Category: 1950-1999

Mischief Night, 1917

Yorkshire Evening Post, 24th October 1953

Mischief Night – like trick or treating, except with just the tricks. What’s not to like, if you’re a cheeky 13-year-old?

In Liverpool it mainly seems to involve eggs being thrown, especially at taxis for some reason. A taxi driver told me once that the contents of the egg damage the paintwork of the vehicle as they dry and so you have to wash them off straightaway, which makes October 30th a massive pain in the arse if that’s your job. It’s a bit of a gamble being on a bus too – a surprisingly loud banging sound on the window, then relief that it’s just an egg. Still, it’s better than when a gang of reprobates get hold of some stink bombs, lie in wait at bus stops, then chuck them in through the doors as they close and the bus moves off. It would be funny if you weren’t then stuck on a bus that smells of a million eggs. Although it does inspire some kind of “blitz spirit” among the bus passengers, who will suddenly feel OK about talking to each other.

The exact date of Mischief Night apparently differs depending on where you are in the world. Growing up in the south of the UK, I’d never heard of it until I moved to Liverpool, where Mischief Night is 30th October and is otherwise known as “Mizzy Night”. 30th October seems to be pretty standard in a lot of the US too. However, in the UK it originally was held the day before May Day, but after the Industrial Revolution holidays linked to the countryside dwindled in importance and Mischief Night moved to 4th November in most places, particularly taking hold in Yorkshire, where apparently it was particularly important to those 13-year-olds, participating in it being as a kind of rite of passage. Tasker Dunham, is this true? In Germany, it’s still held in May.

Through all the different dates, one thing is consistent. It’s the day before a notable even on the calendar – before May Day, April Fools Day, Halloween, or Bonfire Night.

Anyway, I’m sitting here hoping my house isn’t in for an egging tonight, and looking at some of the mischief seen in days gone by.

Mischief Night as it was in 1917, reported in the Burnley News. In Lancashire it used to be the night before April Fools Day, it says here. The author recounts the “wild pranks” he used to participate in as a young lad. “On this night, the boys used to take a kind of liberty or licence to do all kinds of silly mischief, upsetting rain tubs, tying doors fast and then knocking at the door, putting a sod over the chimney of some low cottage, so that the inmates were smoked out, and things of a similar character.”

There are some proffered explanations as to why Mischief Night even exists, and the differences even over the one county of Lancashire. In Southport it was held on 4th November, and was thought to reference the mischief of Guy Fawkes. In Goosnargh and Chippinge it was on May Day Eve, and came from “the mischief done by young men and women tearing off the branches of trees, and pulling up the new springing flowers to lay at each others doors to please or irritate each other according to the symbolic meaning conveyed.”

The most peculiar thing I have read is the rather elaborate tradition of Barton Moss in Salford, reported in a letter to “The Manchester City News” in 1885. “At Barton Moss a custom prevails, on the 4th of November, of scouring the neighbourhood in search of stray cats and dogs, and when a good supply is collected, the villagers assemble at midnight at the north-east corner of the Moss, and stretch a line between two trees. Each cat is then tied tail to tail with a dog, and the pair are then thrown over the line, where they are allowed to fight until first blood is drawn, when they are released, and another pair is thrown over in their place. This union of cat and dog is held to be symbolical of the infamous union of the Radcliffe family and Guy Faux. These “Mischiefs” as they are called, are generally attended by the young people of both sexes, even the fair daughters of the good families in the district not objecting to accompanying their gallant lovers to see the poor victims of the sport tortured. When the line is cut down parkin is distributed by the town crier, after which one solitary sky rocket is fired, and then all go home.”

Well, I don’t think covering a house in toilet paper beats that.

Here we are in Yorkshire in 1936, and the familiar cry of the fun being “carried a good deal too far.” Glass bottles being thrown, libraries having their lights turned out and washing pulled down from the lines. “Cannot something be done to moderate this so-called “mischief night” to which we must be the victims annually?” asks the writer of this letter? Apparently not.

Yorkshire Evening Post, 6th November 1936

A 13-year-old girl in Lincolnshire was arrested for “pushing over a brick pillar” in 1945. Her defence that she “just leaned on the pillar” before it fell over not being believed. I’m going to say that whatever this pillar was, it wasn’t very secure.

