Yorkshire words of the week

He was, like me, a “yeller belly”, but his ancestors all lived between Pontefract and Snaith, and his version was, “Well, I’ll go to the back of Drax Abbey!”

Obviously, this was picked up via his great grandfather, who was born in Pollington near Goole, before moving to Crowle in Lincolnshire.

From: Barbara Buckley, Low Lane, Horsforth, Leeds.

As a child, I hated senna pod tea – it was for constipation. With an outside loo and being told at Sunday school, “God can see everywhere”, taking it was a very serious matter.

I can laugh now though. I am 82 and not in bad shape, so perhaps these doses have done me good.

I bet children nowadays don’t get ‘dosed.’

I thought readers would like my poem, called Tek This.

Oh! Please Mam, no more senna pod tea, am sure ’ave ’ad enough.

Not another dose today Mam, yer know I hate the stuff.

Oh no! a’d forgotten, it’s springtime, she’s ’ere wi’ summat else,

Brimstone and treacle for mi’ insides – does she tek some ’erself?

Not more milk a magnisha, a’m told it cools mi blood

It lessens fire in mi spots and supposed to do mi good.

Heck! She’s ’ere wi’ Perry’s Pink Powders – now they’re ’abaht the worst.

Ye’d think wi’ all these things inside a’d be fir to burst!

Tomora’ ’ave been threatened, wi’ Fennins Fever Cure,

Funny enough, a don’t mind that, an’ wish she’d gi’ mi more!

From: Janet Cliff, Chapel Allerton, Leeds

In response to Alison Devlin’s letter (May 7) about the use of the word “banting” to mean dieting,

I don’t believe this is a Yorkshire dialect word but refers to the actual person, William Banting, a society figure who became morbidly obese but eventually found a diet that worked, which he popularised in his Letter on Corpulence in 1864.

This, perhaps the world’s first ‘celebrity diet’.