps I wanted too much.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 03:16 AM

I greatly enjoy Lark Rise, but wouldn't dream of regarding it as
(a) a faithful representation of Flora Thompson's original (which I have read) or
(b) an accurate piece of folklore.

It's just one of the many books that have been taken up by TV, and then the original characters and relationships from that source material have been given extrapolated and developed.

The TV series had pretty much used up all the dramatic scenarios from the source material by the end of the 1st series; there was demand for more; so the writers start inventing new plotlines, new characters (my biggest questions at the moment are (a) exactly where is slimeball journalist Daniel Parrish actually living? and (b) how come Alf can play in so many different keys on that two-row melodeon?), etc etc.

I'm with Miskin, it's good gentle TV for a Sunday night, and long may it run.

The bleeding tree with the witch trapped inside it was in the original book though ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 03:27 AM

It's cobblers.

If Queenie is a bit of a country 'cunning woman' then she'd have *bound* that witch's spirit fast, and never ever freed her!

What the writers have imposed on Queenie are extremely modern PC sensibilities, entirely at odds with what would have been the case in a village like Lark Rise at that time. To village folk (and to cunning men and women) witches were entirely malevolent and dangerous beings. Much of the work of someone like Queenie (if she is being pitched as a cunning woman by the writers) would be to protect against and reverse a witches evil magic. She would also have had the folk magical tools and skills to trap a witch, most unlikely any of it would have been 'researched' or 'discovered' either, but most likely inherited orally.

No village cunning woman would have used the compass points either, that's a fully modern Wiccan thing hailing from the fifties (with some caveats irrelevant to Queenie's situation).

The writers could easily have worked this stuff out, but why not just perpetuate yet more modern fakelore when that's so much easier and less hassle?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 03:41 AM

The bleeding tree with the witch trapped inside it was in the original book though ...

That's interesting, though. So what did the canonical Queenie do? Did she

a) pop down to the local Library of Pagan Magick and Mystical Folklore and research an appropriate ritual
b) remember an appropriate ritual that a wise old woman taught her
c) make up an appropriate ritual from scratch, being a wise old woman herself (there have to be some perks)
d) just sort of do something without anyone concerned reflecting very much on whether it was 'ritual' or not
or
e) make herself a good sharp axe (shining steel ect ect) and chop the bleeding tree down?

Incidentally, do they show the tree 'bleeding' continuously, or does it just seep for a while and then stop, then start again? And if it is intermittent, how long does it go on before it stops? In other words, what's the bleeding time?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Gervase
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 03:41 AM

Flora Thompson would be spinning in her grave. The series has borrowed some themes from her books, but is essentially 'Heartbeat' in crinoline. The biggest BBC error was commissioning the second series.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 03:42 AM

Oh, and the other thing I forgot to mention, is that virtually the entire plot has been plagiarised from a story written by Wiccan Priest Sanders I think?

The Witch's Bottle

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 03:59 AM

So what did the canonical Queenie do?

Sorry, I've not got The Book to hand: but I don't think the 'canonical Queenie' (great phrase BTW, I'm determined to work that into a random conversation by the end of the day) actually did any wifty-wafty new age rituals around it whatsoever: IIRC, it was just a local odd-shaped tree, that there was a story about a witch being trapped inside, and so the young Laura was frightened of it. Probably a good way of stopping the local kids straying too far - don't go past the tree, it's got a witch in it!

I'm coming over all Michael Winner about this one - Calm down dears, it's only a BBC costume drama ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Alan Day
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:11 AM

About ten past nine Pip,
Very clever and very funny
Al

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:11 AM

I like it.....so you'd better hang me, from the Witch's Tree.

In fact, I LOVE Sunday evening television. It's the only time when the violent TV b*stards allow gentleness and kindness back on to the TV screens for a while and you actually feel better for watching it...or at least, I do...

Hell, I still enjoy Songs of Praise and The Antiques Roadshow too.

Me feels a Tripe Hanging coming up... ;0)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: julian morbihan
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 04:21 AM

It strayed from the book in episode one of the first series!

But as stated it is a nice piece of harmless television drama. Just think what it would be like if Holywood ever had a go at it!

Just one thing though, has anyone else noticed that in the current series they have put yellow filters on everything?

