Folklore: Treacle mines

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Fliss
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 02:22 PM

No body has mentioned the treacle mines at Wem in SHropshire.

Someone said it may have come from a brewery being opposite a butchers slaughterhouse and the residues running down the gutter mixed and formed treacle!

FLISS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: John C.
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 02:07 PM

I have it on good authority that the original treacle mines are at Dogsthorpe on the outskirts of Peterborough. They're a bit hard to find now as the area is a hideous mess of partially filled in brick pits, housing estates, bypasses, trunk roads etc., etc. - but, hey, that's progress!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: KateG
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 10:38 AM

There is actually a real treacle disaster on record. On January 15, 1919 21 people were killed and over 150 injured when a large molassas storage tank in Boston, Mass (USA) ruptured. The resulting flood overwhelmed people who drowned in the sticky syrup. If you Google "Boston Molassas Flood" you will find lots of references to this genuine historic event.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 07:11 AM

Cod: Straight - as in as cold as a dead codfish.

Theatre:
To play a (comic) role cod.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Gadaffi
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 04:07 AM

I am almost sorry to revive this thread so long after it was initiated. I initiated a thread in the Folklore Society quarterly newsletter FLS News about eleven years ago which drew quite a lot of response before petering out.
So far as the original question is concerned. The truth about the Frittenden Treacle Mine in Kent is down to the geological fact that the Beult Valley in which it is situated comprises a very sticky clay soil. The 'mine' itself is in Dig Dog Lane (check that out, I didn't make that one up!) about a mile south of the village and almost within sight of Sissinghurst Castle. It comprises a worked out brickfield site. Over the last fifteen years, there have been unsuccessful attempts to have houses built there - all refused by the local council. There are also legends about the Frittenden Band Chaps, and the 'dock' to be build where the Medway was to link up with the Royal Military Canal.
Chris Rose (the Molly of the Seven Champions) told me the story behind the Tovil Treacle Mines near Maidstone lay in that the local paper industry was under threat during the Second World War because they were unable to import timber. As a solution to this, somebody tried to ferment straw, it later being found a sticky goo resulted. Chris supported this to explain the street name Straw Hill Road.
I am still trying to corroborate stories of treacle mines at Trottiscliffe (another place where gravel excavation is taking place), Lamberhurst, Tudeley and Challock.
Any takers?

Subject: ADD:Treacle Mining Song
From: MMario
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 09:12 AM

ADD: for above post - nice to see it's a tune we have already as well!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: The Admiral
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 09:10 AM

Thanks for that Trayton! Everytime I was near the PC I was nowhere near the book and vice versa!

Subject: Lyr Add: TREACLE MINING SONG (Dave Houlden)
From: trayton
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 09:02 AM

As mentioned by the Admiral this was not only performed by Dave Houlden by written by him as well, it's in his song book (perhaps I should not mention that)


TREACLE MINING SONG

The surveyors found the treacle mine in 1849
And off they went to Cookham recruiting for the mine
Underneath the mount far below Cookham Dean
The finest job creation scheme that Cookham's ever seen

CHORUS

Bang with the shovel lads make the picks to fly
Haul away the chalk we'll strike treacle by and by
In with the spigot forward with the can
Nobody gets the better of the treacle mining man

They flocked from farms and they left the boat yards
Some found the work was very very hard
Of course the main attraction was the Fowler company money
They soon found that treacle mining wasn't all honey

The collier thinks the treacle miner's life is soft
And so does the sailor as he's freezing up aloft
But picking treacle from our eyes and nose did near defeat us
And there's the treacle miner's scourge the dreaded diabetes

We had our mine disaster as it seems that all mines do
It wasn't an explosion, the fire damp or the dust
When the news was brought to Cookham you could hear the women scream
A swarm of wasps had built their nest in number two top seam

Now they've raised the target up to forty can a stint
The mine was near worked out all the miners skint
In nineteen nine they closed it down and ended all the larks
Now it's part of the history of South East Berks

Tune: I'm Marching Inland From the Shore

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Banjoman
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 06:47 AM

The Treacle Mines are actually in Tadley Hants. where they still hold a regular Treacle Market.
Did you also know about the Kettle Factory in Liverpool where they knitted kettles from steel wool?
There was also the money tree which grew at the bottom of my mum's garden, but which alas died when she did. The world abounds with these relics of ancient times, including the Park Keeper who's main task was to wheel the sun into the Hot Houses every morning, or the man who wiped the sweat off the Bobby Horses at New Brighton Fair.
Keep 'em coming

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: HuwG
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 01:31 PM

MMario - LOL !
Steve Parkes - Yes indeed ! Any German will tell you that apples don't grow on trees. You don't even need to mine for them. Horses and other animals will deposit them everywhere.


