The pamphlet written in language that would have most Islanders scratching their heads.
THIS ISLAND LIFE
IT all began a few months ago with the misspelling on the new gates at Whitwell 'cemetry’ (sic). I mentioned in passing that my great uncle and aunt, Fred and Hilda Warne, lived in the village most of their lives — and the reminiscences began to flow in.
It seemed former residents had forgotten how fondly they regarded the village and I received innumerable e-mails and letters extolling the virtues of the community over the years.
Only two weeks ago I was able to put two elderly ladies in touch. Both used to live in the village and no doubt had a great deal to chat about.
In the meantime, I had received a fascinating pamphlet from someone who used to live in Whitwell and wishes to remain anonymous.
It is entitled The Witell Themble Party’s Jaant to Lunnon (The Whitwell Thimble Party’s Jaunt to London) and is written entirely in old Island dialect by Elsie Legge and Alice Plumbley.
The document looks fairly old and if the authors are still with us I hope they don’t mind my quoting from their work, because it is a charming chronicle and contains some words and phrases I (as an Islander born and bred) have never heard before.
It concerns a village day trip to London between the wars, led by Parson Orr, and begins with the group boarding a 'wold chuny bang thing’ (charabanc?) for the trip to Ryde.
As they travel over the downs, one of the women has a special request. She wants to stop on the way back and 'get a nub o’maral (chalk?) to clean the doorstep.’
The party eventually arrives in London eager to see Big Ben — 'you know, you, ’e what strikes every night on that wold wireless tackle.’
The women are wary of the Underground, with one of them stating her intention to 'bide up top o’ ground,’ adding 'I beant gwine down in that rat ’ole to be killed, let it be now twull.’
She was also bewildered by the escalators, displaying that innate Island sense of distrust highlighted by BHS’s decision to post instructions at the bottom of their moving staircase when the shop opened in Newport a few years ago.
"What lick me was ’ow ded um get down there vor they sturs never stopped but kep gwine round and’ round like Billy Ball’s roundabouts," says one of the characters.
The authors were surprisingly unimpressed by Buckingham Palace, which is described as 'a missuble gurt house we dozens o’ winders and two vellers marchen up an’ down we gurt muffs on their ’eads.’
Islanders reading this pamphlet will eventually get into the rhythm of the narrative and dialect but non-Islanders could easily be convinced they were reading a pidgin-Dutch text.
Take this passage, for example. "Bimeby we litters out an’ zeed a missuble lot uv volks stood in a heap, zo I axed a veller whatever bist a happen mayet?"
The work is also speckled with words and phrases such as 'down over shute lurrups passon’ (down the hill rushed the parson), 'middlen glum’ (fairly miserable) and 'kep en chammen’ (kept moaning).
You will be relieved to know the party got to Lunnon and back in one piece but the 'wold doman’ never did get her 'nub o’maral’ on the way back over Downend.
She suddenly remembered the 'yarn her wold granfer told her ’bout Micah Morey,’ and shut her eyes as the 'wold chuny bang thing’ passed the spot.
I'd try to get there. However...
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| A letter past its post-by date. |
THERE was a moment recently when my heart went out to M. Bartlett, the council planning department’s public speaking administrator.
M (I’m sorry to be so formal but I don’t know his or her first name) wrote to offer me, with many others, the opportunity to speak at the meeting dealing with the latest improvements at Newclose County Cricket Ground.
M wrote: 'Please contact me before 5pm on Thursday, December 25, 1899, so I can arrange the timetable accordingly.’
Eagle-eyed readers will have noted this request presented one major problem; had I wished to address Ivan Bulwer and his band of Tory jokers on the committee, I would have been about 110 years too late.
Was this a dastardly plot to prevent the many supporters of the scheme from having their say?
Enjoyable though it is to float a conspiracy theory, I suspect there was a more mundane explanation involving the vicissitudes of working with
computers, which have a mind of their own.
Poor old M then despatched the missive without obeying the cardinal rule inculcated into all of us by the best teachers — always read your work before handing it in.
Happy Christmas M — and all the best for 1900 …