And for another discussion, Cranford strayed just as far from the books but stilled remains a lovely television drama. And filmed in Lacock too.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:15 AM

Ooh!

:0)<

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:19 AM

The thing I can't stand about this TV farrago is that it's an insult to Flora ("Laura") Thompson, nee Timms, who, in her late (and unhappy) years, wrote an extremely acute and sensitive memoir of her childhood and adolescence. The important point to make is that everybody in the books was a REAL person, not a yellow filtered mannequin. See extract from 1911 census (Flora was married by then).

Albert Timms, Head, 56, Married, Bricklayer, born Bucks Buckingham.

Emma Timms, Wife, 57, Married 36 yrs, 12 children, 6 surviving, 6 dead, born Oxon Ardley

Edwin Timms, Son, 31, Single, Farm Labourer, private army [pension?], born Oxon Cottisford - nb died in WW1

Frank Wallington Timms, Son, 22, Single, Farm Labourer, born Oxon Cottisford

What a filmic life they must all have led, nipping off to Candleford to hob nob with their betters over a latte, popping into the local Holland & Barretts and coming home in time to do the swingle ring round the maypole.

Referring specidically to Queenie - she was an old lady who kept bees; her dream was "A pound a week". She was married to a demented old man who tried to beat her with a strap and brandished knives.

Strangely enough the "Lark Rise" play, written by Keith Dewhurst, which started life at the Cottesloe and has subsequently been performed all over the place, is a far more successful bash at encapsulating Flora's book than the TV parody.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:22 AM

Sorry, meant "Specifically". Too much cider under the haycart!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 08:07 AM

I haven't watched any of the Lark Rise or the Cranford spinoffs ~ love both the originals too much to bear 'reworkings' of this sort. For that matter, I generally avoid any adaptations of books I particularly love as they rarely get them right [both the Wodehouse series, the Carmichael & the Fry/Laurie, which have been mentioned recently on the Ian Carmichael obit thread, were honourable exceptions — but the much praised Carmichael~LordPeterWimsey series, otoh, got all the dons in Gaudy·Night as wrong as it possibly could! & I know whereof I speak, having contributed the Dorothy L Sayers entry to The Continuum Encyclopedia Of British Literature (NY 2003)].

My consolation is ever that, when these piddling ephemera are long-forgotten, the books will still be there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 08:51 AM

=== Sorry, meant "Specifically". Too much cider under the haycart! ===
                            ============
Interesting comment in this context btw Ed ~ as Laurie Lee's Cider·With·Rosie, which you clearly have in mind here, a book right in same tradition as Lark·Rise... An interesting little genre, of rural childhood impressions from late19-early20C. Are there any other significant examples anyone can think of?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 08:54 AM

A Child in the Forest by Winifred Foley springs to mind.....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 09:02 AM

Yes, indeed ~ thank you Terry. I should have remembered that, esp as my wife knew her, as she was a journalist from the Forest Of Dean where the Winfred Foley books are set: the "Forest" of the title.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 09:08 AM

Reuben's Corner by Spike Mays, about growing up on the Essex-Suffolk border.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,Baz parkes
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 09:21 AM

Wot...no cries of outrage at a 1930s melodeon being "played" earlier than it could have been built?

Or the wrong sort of tuning pegs on the banjo...indeed, I guess the wrong sort of banjo...

Catters, you're slipping :-))

FWIW, I love the books, have played in the band for the Dewhurst adaptation, and still enjoy the Sunday night farago. It's Larkrise Jim, but not as we know it...

Baz

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 09:32 AM

The Dewhurst version , fondly remembered from the original production is touring regional theatres at the moment. I gave up on the tv series , too far from the books.

RtS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 09:34 AM

Strangely enough the "Lark Rise" play, written by Keith Dewhurst, which started life at the Cottesloe and has subsequently been performed all over the place, is a far more successful bash at encapsulating Flora's book than the TV parody - yes we know that.

If you want the real thing, read the book. If you want the Cottesloe production, go to the British Sound Archive and listen to it - remember it lasts 2hrs 15mins.

I read a lot of half empty glasses on this thread, all trying to be clever!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 09:43 AM

All the OP asked was 'was what Queenie did in keeping with the period?', and people replied that 'no it wasn't'.