["Apfel" = apple, "Abfall" = droppings].

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Penny S. (elsewhere)
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 10:42 AM

It wasn't thirty years ago - Gravesend Model Railway Club held their exhibitions in our school for a couple of years about ten years back, usually near my father's birthday - so I popped in to pick up any Brighton railway books for him. This one wasn't opencast, though. And no gloop. And I thought it was original! A plagiaristic treacle mine.

It was one of my childhood regrets that my Granny had passed Dad's Hornby train and his Mamod steam engine on too someone, so I never got the chance of a good train set. A clockwork one which goes round in circles doesn't get the idea out of the system, though. My sisters' children's Brio sets were good for that, though. No drive for the engine means lots of track, and umpteen sets of points...

Oops, just remembered, I have to set up a number of marble runs for my literacy group tomorrow. Same old problem - not enough track...

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 10:17 AM

Who says the Germans have no sense of humour? You only have to learn the language to realise!

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: MMario
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 08:57 AM

obviously your examiner is less well read then he thinks. The Cabbage mines in the Ruhr are famous for the qaulity of their sauerkraut - having veins of both the more common white kraut and the ruby red sweet and sour variety.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: HuwG
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 08:50 AM

When taking my German O-level, a lot of years ago, I wished to describe the coal mines, or Kohlenbergwerke, of the Ruhr valley. Unfortunately, I mis-spelled them as Kohlebergwerke.

The external examiner commented that either my geography or his needed improving. He had never heard of cabbage mines in the Ruhr, or anywhere else.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: nickp
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 04:08 AM

Sompting, eh!? That explains the depression in my son's lawn there.... and I though it was the grandkids digging!!!!!!!!!!!

Fascinating thread!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Tyke
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 08:32 PM

Goodness! I thought everyone knew about the Pudsey Treacle Mines!
Tha knows Pudsey were yon birds fly backads to keep t muck out or tha eyes!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 08:11 PM

I'm afraid treacle-mines did not originate in Ireland, as some 'Catters have speculated, but the Champ-mines of Co. Antrim are well-documented.
I just can't lay my hands on the documents at the moment.
Gareth, so sorry to hear about your people's hardships. You know, folks just don't think about the misfortunes of the treacle-miners until a disaster occurs or someone succumbs to black-sugar lung.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 07:50 PM

I missed a "t" out of that last post of mine - it should have read "It helped get a former Tory Cabinet Minister banged up in jail." I can't claim any personal credit.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Gareth
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 07:16 PM

Warning - Anorak Alert

Penny S - a belated reply to your post - and what was a nice girl like you doing in a model Railway Exhibition 30 years ago ?

The Cable drum circular model was, if I recall correctly, built by the Southend-on-Sea Model Railway Club. It incorperated the famous open cast Treacle mine with live action gloops.

How they did it I can not recall, but it was featured in "Model Railwayer" Magazine at the time.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 06:35 PM

"Cod", is still readily used in the British Isles, along with "codding", meaning the same as "kidding".

Read here about the "Cod Fax" that caused a lot of people a lot of trouble a few years ago. I helped get a former Tory Cabinet Minister banged up in jail as a perjurer with sticky fingers, but not from treacle.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: SussexCarole
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 04:06 PM

Admiral

Cookham Dean is apparently the Sompting Treacle Mine - the 'treacle' from that mine used to be used as pitch for boats. Any chance of the lyrics to that song please?

Carole

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:53 PM

There are some songs on the freeserve treaclmine site, if you search it - there was apparently a terrible disaster down one of the mines - unfortunately, no tune is given.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 12:18 PM

Schantieman the liquorice in Pontefract is grown not mined.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 11:13 AM

There's a lot of treacle on the 'Net: the Treacle Mine Hotel, Treacle Mine Rag, the Ditchford Treacle Mine -- and those are just the serious ones!

Mind you, it's made me think of something I'd forgotten from my childhood. Where I grew up in the 50s, there had been several 19th C ironworks: there was coal and ironstone inthe ground; and the whole place for (literally) miles around was covered in furnace slag. This was a greyish-white flint-like substance: very sharp-edged, and not much fun to play on. Some of it still had a lot of iron in it, and was a rusty brown in colour. In one place, in the "Badlands", as we called it, there was a Great Wonder of Nature: the Vimto Pool. (For any non-Brits: Vimto is the English equivalent of Coke or Pepsi.) The water had leached out so much iron oxide, it looked like Vimto, albeit pretty flat; it didn't taste much like it, though!