Hornsey in 1948, and there was trouble with 50 boys destroying seats on the Promenade. This was on Bonfire Night though, so they were a bit late.

Mischief Night still a problem in Yorkshire in 1953. Chief Constable Barnett warned the potential miscreants not to get up to criminal activity – “There seems to be a feeling among young people that they are at liberty to interfere with private and public property, and that there will be no repercussions. I shall be glad of the support of all adults members of the public in dispelling this erroneous idea.”

No luck though. As you can see from this screenshot of the Liverpool Echo in 2011, this tradition is not going anywhere, yet.

Tags Bonfire Night, Halloween, Mischief Night

1950-1999 Adverts Pharmaceuticals

Wake Up Your Liver Bile, 1950

Post author By Estelle
Post date October 8, 2015

Who among us can say with confidence that their liver is freely pouring out two pints of liquid bile into their bowels daily? For those in doubt (and living in 1950), there’s Carters Little Liver Pills. The very next year, Carter had to drop the “liver” from their name in the US as the Federal Trade Commission found that while they were an “irritative laxative” (with one of their ingredients described as “drastic”), they actually had “no medicinal effect on the liver”. I think you can still get Carters Little Pills in the US, but in the UK, Dulcolax is the modern version.

The mention of being “without Calomel” is reassuring. Despite the appealing-sounding name (which could derive from the Greek words for “beautiful” and “honey” due to its sweet taste), Calomel is actually mercury chloride. In the first half of the twentieth century it was used as a laxative, a disinfectant, a remedy for syphilis, and (anxiety-inducingly) as a teething powder for babies.

As you can imagine from a mercury compound, it was toxic. In the teething babies it could cause a type of mercury poisoning called “pink disease” which was painful and caused pink discolouration of the hands and feet. The mortality rate for pink disease was a horrifying 1 in 10. After discovery of the toxidity of the compound, it wasn’t used in teething powders after 1954.

WAKE UP YOUR LIVER BILE
Without Calomel – and you’ll jump out of your bed in the morning full of vim and vigour.

The liver should pour out two pints of liquid bile into your bowels daily. If this bile is not flowing freely, your food doesn’t digest. You get headaches and feel rotten. You get constipated. Your whole system is poisoned and you feel sour, slack and the world looks black.

Laxatives help a little, but a mere bowel movement doesn’t get at the cause. It takes those good old Carters Little Liver Pills to get those two pints of bile flowing freely and make you feel “up and up”. Harmless, gentle, yet amazing in making bile flow freely. Ask for Carters Little Liver Pills. Stubbornly refuse anything else. 1/7 and 3/10. Also new 3 1/2d. sizes.

Tags 1954, Calomel, Carters Little Liver Pills, children, disease, Mercury, pharmaceuticals, teething

1900-1949 1950-1999 Adverts Pharmaceuticals Victorian

More Owbridge’s Lung Tonic

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 20, 2015
12 Comments on More Owbridge’s Lung Tonic

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this blog (well, there’s a ton of things I’ve learned, in fact, everyday is a school day here) it’s that there’s an awful lot of people still interested in Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. My last post on the subject here is one of my most popular pages. It’s really a rare day that there’s no hits on that post, which I wasn’t anticipating at all. As far as I was concerned, it was one of those pharmaceuticals lodged firmly in the past, like the mercury-containing Blue Pills of another post.

But Owbridge’s was a medicine that people obviously remember taking and are googling nostalgically for. And so I checked when it last was available, and I was surprised that production only ended in 1971 – no wonder so many people know of it still.

One thing I have to say – the British Medical Association’s “Secret Remedies” book of 1909 that I linked to in my previous post states that an analysis of Owbridge’s shows the medicine to contain ipecacuanha wine, honey and, alarmingly, a quantity of chloroform. But the formula did change again over the years and so the version that people had in the 1960s was (presumably) not the same as that analysed in 1909. Having said that, I haven’t found anything to state what exactly the last incarnation consisted of.