The writers could have decided to make half an effort to keep the story line in approximate keeping with the period, by doing as little as casting a swift eye over Wikipedia just like any dork brain can manage, even the average Beeb scriptwriter.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 10:14 AM

Here's a basic question. Does fiction, or indeed faction, have to be accurate historically? Isn't entertainment the main point, perhaps even the only point.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 10:48 AM

Entertainment is the main point. It has to stand up against all the working class bilge for the masses.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:14 AM

Does fiction, or indeed faction, have to be accurate historically? Isn't entertainment the main point, perhaps even the only point.

No, it isn't! This is a real fallacy - just because most of us don't count the cuff-buttons when we watch Master and Commander, that doesn't mean you can ever say that "anything goes", in any genre. Even when they make up some daft bit of pseudo-science in Doctor Who, it sounds like a daft bit of pseudo-science - the Doctor doesn't wave a wand and say "Wingardium Leviosa"!

Here we've got a series ostensibly set in the early C20, just as Cranford was ostensibly set in early C19 and Dallas was ostensibly set in the 1980s. Flint tools would look wrong to all of us in any of those settings; jetpacks would look just as wrong. Wifty-wafty paganism doesn't look that wrong to most of us, so we don't care - but it does look wrong to people who know about the period, so they do.

If the BBC Bonnet Department had just wanted to make stuff up, they'd have prefaced Lark Rise with "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:18 AM

What happened to Dawn French's character BTW - I have not really followed it but I noticed she was missing. I tend to agree with both sides here 1 - It is a TV drama and what do you expect and 2 - It is totaly unlike anything that Flora wrote. And yes I have read it - Got that and Cider with Rosie as a companion set. Like bith but preferred the latter. Oddly enough a young American lass wandered off with my copy as we were helping her out. I don't begrudge it - she was in a bad place at he time:-(

Anywho - We are indeed currently awash with Beeb dramas - I prefer Being Human myself but as we are doing a series record on that I tend to watch it whan I have more time. Survivors is also PDG but I think there is already a thread about that.

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 11:46 AM

She is in a debtors' prison.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Cats
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:04 PM

I am thoroughly enjoying the series and it is just escapism. It may be inaccurate and bear little relationship to the original but the beeb, bless them, seem to have taken an incident in the book that lasts for an odd line or two, a paragraph or even a page or two and reworked it to a whole episode. As for Queenie calling the quarters... I don't know. I wasn't alive then and don't know anyone who was to tell me if they did do that then.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:16 PM

Agree wholeheartedly with Pip above — it is just as easy to be accurate with a bit of trouble as not. Shall never forget my disgust at the opening of the famous itv Brideshead Revisited in late 80s, where Captain Ryder said 'Good morning, Sergeant-Major' to a soldier wearing the insignia of a Colour-Sgt [a lower rank]. With the millions they were spending on the series, and with so many episodes with an Army setting, wouldn't you have thought they could have paid a competent military adviser to avoid irritating those who knew better? I have spelled out on another thread the reasons for this error ~ but confusion as to what is correct doesn't improve matters.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 12:27 PM

I like fiction, I like it because it provides escape. To provide me with escape from here and now, it must create an *internally consistant* illusion of truth which enables me to suspend my disbelief. I just hate shoddy, lazy writing when the writers should know better. Any writer worth their salt will do some degree of background research on their subject matter. Like I said, so much as a swift scan of Wiki would have been perfectly sufficient: Cunning Folk

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 01:02 PM

Writing realistic historical fiction—and especially screenplays—must be one of the hardest jobs in the world. You can spend your life studying the habits, language, and mores of people at a certain time and place, and no matter how much you know, you won't know everything, and there will always be somebody in the audience who knows something you don't, or who notices something you think no one will notice.

You can try to stick to the original, if there is one, but suppose the author says something like "Mr. Watkins paid us a visit, and told us that his mother had died."—and suppose the death of Mrs. Watkins is an important plot point that you can't simply omit. If you're going to turn that into a scene in a film, you've got to put some actual words into the mouth of Mr. Watkins, and some appropriate replies into the mouths of others. Woe betide you if you use some words or phrases that strike someone else as false or inappropriate to the period or setting.