Steve (a Tizer lad)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 11:02 AM

There's a lot of treacle on the 'Net:

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,The Admiral
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:44 AM

There is indeed a Treacle Mining Song from Cookham Dean which my predecessor and mentor Dave Houlden used to sing. I'll see if I can find it and post it later.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 05:17 AM

Not forgetting the "Glorious Peoples Republic of Treacle Mine Road" which stood for "Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love*, and a hard boiled egg" as described in Terry Pratchett's Historic Discworld novel "Night Watch"

Nigel
*"Reasonably Priced Love" (Treacle Mine Road does run up to "Madams Gardens" !) so "Free Love" would be a no-no

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 04:42 AM

Hrothgar correctly pointed out the Irish origins of treacle earlier. All the English examples quoted are attempts to claim the mines for the English crown. It is well-documented that the earliest treacle mines were in Taicht an Lyaghdheal, Co Donegal.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 04:30 AM

How can you all ignore the other British resource...

North of Oldham, south of Diggle, there's a little town called Mumps,
Where the Tripe mines stand, just by the wash-house wall.......

From the gobsmacking pen of Mike Harding.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Keith A
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 03:00 AM

Gareth, I feel deeply humbled since your post has brought home to me the true human cost of the treacle on my spoon.
I bet that such a hard pressed community has produced at least one song, eh Gareth?
Keith.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Burke
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 05:43 PM

Here's the citation for an article on Treacle Mines. Maybe you can track it down.

TITLE: Multi-Purpose Treacle Mines in Sussex and Surrey
AUTHOR: Simpson, Jacqueline
JOURNAL: Lore and Language (Lore&L). Sheffield England. 1982 Jan.; 3(6A): 61-73

That 'treacle in Gilead' is not really so strange. OED gives that as the original, but now obsolete use of the term:
A medicinal compound, orig. a kind of salve, composed of many ingredients, formerly in repute as an alexipharmic against and antidote to venomous bites, poisons generally, and malignant diseases.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 05:00 PM

Sompting in Sussex, was, of course, known for its porridge quarry hard by the treacle mine.

I started being interested in this field when, at a local model railway exhibition, I saw a reconstruction of the mining machinery in an old cable reel. On the bottom layer of board, around the central column, ran an 000 gauge goods train with the sort of open trucks used in mineral transport. A structure of caves and tunnels had been built around it, and in the caverns the miners, small figures mounted on cams, worked away at the ore. The lower layer was linked to the top by a continuous bucket chain which fed the smelter at the top of the reel. It was intricate, finely made, and fascinating.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 05:58 PM

Burke
Treacle is unrefined syrup, the burnt bits at the bottom of the tub. Molasses are the same burnt bits but more of the invert sugar (fructose & glucose mostly) taken out. Molasses are definitely not as sweet as treacle, which itself is less sickly than golden syrup (which is how my gran used to describe syrup).

I have treacle on my porridge every morning, it is definitely not a popular sweetener judging by peoples reaction (except in my house).

But the brand I get is definitely quarried not mined. Sort of syruppy equivalent of opencaster sugar.... I'll get my sugar coat....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:45 PM

Penny & Burke: Thanks for the explanation of "cod" - I have been debating for sometime now whether to spend the $400 or so for a CD version of OED - its such a great resource.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Penny S. (elsewhere)
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:38 PM

I was going to post this in the Gilead thread, but had second thoughts. I really hate to do this - but apparently, in the old Bishop's Bible, an early translation into English, the writers used an earlier English word for a healing material, and wrote " is there no treacle in Gilead". I didn't get this from a joke site, either.

And I'm glad I wasn't misusing English slang!

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:37 PM

And there was I thinking it had something to do with 'cod piece' a false and sometimes boastful decoration worn on the outside of a man's tights.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Burke
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:33 PM

I've never heard this use of cod either so I looked it up. In OED it gets noun definition 5 of 7 with only one related earlier use. It was in a 1952 theater dictionary so maybe there's a connection there:
    1. A slang appellation applied to persons, with various forces: see the quotations.

c1690 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Cod, also a Fool.."An honest Cod, a trusty Friend." 1708 MOTTEUX Rabelais V. v. (1737) 18 O what an honest Cod was this same Ædituus. 1851 C. D. BEVAN Let. in Beddoes' Poems & Lett. (Introd.) 130 [At the Charterhouse]..In those days the pensioners (or as we called them 'Cods') were not remarkable..for cleanliness. 1855 THACKERAY Newcomes II. 333 The old reverend black-gowns..the Cistercian lads called these old gentlemen CoddsI know not wherefore. 1873 Slang Dict., Cod, to hoax, to take a 'rise' out of one. Used as a noun, a fool. 1878 MACLEOD Hist. Dumbarton II. 46 Ye vile drunken cod.

