Yorkshire Words Of The Week

Most of my working life was spent in a heavy engineering laboratory, visited frequently by one of the works’ electricians who often hinted of a death wish with Biblical connections.

I might say to him: “Hello, how’s Harry today?” His reply: “Oh am all reet, am all reet.” A pause, then: “But am reedy tha knows. Am reedy. E can tek me eny time ‘e likes. An gate mi wick tremmed (trimmed) and uri can sothered (my oil lamp soldered, ie leak free). E can tek me on any time.” Harry was a big chap, proud of his physique which he attributed to regular suppers of “Oaf a pund o’ tripe and a bull’s pesil.”

Another colleague, rather broad in speech, was Albert the lab machinist. When asked if he knew where so-and-so was, his reply: “Oh, aye, ‘es agate t’smithy” (blacksmiths). Asked if he would do an urgent job, his retort: “Nay, am fair throng (very busy) now. Leave ‘em on yon bench and I’ll get round to ‘em.”

Who remembers the ceramic discs on plates one could buy inscribed with “This is a Round Toowit.”

From: Shirley Garnett, Greetland, Halifax.

I READ, with amusement, Arthur Quarmby’s interpretation of “leet geen”.

I was always under the impression, as a youngster in Holmfirth, that the term referred to older, usually married men casting lustful glances at pretty girls.

For at that moment they were making light the burden of their responsibilities.

From: John Hirst, Westfield Terrace, Horbury, near Wakefield.

AT school, in my days (I am 90) if you picked up a pen or pencil in your left hand you were classed as gallack handed.

There was not a word spoken – you just got a whack across your knuckles with the edge of a ruler. It was seen as wrong to be left-handed. At work on a workbench, I’d be able to sit at the other side of the table to do a manual job.

From: Mrs M Dutton, Langcliffe Avenue, Harrogate.

REFERRING to the piece about possers (Country Week, November 19) my mother used the three-legged stool version. This was used in the dolly tub by swishing it in the water by the long handle T-bar back and forth, right arm forward, left arm back, then reverse.

The posser was a later version used by squashing the water through the base with a pumping action. This was a newfangled idea.

Anyone who was a little simple was known as 11 pence to a bob.