Then, too, someone will have to decide how Mr. Watkins will be dressed, what the furniture will look like, whether Mr. Watkins will arrive on foot, or on a horse, or in a carriage, etc. All these are potential pitfalls.

Case in point: the movie Titanic. On the whole, it was a very well-researched movie, yet it has perhaps the longest list of "goofs" of any film, because hundreds of amateur history buffs have analyzed the film in great detail.

Will Fly: The error about "masochism" would have been caught by my hypothetical "anachronism checker"—that is, a modified spell-checker that uses a historically appropriate dictionary.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 01:05 PM

Mi,. chael, yeah I was indeed thinking of "Cider with Rosie". Much more poetic than "Lark Rise"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 01:19 PM

As someone already said, the characters have become caricatures by now. It's twee. The scripts have diverged so far from the original by now, they're almost in a foreign language. The script writers keep presenting us with ever more unlikely plots and should be tarred and feathered.

And yet, come Sunday I will be there watching it, grumbling and muttering, much to Nessie's annoyance ("watch something else then!").

Don't ask me why. I guess it's "comfort TV" as long as you don't make too many demands of it.

By the way, hasn't Alfie's voice improved? I really liked his singing at the last episode.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 01:21 PM

"And yet, come Sunday I will be there watching it, grumbling and muttering, much to Nessie's annoyance ("watch something else then!")."

He he! Yep, I do that to with stuff! ;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 02:01 PM

Yet again a duff post, must have hit , sorry.

What I MEANT to say was that it's perfectly possible to do something like Lark Rise or Cider with Rosie on TV with integrity. I was thinking of the version of C with R which the BBC did in the early seventies. It was telescoped, Lee's poetic writing had to be interpreted in a visual way, etc. But it produced gems like the final scene where young Lol is walking down a country lane and sees a middle aged gent walking towards him. Said gent gravely eyeballs Lol and we realise it's Laurie Lee, who proceeds on up the lane.

The NT production of Lark Rise was played in something like a large black shoebox, again action was telescoped, half the cast weren't actors a rock band did the music. But it was truthful and floored the audience. I felt I had been transported back to the

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 02:04 PM

- oops! days of my grandparents before 1914, when the girls all went into service, the lads all became farm labourers, the kids picked peas or scared crows, my Grandad was a carpenter who did coffins as a sideline, and my grandma died at 55 after 13 pregnancies.

Does the current Lark Rise to Candleford do this? Course it don't.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 05:31 PM

The NT production of Lark Rise was played in something like a large black shoebox, again action was telescoped, half the cast weren't actors a rock band did the music. But it was truthful and floored the audience. I felt I had been transported back to the

I'm not sure that the Albions were a rock band - let me go and listen - well, just trawled through all 23 musical items from the recording I have of the show, and not a trace of a rock band!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:40 PM

The Lark Rise Band -- not strictly Albion, though it's an Ashley Hutchings thing...

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 09:31 PM

In fact, the musicians in the Cottesloe production varied. It was often Martin Carthy and Shirley Collins [I think]; but the matinée I went, I remember that John Kirkpatrick & Alison McMorland were standing in. Ashley was there as ever, or course.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Silas
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 03:24 AM

I thought Bill Caddick was involved too?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 03:50 AM

Looking at the Album 'Larkrise to Candleford' by the Keith Dewhurst and the Albion band, the line up of musicians is:

Petet Bullock - keyboards
Bill Caddick -vocals/triangle
Martin Carthy - vocals
Shirley Collins - vocals
Howard Evans - trumpet/flugelhorn
Michael Gregory - drums
Ashley Hutchings - bass guitar/vocals
John Kirkpatrick - vocals/button accordian/concertina/melodeon
Doug Morter - electric guitar
Brian Protheroe - vocals/keyboards
Steve Saunders - trombone/euphonium/tuba
Martin impson - banjo
John Tams - vocals/me;odeon/harmonica
Graeme Taylor - electric guitar/vocals.