    2. A joke; a hoax, leg-pull; a parody, a 'take-off'. (See also E.D.D. n.5) Also attrib. or quasi-adj., parodying, burlesque; 'mock'.

1905 Sketch LI. 472/2 Says he: 'Is that an absolute bargainno cod?' Says she: 'I don't know what the fish has to do with it, but I am perfectly sincere.' 1914 JOYCE Portr. Artist (1916) i. 45 Some fellows had drawn it there for a cod. 1952 GRANVILLE Dict. Theatr. Terms 46 'Cod version, a burlesque of a well-known play.' 1959 Church Times 16 Jan. 4/4 'The 'cod' Victorian decorations tend to disguise the editor's underlying seriousness.' 1959 Listener 29 Jan. 228/1 She obliged, initially in the delicious hiccup polka, a cod of Old Vienna. Ibid. 228/2 Joyce Grenfell too, doing her evergreen cod chorister. 1961 B. WELLS Day Earth caught Fire ii. 31 Pete picked up the empty tea mug and again used it as a cod mike. 'Alcoholics of the press, unite! 1962 Listener 5 July 36/1 The very idiosyncratic cod cockney of the scenes. 1970 Guardian 11 May 8/2 The cod version of 'Road to Mandalay'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Penny S. (elsewhere)
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:30 PM

And Mr. Red, that dole idea seems to fit with the Patcham Dockyards (Patcham being a bit inland for anyone to find gainful employment there.)

I am trying to find our family copy of the Sussex dialect dictionary to follow up a suggestion that flint was called something treacly for a boring explanation.

And a safety point - black treacle becames a hazard on storage. The tin lid seals shut, and a gas given off by the treacle builds up, so that when the lid is prised off, it shoots up at a dangerous speed.(SASA, the Sussex space guys, were working on a launch technique making use of this effect, by mechanically removing a battery of lids facing downwards, but they came to a.....) Tate and Lyle recommend that if the tin has not been opened for some months, it be binned, and a new one bought, to avoid harm. So, you use a couple of tablespoons in the Christmas pudding, and then put it away. The next time you want it is a year later... I know the effect is true, because I tried it out on the lawn, wearing safety goggles. I now open the tin with a cloth round it. The treacle remains edible.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:28 PM

Then there was the family of moles travelling underground, and the baby at the back said "I can smell treacle" so the family stopped, and all sniffed the air, but couldn't smell treacle.
On they went,
Five minutes later the baby at the back said "I can smell treacle".
Once again they stoped and checked, but none of the others could smell it.
On they went,
Five minutes later (snip...)
As none of the others could smell it they continued, but father mole this time followed in last place behind the baby. Suddenly the baby stopped and said "I can smell treacle".
This time the father understood, and explained to his son that there was a difference between treacle and mole asses

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Gareth
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:24 PM

Treacle Mines ? Treacle Mines ! Don't talk to me about Treacle Mines. Do you realise the misery and destruction that the Treacle Industry has left in these valleys.

I see them now passing outside my windows, gaunt old treaclers, gasping for breath, their bodies destroyed, by the sugar dust coating and frosting their lungs. I see the tankers delivering bulk insulin to the pharmacy. And I see our landscape dominated by the mounds of waste dumped by the mines, the streams turned into thick dribbles of golden syrup by the run off from the tips.

Aye butty, it was an industry, and the source of wealth to many in London, but the Treacle Mine owners were a hard rapacious lot. Children barely able to walk condemned to slavery in the sweet cloying darkness, pulling trams of raw treacle to the shafts, and all for a halfpenny a day. Treaclers, working naked in their stalls, hacking away with their sugar tongs, listening for the first "gloop" that was the harbinger of a roof fall, risking being buried under tons of crude molasses. No naked flames allowed in case of explosion.

Oh yes, we had the union, The South Wales Federation of Treaclers to protect our interests, but it was a war, a war between men and masters. These valleys still remember the army being sent to open fire on striking treaclers, when our women and bains starved, and scavenged the tips looking for scraps of treacle, missed by the washing screens.