Still, for those Owbridge’s fans still out there (although it is apparently a love-hate kind of memory, I gather), here’s some more vintage adverts I’ve found.

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. Owbridge’s Lung Tonic.

It sounds like there was some dispute going on here between The Pharmaceutical Society and patent medicines. “No one has the right to attach poison labels” to Owbridge’s, it says. That wouldn’t have helped business.

A double page advert celebrating the “thirty-third season” of Owbridge’s.

“Please remember we can produce originals of all these letters”:

This 1914 typeface reminds me of the opening credits of a black and white “Carry On” film.

Emphasizing the honey in this advert (rather than the chloroform):

Yorkshire Evening Post, 19th January 1926

Finally, a celebration of the 80th anniversary in 1954. It was around for nearly 100 years, just missing the centenary in 1974.

Tags Adverts, Owbridge's lung tonic, pharmaceuticals, The British Newspaper Archive

1900-1949 1950-1999 Victorian

Were You Richard Herring?

I am a fan of Richard Herrings. By which I mean all the people called Richard Herring throughout history. All of them.

Well, mainly I am a fan of the comedian Richard Herring, to be fair. But I was in the mood for a bit of history-surfing on The British Newspaper Archive. I like taking something small – an unknown fact, little antique item or newspaper clipping and using that as a jumping-off point to see where it takes you. I always find out a lot more than I imagine – there are so many resources and online archives out there that I’ve stumbled upon, which I would never have thought to look for specifically. So today’s post is a little skittish ramble through the outskirts of history.

The good thing about the BNA is that it’s pretty new – there’s new papers being made available nearly every week, and so the potential for discovering something interesting and potentially unknown (or long-forgotten) is quite high. Nothing gives me a buzz like history detective work. My two contributions to Wikipedia – on the “Half Man Half Woman” Josephine Joseph and the Grand National – were brilliantly thrilling rides.

Anyway, back to today’s post – searching for my own name on the BNA brings up nothing at all. If there’s been any Estelle Hargraves in the past, they kept quiet about it. My family’s names are all similarly sparsely represented. I suppose you’re generally only in the papers if you’re very good at something, very bad at something else, or the victim of something tragic. It’s pretty easy to slip under the radar of appearing in the local papers if your life is just a bit humdrum.

Looking for namesakes of people I knew, I was reminded of that Dave Gorman programme from a few years back, “Are you Dave Gorman?” , where he searched the world for people who shared his name. And so, on a whim, I thought I would have a search for people in history who also had the name of the aforementioned Mr Herring. I wasn’t hopeful to be honest – it sounds like a pretty unusual name to me. But no, “Richard Herring” turns out to be a crazily popular name in the world of people who’ve had local newspaper articles written about them. I found out some interesting stories along the way.

So let’s begin – and I think I’ll do this in chronological order.

The first one I found, way back in 1799, was Richard Herring the clockmaker, looking for an apprentice. Not much of a story here though.

The criminal career of the Richard Herrings begins in 1815 with this one being capitally convicted for burglary – i.e. sentenced to death. He is very much not the only naughty Herring.

Then in 1825, there’s a livelier story of another young hoodlum. Young Dick and friends painted their faces black, and burgled “an old and respectable farmer” near Buckingham – quite interesting to me as Buckingham is where I grew up as a teenager. They were found guilty – in 1825, what would the punishment be? Potentially transportation to Australia, or even hanging. I don’t know.

There’s another young Richard Herring living the thug life in 1833, which I am pretty sure is a different one to the 1825 one. This one has the benefit of being “a good looking young man” at least, even though he committed a serious fraud of collecting a vet’s accounts and keeping the money.

Another Richard Herring was the victim in 1833. This one is my favourite. It’s the inquest of poor Richard Herring, cow-keeper. After suffering “a giddiness in the head”, he milked the cows and was subsequently found dead in a well by his son, his feet sticking out of the top. This was all a bit mysterious – the opening of the well was very small, there was no bucket nearby and the deceased was not in the habit of drawing the well water anyway. His son was giving evidence to the inquest when a man ran into the pub where the inquest was being held, shouting for the son to come back and milk the cows. The coroner was not impressed. It became clear that Mrs Herring was outside and wanted the boy (her step-son) to get on with his work. The coroner had held back from requesting her evidence “from a feeling of delicacy” but changed his mind and called her before him, although she argued against it. She scandalised the inquest with her flippancy and by and large did quite a good impression of a fairytale-style wicked stepmother. The coroner “reprimanded her in severe terms” and was only sorry there was no evidence to convict her of murder.

