Yorkshire Words of the Week

DOES anyone remember sudcake?

When I was a schoolboy (1940s) and living on Fairweather Green, the fields near the wool-combing factories on Munby Street would sometimes be dotted with loads of black stuff.

This was sudcake, the muck taken out of the wool fleeces. It was pressed to get the water out and carted on to the fields near to the works.

It was useful as a fertiliser on fields where cattle were first turned out, having spent the winter in their mistals (please Sue Woodcock, no more shippons, this is the Yorkshire Post).

Having been dumped, the sudcake was then spread, by hand of course, and the operation completed by draizing or chain harrowing as it is now known. So what has become of sudcake, are fleeces much cleaner, is today’s machinery more sophisticated or does it form the base of organic compost? I would love to know.

From: Mrs Noreen Reid, Gledhow Lane, Leeds.

In Northern Ireland, the word clocking, when applied to hens sitting on eggs, is spelt clockin. A clockin hen is also a clocker. Clockin is also used to describe what a lazy person does: “He/she sits clockin in front of the fire/television all day”.

From: Geoff Atkinson, Whitby.

My late uncle John would confirm his certainty about a matter by asserting that if he was wrong he would, “stand the drop of York”. I think I can figure that out, and on a recent trip to my capital city’s Castle Museum reference was made to the “new drop” from about 1700 in describing York’s place for hangings. I’ve never heard this expression from anyone or anywhere else. I look forward to reading other solutions in this column soon.

From: Alison Devlin, Raygill Close, Leeds.

Reading Jane Austen’s Guide to Romance by Lauren Henderson, I came upon the following: “My grandmother could never understand the modern obsession with dieting: ‘In my day,’ she would say firmly, ‘you were fat or thin or middling and that was just the way you were. And there was always a man who preferred women who looked like you, so there was absolutely no reason in the world to be silly about banting’. (She came from Yorkshire and banting was the local word for dieting).”

I wonder if anyone else is familiar with this word? I have never heard it before.