Remember that, in your comfortable homes when you open a tin of treacle, there's blood on that tin.


Gareth.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Penny S. (elsewhere)
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:19 PM

Les B., if you go to The authoritative mines site you will see a lot of apparent histories of treacle mines. Of my own personal knowledge, I know some of them cannot be real. I don't know why I used "cod" to define an invented humorous history, full of detail to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. I don't know why, if that is correct usage, it is so. Related to red herring, maybe!
If you google the terms "treacle mine" and "treacle mines" you will find a good number of other sites which play the same trick, some with geological diagrams. There seems to be something about the term that encourages it. One of my ICT Club at school, who had not hitherto heard of treacle mines, and had not seen any of the sites, when told of them to search at home, immediately produced the concept of the Great Treacle Sea, which is obviously the source of at least some of the deposits of molassinite.

Penny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Hrothgar
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 05:52 AM

Didn't treacle originate in Ireland?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 04:06 AM

I saw Ken Dodd (Liverpool comedian and National Treasure) at the Hippodrome in Birmingham in 1964. He made a lot of cracks about local places, including "the treacle mines in Bloxwich" -- the town where I was born. He also talked about snuff quarries and similar unlikely sources of life's necessities. I used to think he'd made them all up, but I'm pretty sure now he draws on an old tradition of cod origins.

But there really is a treacle mine -- as in "brimstone and treacle" -- in Shropshire. It's part of the Blist's Hill Open Air Museum in Ironbridge Gorge. (Go and see it all: the Iron Bridge, the iron works, Abraham Darby's blast furnace. Be prepared for a long day, and a second visit.) It's called the Tar Tunnel , and is an adit that goes a long way into the side of the valley to a source of "tar", natural bitumen. It still runs out, though in far less volume than in its heyday. It was used for a lot of things, including medicinal use as "tar water" (vide Great Expectations).

Isn't the Mudcat educational?

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 10:07 PM

Hmm - Treacle mines sound like the Enlish version of the fabled Big Rock Candy Mountain (or vice versa).

I kind of get the idea of the term "cod history" from context, as used above, but can someone give a definition. This side of the pond cod generally refers to a fish.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 08:11 PM

And here's a picture of one of Tate and Lyle's rather spendid Black Treacle tins, and a page about the whole subject of golden syrup and black treacle from the makers. But they keep quiet about the treacle mines.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Burke
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 06:58 PM

Pronounced pretty much the way you'd expect. Long e. trE'cl

Are treacle & molasses interchangeable in recipes? From what I found in OED, I think treacle might be sweeter, but it's not clear.

I found this distiction at OED:
treacle: a. The uncrystallized syrup produced in the process of refining sugar; also sometimes extended to the uncrystallizable syrup that drains from raw sugar; = MOLASSES

Note to molasses: In technical language, molasses is applied to the drainings of raw sugar and treacle to the syrup from sugar in the process of refining.

Oh sorry! Did they turn to sugar as a source for treacle after the mines were worked out?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 05:45 PM

but the REAL amazing thing is the Swiss Spaghetti harvest (short clip) , documented by the TV show "Panorama" in 1953...still a classic.

"It is not only in Britain that spring this year has taken everyone by surprise. Here in the Ticino, on the borders of Switzerland and Italy, the slopes overlooking Lake Lugano have already burst into flower. But what, you may ask, has the early and welcome arrival of bees and blossom to do with food ? It is simply that the past winter, one of the mildest in living memory, has also resulted in an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop. The last two weeks of March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer. There is always the chance of a late frost which, while not entirely ruining his crop, generally impairs the flavour and makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in world markets."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Schantieman
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 12:43 PM

...and then of course, there are the liquorice mines near Pontefract.   Duck territory, I think!?

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: greg stephens
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 11:13 AM

Well, there have been a lot of made-up stories about treacle mines in previous posts. The actual treacle mines are in Ulpha, in the Duddon valley in Cumberland, and were going strong pre-1900. Anyway, that's what my grandfather, and everyone else in the area, would tell us kids.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Treacle mines
From: Gervase
Date: 03 Mar 03 - 09:34 AM

My ex has written a book on Wareside, and in her researches she found that the expression 'treacle miners' was often used for those who carted night-soil (human faeces) for use as a fertiliser. It's one of the best ways of enriching soil and from the 17th to 19th centuries, with the growth of towns but the inefficiency of the sewage systems, the night-soil carters were darned important. Not exactly fragrant, though!
The White Horse pub in Wareside has a cod history of the local treacle mines which is well worth a read - total nonsense, but very funny.