Former farrier Richard Herring suddenly died in 1835, although he was aged 85 which was pretty good going at that time. A farrier is someone who looks after horses hooves, by the way. I do like the phrasing here – “he went into his house, and sat down, apparently in his normal state of health: very shortly afterwards, however, he was a corpse.”

Such a sad story this one. A mother and daughter were charged in 1863 with killing the daughter’s newborn baby and throwing it down the well, where it stayed for at least ten days with the unwitting neighbours continuing to use the water. Richard Herring here was the neighbour who managed to get the baby’s body out.

Nottinghamshire Guardian, 9th October 1863

The brains of the Herrings here with a new invention for improved telegraph messages:

No story here, just an ex-Herring. Oh F*ck I’m 40, indeed.

York Herald, 14th May 1879

This one I particularly enjoy as the 1881 version of Richard Herring is “very angry with the post office”. Something not a million miles from the current regeneration. He’s a bit of a nutter constantly writing in to express his displeasure with the world in general. Writing to Queen Victoria to tell her that “she was not as well acquainted with her duties as he was,” takes some nerve though. In conclusion – “the general effect of Mr Herring’s assault on the powers that be is a little confusing.”

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 16th September 1881

A Herring with an idea for a new invention for the House of Commons. It’s an electronic system for the MPs to vote – a bit like the audience vote in Stars in Their Eyes. I’m going to assume this was also the chap with the telegraph invention. He was ahead of his time.

More criminal activity in 1892 – this Richard Herring is one of “three of the most notorious vagabonds in London.” His fellow notorious vagabonds pushed the policeman arresting Herring into a “chest of eggs”, allowing him to escape. Although they caught him again quite quickly.

Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 4th May 1892

A bankrupt Herring here is officially a “Leeds Failure” in 1907.

This young Richard Herring fell into the wrong crowd and was hanging around gambling with his friends. The Mayor of Leamington Spa thought the lads “appeared to be earning too much money.” No problem though, his mum confirmed he had joined the Royal Engineers. The First World War will sort him out!

Leamington Spa Courier, 5th November 1915

The criminal activities and cow-keeping of the Richard Herrings continue with this one convicted of watering down milk in 1932, although it was the act of revenge of one of his employees.

Nottingham Evening Post, 6th October 1932

A tragic Herring in 1952 gave his mother a boiled sweet, which she choked on and died.

Leamington Spa Courier, 19th September 1952

Finally, the most recent Herring I found was this boy wonder in the mid 1950s, again from Buckingham. He was constantly in the local press with his fishing and table tennis achievements, but he was also a prize-winning leatherworker. He appears to have been attacked by a pike in the first article – probably for being annoyingly good at everything. He also managed to find what sounds like a dinosaur egg while fishing.

Egg! Like a bird’s egg!

So that’s it. A lot of Herrings. I am going to make the conclusion that many Herrings are drawn towards the water – two tragic well incidents, one fisherman, and one involved in a milk-watering-down scheme. It’s a general mix of criminality and tragedy, but then again, that’s mostly going to be the case with those who stick their head over the parapet of local newsworthiness. Having said that, there’s still quite a surprising amount of criminals. What will time bring for the Richard Herrings of the future, I wonder?

Tags Richard Herring, The British Newspaper Archive

1950-1999 Adverts

Do You Suffer from Exhaustipation, 1954

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 9, 2015
1 Comment on Do You Suffer from Exhaustipation, 1954

Oh, I can’t resist the many ways constipation and laxatives were referenced in advertising. It was apparently a big problem in the early half of the twentieth century – although this doesn’t really tally with the received wisdom that everyone was busy eating loads of vegetables and not being fat.

We’ve had stiff upper lip chiding of constipation sufferers and skin constipation, now here’s “Exhaustipation”. Solved by “Carter’s Little Liver Pills” in case you were wondering.

