Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'

Subject: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Compton
Date: 18 May 05 - 01:25 PM

Now here's a thing!...Being very much a Midlander and not getting South (too) often, I saw on the (amusing) TV nonsense that was "Doc Martin" (Martin Clunes), one of the characters say that someone was "a bit Bodmin". Now I've never heard this saying before. Is it Kosher, or a scriptwriters dream?

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Jeanie
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:09 PM

It's genuine. It's a Cornish slang expression meaning "crazy, loopy, daft" etc., probably dating back a very long way, referring to the "County Lunatic Asylum" that was opened in Bodmin in 1820. It was being frequently used amongst the school children I taught in Cornwall back in the 1970s. I heard it on "Doc Martin", too - so it must still be in regular use. I'm sure current Cornish Mudcatters will be along to corroborate this.

My favourite Cornish expression: "I'll do that dreckly" (i.e. directly) - the Cornish equivalent of Spanish "manana" !

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:49 PM

When we were there we were told that "dreckly" is like "manana" - but without the sense of udgency!

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:50 PM

make that urgendy.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:51 PM

No, not urgendy, urgency.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: alanabit
Date: 18 May 05 - 02:54 PM

Spot on Jeanie. It was always a local gag that the Bodmin folks were a little, er, different. These myths seem to have a long life!

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Jeanie
Date: 18 May 05 - 03:47 PM

Here's a similar kind of long-lived myth about the small town of Coggeshall in Essex. Here, the inhabitants are said to be not so much crazy as just plain slow-witted and disorganized. The link suggests that the idea originates from a group of civilian volunteers from Coggeshall during the Napoleonic Wars, who were satirized in a very popular play written by the town's schoolmaster in 1804 - an earlier version of "Dad's Army".

Are there any more towns or locations which long-standing "reputations" such as these, that other Mudcatters can add ?

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: alanabit
Date: 18 May 05 - 04:07 PM

You should be flooded with replies on this one. Just thinking of three cities I know, they all have their fall guys for the jokes. In Cologne, you can always get a laugh at the expense of people from neighbouring Bergheim, which is to the West. In Basel, they make jokes about people from "Klein Basel" - on the other bank of the Rhine. In Linz, Austria, they get a lot of mileage out of jokes about people from the "Mühlviertel", whom they also call "Urfahrmarkter", meaning folks to the North of the Donau.
It will be interesting to hear what various Scots, Irish, Americans, Canadians, Aussies and New Zealanders can add to this list!

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Jeanie
Date: 18 May 05 - 04:46 PM

When I lived in Freiburg, in the Black Forest, the equivalent to the "Bodmin" expression (and for the same reason) was to say that someone "came from Emmendingen".

Some years ago, we thought we were going to move to Northamptonshire because of a work transfer, and an estate agent warned against the town of Desborough: "People say around here that the Desborough folk are peculiar. It's a funny place. Lots of inbreeding." Whether this was an estate agents' ploy because they had properties they wanted to sell in Market Harborough or somewhere else, I don't know....

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Cats at Work
Date: 19 May 05 - 04:01 AM

I work in Bodmin and the phrase 'going bit Bodmin' is still in everyday usage. As said above, it comes from when the County Lunatic Asylum, now St Lawrences hospital, was based in the town. Much of the old building is now being re developed as 'desirable residences' but there still is a mental health facility in the town. There was quite an uproar when they used the phrase in Doc Martin but it has all died down now.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 19 May 05 - 04:14 AM

Look at Asterix, countless of 'Bodmin' style gags.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 May 05 - 05:43 AM

Well I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Gotham - a real town, nothing to do with Batman, but everything to do with silly things - there's even a song about it (Madmen of Gotham), which doesn't appear to be in the Digitrad but should be. If I ever find the words I'll post them. Basically they want to capture a cuckoo that's in the square so they build a cage around it. It flies out the top because they put no roof on.

