General Chat

See below

Don’t Throw the baby Out With The bathwater We have all heard that expression and know that it originated with the order families took baths in the 1500s. But here are a few more: Houses had thick thatched roofs of straw piled high with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to keep warm so all the cats and other small animals lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery, hence the saying ‘raining cats and dogs’. There was nothing to stop things falling into the house, this posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up the bed. Hence a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. Tat is how canopy beds came into existence. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying ‘dirt poor’. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they added more thresh until, when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance. Hence the saying ‘a thresh hold’. Sometimes they could obtain pork to eat which made them feel special. When visitors came they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could ‘bring home the bacon’. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and ‘chew the fat’ Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bit at the bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle and guests got the top. ‘The upper crust’. Local folk started running out of places to bury people so they would dig up coffins and take the bones to the bone house aand re-use the grave. When re-opening these coffins one out of 25 was found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realised they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would sit out in the graveyard all night – ‘the graveyard shift’, to listen for the bell; thus someone could be ‘saved by the bell’ or was considered ‘a dead ringer’. Ann Glos

wow!! ;o)