Tags 1954, constipation, exhaustipation, laxatives, pharmaceuticals

1900-1949 1950-1999 Adverts Victorian War Women

Edwards’ Harlene Hair Products, 1897-1951

Post author By Estelle
Post date June 5, 2015
1 Comment on Edwards’ Harlene Hair Products, 1897-1951

A special request today from Tasker Dunham – a look Edwards’ Harlene hair products and, as Mr Dunham put it, the “impossibly luxuriant hair and beard growth” they used to illustrate their advertisements.

Launching straight into the 1897 campaign below, you can see what he means. Hair of Rapunzel-like proportions is promised from Harlene by a woman in a dress that seems slightly indecent by Victorian standards. Plus, there’s miracle preparations for curing baldness and restoring grey hair to be had. “Scurf” is also cured by this wonder product – not a word you hear much these days, but as far as I can see it seems to mean much the same as “dandruff”. Perhaps there were subtle distinctions between the two?

Also in 1897, there was this rather artistic advert, which reminds me a bit of Holman Hunt’s painting, The Awakening Conscience. Except, it’s all proper and decent in this advert as it’s merely a long-tressed maiden advising a vicar on a baldness cure.

Moving on to 1916 – Edwards’ had a series of war-themed adverts to bring them bang up to date. Here, “a war-time gift to the grey-haired” is promised in the form of a free sample of the colour restorer “Astol” for their hair. Note, that “dye” is a dirty word – these products are claimed not to be dyes, but true restorers of whatever colour your hair was originally. I’m sure I remember that the “Just For Men” hairdye used to claim something similar even in the 1990s – can anyone else vouch for this? Your hair would magically restore itself to any colour you like as long as it was “tobacco brown”.

Here Edwards’ plays its part in making women feel insecure about their natural ageing. Grey-haired women look on in envy at their brown-haired sister.

Astol is not a dye or a stain, remember. This kind of cosmetics advertising is satirised in the book “The Crimson Petal and the White”, incidentally, which is an absolutely wonderful novel that immerses you in a Victorian world. I haven’t read anything apart from Dickens that has made me feel so actually part of the nineteeth century.

Edwards’ then introduced a new method for hair-improval. Here in 1918, we see the “Harlene Hair Drill” advertised, which went on to be used in their advertising for many years afterwards. The “Hair Drill” consisted of a series of steps to be done each day, which apparently took no longer than two minutes – although as you had to send off to see what they actually were, I have no idea what it consisted of. All I know is that you had absolutely no excuse not to be following “the lead of the navy, the army and the air force” , who were all at it, of course. Incredibly, the claim is made that “Even in the trenches our soldiers like to keep their hair “fit” by the “drill”.”

“Dandruff makes your hair fall out.” Really?

You’ll never snag a soldier with that grey hair, ladies.

More free offers in 1918, and more flowing mermaid hair to boot. This offer is being made “in view of the present prevalence of Hair Defects.”

More amazing hair here.

And here Edwards’ Harlene steps right into a lawsuit, if the Trade Descriptions Act had existed in 1920 (but it didn’t until 1968). Somehow mid-length frizzy hair is transformed into waist-length ringlets as if by magic. Although the friend with the bobbed hair is much more fashionable – I bet Edwards’ were seething at the 1920s fashion for shingled hair.

They were good with their free gifts, though.

Lanarkshire Sunday Post, 30th January 1921

Moving onto the 1950s now – and Edwards’ Harlene advertising has become much more realistic, using an actual photograph this time, of achievable hair. However, scurf was apparently still a thing in the 1950s.

Yorkshire Evening Post, 3rd September 1951

The proprietor of the company, Reuben George Edwards (originally Reuben Goldstein), had died in 1943, and in 1963 the company was taken over by Ashe Chemical. I see that Ashe Chemical were also the makers of “Gitstick Concentrated Crayon Insecticide” – and hello, future blog post!