In my locale (Dorset), it was known as 'being Forston' - from the Forston asylum at Herrison, a small village about 3 miles outside the county town of Dorchester. The original asylum building was built in the 1700's and was still 'occupied' as recently as 1990. The main 'mental hospital' and staff accommodation that grew up nearby in Victorian times is now a very nice housing complex - huge rooms, fireplaces, sweeping lawns down to a little stream and a large pine copse... what a lot of tennents don't know is that in that pine copse is the original asylum building and housed some fairly violent people that were in no way suitable for release into the general populace when Maggie Thatcher introduced 'Care in the Community' (we think she did it so there wouldn't be any institutions to put HER into)....

Back in the 17/1800's people were committed for many illnesses that we treat with drugs these days, diabetes and epilepsy being two of them. My great, great, great grandmother spent the last years of her life in Forston Asylum for that very reason.

It's the same as 'going postal'.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST, Topsy
Date: 19 May 05 - 07:18 AM

There's a similar reference in the Wurzels' 'Drink up thee zyder'

We're off to Barrow Gurney
To see my brother Ernie . . .

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: breezy
Date: 19 May 05 - 08:00 AM

dont mention Hemel Hempsted anyone

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 May 05 - 09:01 AM

But Barrow Gurney is a village in Somerset.. perfectly legitimate and as far as I remember, nothing to do with asylums in any form!

Now if it were Colney Hatch......!

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: breezy
Date: 19 May 05 - 09:07 AM

Liz the Stirrer !!

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 May 05 - 09:08 AM

Moi?? Accused of stirring???

Huh...


TRING!!!

Take that!

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,anonanonanon
Date: 19 May 05 - 10:57 AM

>But Barrow Gurney is a village in Somerset.. perfectly legitimate >and as far as I remember, nothing to do with asylums in any form

Used to be a hospital for the critically bewildered there.

As a kid in Bristol, my Dad often used to admonish us by saying "Deese'll drive I ta Barrol Gurney..." translated, and generally understood as "you're driving me mad".

P.S. I should add that we never succeeded, and he never went   :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST, Topsy
Date: 19 May 05 - 10:58 AM

As you approach Barrow Gurney, heading towards Bristol, there is (or was last time I was there) a large building on the left, previously a Victorian workhouse and used as a mental hospital in the twentieth century. Only a few miles from Nailsea, home of Adge Cutler.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Jos
Date: 19 May 05 - 05:08 PM

Barrow Gurney psychiatric hospital still exists - due for closure next year.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 May 05 - 05:15 PM

Ah that explains it... we approached from the other side and never saw the 'workhouse'.

Apogolies.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,Joe Fogey
Date: 19 May 05 - 07:00 PM

When I was a kid in Oxford, the local "loonie bin" was at Littlemore. This was used as a term for someone who was mad - or with whom we disagreed. I guess this is the same for most if not all parts of England More recently, in Plymouth, I heard someone whose grasp on reality was fragile described as "a bit care in the community". But my favourite is the phrase Norman St John Stevas is said to have used to desribe Maggie Thatcher - "three stops short of Dagenham".

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: gnomad
Date: 20 May 05 - 04:44 AM

Three steps short of Dagenham - Hm, a northerner's guess without a map.. Barking?

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 May 05 - 06:43 AM

I have heard "Barking Mad" used in Australia.

I am pleased to see that Gotham - home of The Fooles Troupe has been mentioned.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,Disillusioned
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 01:37 PM

Having lived and worked in Bodmin since '72 I have never heard the term used as previously described by any locals within the town or others from outside. Going 'TO' Bodmin maybe is used by outsiders and for those within the town a refernce to St. Lawrences - the original name of the the County Assylum. As was said earlier it was probably a fabrication from Dr Martin.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 05:35 PM

I wish to state that when I started using my pen-name, I had never heard of Barrow Gurney.

;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 06:35 AM

A lot of my family come from Westhoughton in Lancashire. Westhoughton people are usually referred to as "Cow-yeds", because...