The song about the witch is on the album, sung by Shirely Collins.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:10 AM

The recording at the National Sound Archive reports the following in the Albion Band on 28/04/1978:


Ashley Hutchings (leader, bass gtr)
Peter Bullock (Keyboards, tuba)
Howard Evans (cornet)Phil Pickett (woodwinds, tenor horn)
John Tams (vocals, melodeon, fiddle, banjo, flugelhorn)
Graeme Taylor (gtr., banjo)
Martin Cathy (vocals, acoustic grt., banjo)
Shirley Collins (vocals)
Michael Gregory (drums)
David Busby (Morris dance)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 07:21 AM

As I recall (although it's a long time ago) the NT cast were all actors, but one of the band members might take a part if it required "on-stage"* singing or playing.

I lost patience with the TV series after the first two or three episodes.



* there wasn't actually a stage, it was a "promenade" performance with the actors and audience all sharing the same floor space.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:31 AM

Yes, that's right, Howard. I recall that Pretty Flowers [Holmfirth Album] was interpolated into the tavern scene, with [when I saw it] John K sitting among the actors as the tavern customer called on by the landlord to sing 'his favourite song'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 08:35 AM

Drifting slightly — I do hate 'promenade productions', of which the NT Lark Rise was a pioneer, however well-meant. I am always reminded of Mr Knightley, in Jane Aussten's 'Emma', saying he doesn't like surprises: 'The pleasure is not enhanced and the inconvenience is often considerable' ~ exactly how I feel about 'promenade theatre'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 11:13 AM

Could not disagree more. There was a production of this at Shrewsbury Castle a few years ago, with Bill caddick amongst others, and it was the most memorable theater production of anything that I have ever been to.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 01:38 PM

Re: promenade productions - many of the same team that did The National Theatre LR2C collaborated again on 'The Mysteries',and as a dyed-in-the-wool atheist I found the performance of the 3 promenade shows in the one day (IIRC on the floor of the then semi-derilict Lyceum Theatre in London) the most spectacular. engrossing, and moving theatrical experience of my life so far.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 05:45 PM

There is an excellent book called Impossible Plays, written by Keith Dewhurst and Jack Shepherd, which tells the story of what became known as the "Cottesloe Company".

I very much enjoy promenade productions - "the inconvenience is often considerable" sounds like a very glass half empty.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: rich-joy
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 03:20 AM

I'm with Cats on this! :
"I am thoroughly enjoying the series and it is just escapism.
It may be inaccurate and bear little relationship to the original but the beeb, bless them, seem to have taken an incident in the book that lasts for an odd line or two, a paragraph or even a page or two and reworked it to a whole episode ...."

I enjoyed the book many many years ago, and so I bought Series I & 2 on DVD for viewing down here in Oz and find it to be delightful, non-stressful entertainment.
Try not to take so much stuff so seriously, People!!
..... sigh ......

Cheers, R-J
:~)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:07 AM

It's Sunday! Lark Rise Day! Whoppeeeeeee!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 09:48 AM

There is an excellent book called Impossible Plays, written by Keith Dewhurst and Jack Shepherd, which tells the story of what became known as the "Cottesloe Company".

Thanks for that Bonzo, now on order from amazon!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 01:15 PM

Of course,it's not just "Larkrise" that gets it wrong. In an episode of "Foyle's War" ,there appears a character purporting to be a Royal Navy Captain,in full uniform and sporting a moustache !! Unheard of !!
    A series about "Moll Flanders" a few years back, had the eponymous heroine,having boarded the 17 th century sailing vessel that was to take her to The Colonies, telling the Captain of said vessel that he was " Wanted on the bridge " !!! I mean,it makes you wonder who does the research for this kind of thing.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 01:18 PM

Absolutely, bubblyrat — I'm glad I am not the only one it drives to distraction... See my comments, above & elsewhere, re the 'sergeant-major' in Brideshead...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 01:23 PM

I suggest you all give up watching television,and spend your time playing a musical instrument,even if it is the pink oboe.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 01:27 PM

Or...just watch Lark Rise through a haze of alcohol, then you won't notice all the faults and may actually end up enjoying it!

Waiter! More wine! ;0)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 01:45 PM

Surprised at you both, Dick & Lizzie. You are both people of strong opinions and considerable intelligence, and I would have thought the principle that ACCURACY MATTERS would have been as dear to your ♥s as to mine.