Tags 1897, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1951, advert, Edwards Harlene, Hair products, women

1900-1949 1950-1999 2000 onwards

Conservative Election Posters, 1909-2001

Post author By Estelle
Post date April 17, 2015
2 Comments on Conservative Election Posters, 1909-2001

The general election draws nearer and I’ve just had a leaflet from the local Tory candidate through the letterbox (I don’t rate his chances).

His policies sound to be mainly all about how great the NHS is – oh, what an enormous con the Tories have pulled on the country there. Privatising by stealth, with no manifesto to state their intentions, and while still maintaining some kind of double think by continually stating how much they love the NHS. Well, I suppose they do love it now, seeing as so many of them are now coining in the private healthcare profits.

One of his main reasons given in the leaflet not to vote Labour is, unbelievably, because there would be a coalition, with Labour “propped up by other parties”, which is either completely shameless or completely idiotic.

Anyway. I’ve been having a look at Conservative Party election posters through the ages, thanks to the Bodleian Library’s online Conservative Party Archive. Interesting stuff. As a history buff you can divine so much information about the wider state of the country from each one. Here’s a few for you here.

From 1909-1910. Well….the past is like a foreign country, and all that (except Tories like the past).

1929, and afraid not so much of the “nanny state”, but the “inspector state”.

1931. Not really sure what this message is – go to work or Johnny Foreigner will take over? At this point the patriotism is pretty overt, with the Tories calling themselves “The National Government” for a while.

1935. Being “peaceful and strong” didn’t really work out for Neville Chamberlain, although to be fair, I don’t think any diplomatic approach would have worked against Hitler.

1950. It’s Kitchener-style common sense to vote Conservative. No reason is necessary, just the implication you’re some kind of gibbering fool if you don’t.

1958. The Tories gave you two television channels.

1958. “Will he ever be called up?”

1959. Labour will take away your mod cons, apparently.

1963. Test ban treaty signed. Good stuff.

1974. Directed to the working class voter.

1978-79. Not sure what to make of these ones. I mean, I get what they’re saying, but it seems like a lot of spin to make a positive slant on essentially not having to disturb the status quo any more than necessary.

1992. I like this one. John Major seems to me to be great in retrospect. Well, in comparison with all the Prime Ministers just before and since anyway.

1997. The infamous “Demon Eyes” poster. Unbelievable that this ever was released.

2001. The Police love the Tories. I wonder if they’ve since told Theresa May to “Foxtrot Oscar”?

Tags Bodleian Library, Conservative Party, general election

1950-1999

Russell Harty Plus Frankie Howerd, 1974

Post author By Estelle
Post date March 11, 2015
2 Comments on Russell Harty Plus Frankie Howerd, 1974

Another interview transcript from Russell Harty Plus, 1974. An absolute riot of an interview here with Frankie Howerd.

It’s so vivid you can practically hear it as you read…
(screams of laughter)

Oh, isn’t the internet marvellous? It’s only just occurred to me that someone’s probably put all these Russell Harty interviews on Youtube, and of course they have. Here’s an edited version of the interview – I see the transcript took out a whole bit about Howerd’s house in Malta and it’s all a bit less screamy that I imagined.

Here you go, witness Russell’s strangely carpeted studio:

Tags 1970s, 1974, Frankie Howerd, Humour, interview, Russell Harty Plus

1950-1999 Games

Friday Fun – Ghosts

Post author By Estelle
Post date February 13, 2015

I haven’t got a book scan for this post, but this is a top game for any fellow word-lovers out there.

When we were little, one night a week me and my brother went round to my Grandad and Nan’s house for tea. We played games all night long, while eating crunchy spaghetti (Nan’s rather unintentional speciality) and cherry cake. Our favourite were Up Jenkyns ,Yahtzee and Ghosts.

Ghosts is a game of two halves – it’s starts off as a spelling game and then subtly turns into a fun and annoying exercise in sabotage. I’m sure there’s a million different rules of the game out there, but this is how we played it:

You need at least three people for this game, but four to six people is probably ideal. We played it as a spoken word game, but you could also write it down, which would be easier way to keep track of the letters. Everyone begins the game with three lives. One person chooses a letter to start and then everyone takes turns to add a letter onto the growing word. The aim is not to be the one to complete a word, and if you do, you lose a life.

