General Chat

Well done Bryan:))) It was a good guess of mine about the time span wasn't it:)))))))))

hey chrissie,i found it !!! bryan.

2. Done that - but in reverse. As a child our family lived in various 'odd' places - windmills, converted buses etc. with no running water. The weekly bath was in the tin tub, and the youngest went first - about the only time it was an advantage for me! 6. They also put 'fleabane' on the floor to repel fleas and other insects - so did those with dirt floors whose livestock often lived a hurdle fence away in the house!! 7. Did that when I lived in the middle of nowhere in the Shetland islands. I had a lamb stew on the go for ages - just added bits - all that fat was great for alleviating hangovers!!. At one point I ran out of food, and couldn't be bothered walking the 14 miles to town (next bus a 3 mile walk and 3 days away!) so ate seaweed and mussels fresh from the shoreline! Also had no bathroom in this croft house - strip washing served, and a weekly shower at the swimming baths - reduced rate cos I wasn't going swimming ( when I went to town on the weekly bus to get the shopping) maggie

Excellent thread. Thank you. The Roman upper class spent most of their time killing themselves off, because the top drink was spiced wine mixtures heated in lead coated plates. Way to go! Keith

9. A bit of poison never seemed to stop anybody. What about all those lead water pipes, lead in paint etc. Surely we didn't see tomatoes until about 1600. I seem to remember eating tomatoes quite cheerfully in the good old days of the 1900s! Mind you, as tomatoes and potatoes are related, there may have been similar looking plants that were poisonous?

1. Can't go back quite that far, but virtually all my rural ancestors married, not in June, but in October, so it must have been bunches of michaelmas daisies (do they smell?)

Life in the Middle Ages 1. Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married. 2. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children-last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." 3. Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs." 4. There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence. 5. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor." 6. 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 kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold." 7. In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old." 8. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, 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." 9. Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. 10. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust." 11. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake." 12. England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought 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 have to 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."

Stir up any old memories? What was carried on through the years?