Remember the belief of Lucky Jim in Kingsley Amis's novel of that name; who predicated his existence on the belief that "Nice things are nicer than nasty ones". Well I have the same sort of belief that "Right things are righter than wrong ones" — & I should have expected you two to agree with this.

Mind you, I might have mentioned before on this forum my pride in a remark on another forum on which I spent time, where another regular commented that "MtheGM's pedantry is legendary" ~~ I think she might just have meant some sort of a put·down; but my thought was "Cor: a legend in my own lunchtime yet: WOWZER!!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 01:52 PM

Ooh, I like that heart, Michael!

I'm hopeless with detail. I only have one brain cell, so most things pass me by/ ;0)...and I'm way too busy concentrating on the facial expressions, the words, who's falling for who....the clothes, the scenery...I love it all.

I tell you the most touching bit for me was the week before last, when Archie lost his little brother..and Queenie told him he had to 'let him go' because he was staying around for Archie..but he was in such pain...

Oh, the tears!

Nearly time!


Now you see, my brother would watch it and notice anything that was out of place historically....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 03:46 PM

The Beeb are far more interested in their viewing figures to worry about a few anoraks.

Millions of people enjoyed Titanic for what it was, a spectacular piece of fiction based loosely on a real event.

Sorry, folks, you're in a very small minority. Why not write to 'Points of View' and really get it off your chest?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 03:58 PM

Sorry about incoherent posts the other day - me netbook downstairs kept transmitting messages without me hitting enter, obviously possessed by a tree spirit!

I don't actually care a toss about the current BBC L R to C - as various people have said, it's typical Sunday evening disconnect yer brain stuff. Except that it gives people the wrong idea about a minor classic.

An example of something similar. Sandy Denny recorded a lovely version of the Inkspots' "Whispering Grass" with great people like Diz Disley and Danny Thompson on it. It went out as a single. Island never had a hope of pushing it because at exactly the same time, Don Estelle and Windsor Davies recorded it too. Guess which version popped up every bloody 5 minutes on radio (thanks Smashey and Nicey) and made it onto Top of the Pops? (Jim certainly fixed it!)

The best thing I think is to read the book(s) and decide yourself.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:02 PM

Oh bums! I missed the vital bit.

WHERE did Pegleg get his money from?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Smokey.
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:08 PM

I'm glued to Larkrise every week. I don't really watch it on a 'historical accuracy' level but I couldn't help noticing when a few weeks ago they had a guitarist in the village band playing what looked very like a Louis Panormo. On the soundtrack, however, was a much larger steel strung guitar. Hanging's too good for 'em.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:21 PM

M the GM,you misunderstood me,I dont believe there is much on television that is worth watching.
I prefer to play some music,or make my own entertainment,even playing chess on the computer.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:22 PM

===Sorry, folks, you're in a very small minority. Why not write to 'Points of View' and really get it off your chest? ===
                            =========
Why should I bother Steve? Much easier just to avoid watching the bloody thing at all; so I don't. A friend once asked me what I thought of the tv Our Mutual Friend some years ago; & was surprised when I replied I hadn't watched it. "Don't you like Our Mutual Friend?" she asked astonished. "I love it," I replied, "that's why I didn't watch it." I think she got my point.

BTW ~~~ ANORAK right back to YOU!!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 04:27 PM

Dick - thanks for your explication. But you don't need to tell me that. All I watch on tv are football {had a full day today} & tennis, the two games I plAYED WHEN YOUNG {schools 1st XI GOALKEEPER, WOULD YOU BELIEVE!}; & Univ'y Challge for which for some reason I retain a weakness. & then only if they are on terrestrial which all I have. Sometimes my telly literally doesn't get switched on for days.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Smokey.
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:04 PM

I wouldn't be surprised if they were using steel melodeon reeds too. Then there are the violin strings.. They just don't care.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 05:12 PM

WHERE did Pegleg get his money from?

He just sort off acquired it - I guess from begging all those years and never spending anything. The main thing was, he was keeping in 'in case he ever needed some'. Mrs T pointed out he really needed it then - but it was never resolved and he never came back. Like most things in life. There is no one ready answer!

Hope that helps.

DeG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Feb 10 - 06:37 PM

Thank you. I can go to bed now without worrying.