You do need to agree a minimum word limit – we had the rule that three-letter words didn’t count as it would be pretty hard to avoid completing three-letter words all the time. You also need to have a word in mind when you add your letter as if the next person thinks you’re bluffing they can challenge you to state your word. If you can give them a valid word the challenger loses a life, if you can’t, you lose the life.

What tends to happen is that you’re thinking of a longer word, and you end up making a shorter word by accident – say, you’ve just added a “d” to SAN because you’re thinking of “sandwich” but, bad luck, you’ve completed “sand” instead.

So far, so straightforward.

The fun bit is when someone loses their three lives. In a lesser game, that would be it, the end of your go. But in Ghosts, the logical consequence of losing your lives is that you turn into a ghost. And, as a ghost, all players must pretend you don’t exist. If the ghost manages to get another person to talk to them, the player immediately loses all their remaining lives and becomes a ghost themself. The last non-ghost left is the winner.

I quite liked becoming a ghost in order to perfect the techniques of getting people to talk to you by accident. The best way is just to sit quietly for a while until they forget about you, wait until the rest of the players are concentrating on a tricky set of letters and then say something innocuous like “Does anyone want a drink?” or “It’s getting dark, shall I stick the light on?”.

Can’t wait to teach it to my kids when they’re good enough at spelling – although as they’re currently 5 and 1, I have a bit of a while to go….

There’s some more variations on Wikipedia.

Blimey, I love the game but a look at all the more expert ways to play hurts my head:

“Superghost (also known as Lexicant or Llano) is played by choosing either the beginning or end of the growing word fragment and adding a letter there. For example, given the fragment ERA, a player might offer BERA or ERAD.

Superduperghost is played by deciding whether to reverse the letters of the word fragment before adding a letter to the fragment’s beginning or end. For example, given the fragment ERA, a player might offer BERA, ERAD, NARE, or AREN. This variant was first broadly adopted at the 1978 World Science Fiction Convention in Phoenix, Arizona.

Xghost (sometimes also known as Superduperghost or Llama) is played by adding a letter anywhere in the growing word fragment, including between letters. For example, given the fragment ERA, a player might offer BERA, ERAD, EBRA, or ERMA. This version was invented by Daniel Asimov around 1970.”

The Radio 4 show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue” (which I had the pleasure of seeing live in Liverpool a few weeks ago) has its own version, called “Cheddar Gorge” in which you add whole words onto a growing sentence, and having to avoid ending the sentence. Here it is (any excuse to have a look at the divine Graeme Garden) –

Tags Friday fun, Games, Ghosts, Graeme Garden, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue

1950-1999

Arthur Askey and the Diddymen, 1974

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 16, 2015

Did you know that Ken Dodd didn’t invent the Diddymen? Arthur Askey, another Liverpudlian comic, talked about them, treacle mines and all, in the early years of his act in the 1920s. But he didn’t invent them either, they’d been part of local folklore in this part of the country for much longer. I don’t have any more information about their origins though, I would love to know more.

Here’s a 1974 Arthur Askey interview from Russell Harty Plus, where he mentions the Diddymen and sounds ever so slightly ticked off that Ken Dodd was much more successful with them.

He was told when he went to London as a young comedian,

“We think you’re going to be very good, Arthur, but you must drop that Liverpool accent. You must get rid of your accent and you mustn’t talk about Diddy Men or jam butty factories or treacle mines.” Of course, Ken Dodd comes along thirty-odd years later and, through radio and television, they know what he’s talking about. But in those days I was doing missionary work, you know!”

Oh, and I like the sound of his untheatrical wife, who he claims had barely any idea of what he did for a living,

“My wife – I always used to say that she thought I was a burglar. She knew I went out at night to do something, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. When I got my O.B.E. (I must drag that in), I said to my wife: “Do come along to Buckingham Palace to see me get this.” And she said: “What time is it?” I said, “Half past ten”. She said: “I can’t go at half past ten. I’ve got my work to do. It’s all right for the Queen, she’s got staff.”

Tags 1970s, 1974, Arthur Askey, comics, Diddymen, Humour, Ken Dodd, Liverpool, Russell Harty Plus