... a cow got its head stuck in a five-barred gate. After much deep thought as to how to free it, one bright spark came up with a good idea: they would cut the cow's head off!

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,cybergran (18 Feb 2015)
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 05:36 PM

We lived in Cornwall during the 60s and 70s. My kids went to school in Helston, then Camborne and Redruth. 'Us'll be up Bodmin dreckly' was commonly said to imply that someone or something was driving one mad.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,Mr. Red (19 Feb)
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 05:37 PM

They used to say of Willenhall folks (if you were from Wednesbury) "They put the pig on the wall, to watch the band go by".

But this must date from a play or song I have no knowledge of, because I have heard this of two villages in the Forest of Dean, and two villages in Yorkshire.

AFAIK the Willenhall people said it of Wedgebury (affectionate name of Wedgeburyites for their town). Ditto FoD & Godzone.

As for NZ they are far more aggressive in their assessment of the four classes of NZ residents. There are the EuroNZs, POMs, Maori and cocoanuts (their term for Samoans and Fijians etc). Sadly the EuroNZs have a propensity to say "No" to any question they don't know the answer to. When the real answer is "I don't actually know". Even officials tasked with the job of knowing like librarians. In my experience of doing research in Wellington, it took me several "beliefs" before I translated and got on with the search, without their help.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,Good Soldier Schweik (18 Feb 2015)
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 05:38 PM

and then theres a coggeshall job, especially for essex men

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,(19 Feb)
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 05:39 PM

OT, but I remember when living in Devon that the term used for prison was "The Winkleworks". Never heard this elsewhere. Wondering about its derivation.
Maybe I should start another thread....

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: BanjoRay
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 07:01 PM

In Taunton, where my brother lives, they talk about Bridgewater folk being a bit peculiar. Apparently Doctors used to wrie NFB in people's files, meaning Normal For Bridgewater.
Ray

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,Spelling B
Date: 22 Feb 15 - 06:02 PM

Bridgwater.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Reinhard
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 02:53 AM

They talk about Bridgwater folk being a bit peculiar.

That's why Trevor Crozier recorded his album Trouble over Bridgwater in 1977?

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 08:37 AM

Or Bilgwater, as we used to call it back in the '60s....before gamers stole the name!
Just thinking about it, I can recall the smell of the cellophane factory...

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 12:46 PM

Doc Martin didn't make it up. When I lived in Cornwall, I heard this expression used on occasion. I didn't live near Bodmin, it might have been less common there, for obvious reasons.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Rumncoke
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 05:57 AM

My mother's mother - living in Fulford, a village now a suburb of York, Yorkshire, used 'being sent to Naburn' in the same way - the city's mental and maternity hospitals were there.

The one threatened to generate customers for the other, according to Nana.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 06:16 AM

Here in Cornwall you occasionally hear "calm down or you'll end up in Bodmin" or words to that effect. Up north it was "you're mad, you are, you'll end up in Prestwich." Prestwich hospital, or, as it was affectionately known, Prestwich lunatic asylum, was at Besses o' th' Barn. The site is now occupied by an enormous Tesco. No progress then!

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 08:16 AM

In East London the location was named after the institution. Bethnal Green Park, being the site of a former asylum, was known as Barmy Park.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,MARS
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 02:24 PM

And going Barmy I believe comes from the Oakwood Hospital, used to be the Kent County Lunatic Asylum in Barming near Maidstone. So going Barming or Barmy, I believe comes from there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 02:33 PM

The term "going doolally", I believe, comes from a British troops transit camp in Deolali, notorious for causing psychological problems - hence "Doolally tap" for going bonkers.

"Bonkers" - now where does that come from...?

Subject: RE: Folklore: 'Going a bit Bodmin'
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 02:33 PM

Probably not, MARS. According to the OED, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/barmy:

Origin
Late 15th century (in the sense ‘frothy’): from barm + -y.