Maybe they make all these mistakes on purpose, 'cos the producers know about Mudcat? ;0)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 09:40 AM

Michael,
'I'm an ANORAK and I don't care,
I collect ladies' underwear!'
The worst anoraks recognise that they are anoraks and wallow in it. That's me!

FWIW I watch TV very seldom, but recognise that for those who need it it's largely a form of escapism. I just have other things to do with my time like stirring it on Mudcat, much more fun.

My definition of 'anorak' is anyone who spends an inordinate amount of time pursuing a minority interest. I think that just about covers everybody on here.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,Penny S.(sans cookie)
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 10:20 AM

Thanks for all the responses - I thought the compass thing would have been twenties, so would have got that wrong if doing something set then!

I have wondered at times, reading such rituals in fiction, which north is used. Is it geographic, or compass? And if compass, does it take declination into account? This could be quite important in high latitudes.

I have got the book ready to read, but it's in a box somewhere. I think. It was my parents' copy, and I spotted it during clearance. So I can't go out and buy it.

They go to such trouble with costumes - read what they did with Cranford - but assume that other things don't matter.

It was East Sussex. My chapel grandfather was scathing about the Oxford movement vicar of Mayfield. He changed the custom of the church with no regard to the congregation.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 10:57 AM

"But I don't even POSSESS an anorak," he sez pathetically!

Would a Barbour waxed jacket be acceptable? It's a beautiful green but it hasn't a hood {Oh God bless Steve and make him good!}

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 11:04 AM

Where do you get proper anoraks from nowadays? I used to have one as a kid - Sort of pale khaki colour, like desert fatigues, pullover and with a big front zipped kangaroo pocket. I think I had in the scouts. Not seen one for ages.

D.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: squeezeboxhp
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 11:18 AM

not very attantive while Larkrise is on but if they must portray a whistle player or box player it should not take more than an hour to learn to get a tune out of either and make it look convincing.
i hope the producer made an attempt at getting a mumming play right for next weeks episode because it is after all acting for village people

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 02:37 PM

David 'Where do you get proper anoraks from nowadays?' They've all been replaced by Barbour waxed jackets.

Michael, I'm beyond redemption!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 03:43 PM

No, don't say that, Steve. I am sure one of those posters to the At Last A Pope Says Something Sensible [or whatever it's called] thread, down there below the line, could do something for you...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 05:09 PM

I sold my soul to the Devil just before I retired so the only way is down, but I'm enjoying it, in the style of all true masochists.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 09:50 PM

Have you got a loving woman, some chickshit & a pile of feathers handy, Steve?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 04:16 AM

I'm quite looking forward to the mumming as well because...

I can cure the itch, the stitch, the palsey and the gout
Pains within and pains without
If a man has nineteen devils in him, I'll cast twenty of them out

I may be able to help Steve as well...

:D

(Guess what part I play with the Abram Pace Eggers)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 04:20 AM

DeG ~ Eh: wot's up Doc!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 08:07 AM

Just in interests of ACCURACY ["MtheGM's pedantry is legendary" said a person on another forum site I frequent ~ my head is still too big to get thru the door]: I have just had another look at the label in my wax jacket, & I had misremembered. It is not a Barbour, but a Burberry. But point remains; & it's still a beautiful green and it hasn't a hood. So God bless you all and make you good {FAT CHANCE!}

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Alan Day
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 08:28 AM

Lizzie do you watch David Dimbleby after Lark Rise, a very nice interesting programme and very nicely presented.
Film awards this weekend, that's going to spoil Sunday viewing
Al

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Penny S.
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 10:19 AM

I am at last catching up on my recordings, and heard a musical duo playing in Cranford, outside the shop where there was a display about the railway. A very twiddly version of Cosher Bailey.

Lark Rise actually made a point that the folk songs of Flora's childhood had been lost, so I suppose the best people could do was find something as near as possible. For that and Cranford.

I comer to the conclusion that I have a very odd attitude to anachronism. I have, in fact, used it quite deliberately in school drama in the past, having fairies in about 1066 (Edric Wilde's story) dancing to Scott Joplin. But some things rankle. I was alerted to churchy things ages ago by a friend who pointed out that a version of Jane Eyre had church altar furniture that simply wouldn't have been used at the time. It's to do with ideas, and how people thought. I knew people who were alive when Lark Rise was set. They didn't think like that.

But I also object to Werther's Originals claiming that English grandads would have had their product as children. A German sweet, during rationing. I daresay they were a bit thin on the ground in their home country at the time. And Trebor Bassett tried it with claiming that a fruit sweet introduced in the last couple of decades had been enjoyed in the 50s at Saturday Matinees.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 10:38 AM

PennyS: there is much difference between using deliberate anachronisms for comic or satirical or dramatic or emphatic effect, and just getting things irritatingly wrong thru lack of enough trouble and research. It is rarely hard to spot the difference between these.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Penny S.
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 11:03 AM

It did occur to me while watching Cranford that there was probably something wrong with the train trsck or the engine, and that somewhere someone was probably complaining about that. And that would be something that nothing could be done about it.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,baz parkes
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 04:09 AM

Don't mention the whistle....

Baz

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 10:20 AM

Alan Day, if we're discussing BBC accuracy then Dimbleby's 7 Ages of Britain is a good place to start. Who ever heard of Tudor Britain? We had Tudor England and Stewart Scotland. I enjoyed the program but it would have been more ejoyable if he had just called it the 7 Ages of England as, so far, it has been completely Anglo centric. As for Lark Rise, I cannot watch it anymore without laughing after Victoria Wood's spoof take on it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 04:01 PM

Modern short-stalked straw at the harvest - and what were the men in the second row with the billhooks doing?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 07:04 PM

and what were the men in the second row with the billhooks doing?

I think we should be told.

(George. Don't do that!)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 04:16 AM

The lovely Julia Sarwalha has just been on TV (not, I think, necessarily in response to this thread) saying that the series is made with a really small budget, so perhaps that explains some of the mistakes. Perhaps not.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 07:34 AM

In that case, they are doing pretty well - think of the expense and forward planning necessary to ensure a field of long straw wheat! Without tractor tracks up it. Unless they could find some from the Victorian farm project, or the National Trust who presumably have some about for thatching.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,The Town Piper
Date: 02 Dec 16 - 11:21 AM

Wasn't Twister's banjo a bit modern for 1895?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 02 Dec 16 - 12:49 PM

A sickle is a curved, hand-held agricultural tool typically used for harvesting cereal crops or cutting grass for hay. The inside of the curve is the cutting edge, and is serrated.

The farm-hand swings the blade against the base of the crop, cutting through the stems with a sawing action.

The sickle was superseded in the nineteenth century by the scythe which was more comfortable and by mechanised combine-harvesters and tractor machinery.

Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

The smooth-edged hook succeeded the serrated sickle for reaping corn in many places about 1860-1870. Fagging tools have sharp blades and are heavier and wider than sickles and used with a different action.

Instead of grasping the corn, the reaper held back the stalks or drew them towards him with a short crook called a fagging stick and slashed through the straw rather than sawing it as with a sickle.

A larger quantity of corn was cut at one swing, though time was taken up with sharpening the blade. The hooks are still used today for trimming hedges and cutting crops close to hedges or walls that cannot be reached by machine.

According to the Museum of English Rural Life at Reading

This may be the origin of the phrase, 'By hook or by crook.'

Billhooks - these were and still are mainly used for pruning and lopping branches and other vegetation and are particularly useful for hedging. The design, size and shape vary widely depending on what they're going to be used for, as well as local variations.

Finch Foundry, Sticklepath

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 03 Dec 16 - 06:16 AM

I'm deeply ashamed of my 'billhook' atrocity in this miraculously resurrected thread - I should have known the difference, especially as my forebears wielded scythes, sickles and no doubt billhooks for generations, in between quaffing ale and, I'm sure, composing all manner of traditional songs as a result.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 03 Dec 16 - 12:30 PM

I hope that wasn't a load of old billhooks....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Lark Rise: BBC error?
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler
Date: 03 Dec 16 - 01:01 PM

"By hook or by crook" actually originated in villagers' rights to collect wood. They could take from the woods anything which they could collect from the ground or pull down "by hook or by crook" from standing trees - this was usually dead wood.
Twister's banjo would be highly fashionable in 1895, and was starting to trickle down to the poor end of the populace by then. My Grandpa played a tenor banjo about ten years later.