Chewing over fond memories of childhood

From: Ken Cooke, Wheatley Road, Ilkley.

PAT Marshall’s letter (“Chew on that”, Yorkshire Post, July 2) evoked distant memories of my childhood.

I grew up near Doncaster in the 1940s and 1950s and my dad and I used to enjoy the occasional chew of beef gristle.

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My mother and my sister thought it was disgusting. You couldn’t swallow it. Just chew on it. But it did have flavour.

Dad, who would be 95 now, came from the Mansfield area of North Notts and we moved to Donny in 1943.

He recommended the beef gristle to me when I was a lad. He called it “paddywack” and Doncaster locals seemed to understand it.

This has to be the same thing as Pat Marshall’s “fixfax” – a similar word with its repetitive syllables, reflecting chewing and chewing.

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Dad also used to sing a song involving paddywack, accompanied by rhythm played on the knick knack bones (polished cow rib bones).

Here is how it went:

Knick knack paddywack, give the dog a bone, this old man came rolling home.

He played one, he played two, he played knick knacks on my shoe.

Chorus: Singing...(first verse again)

He played three, he played four, he played knick knacks on my door.

And so it went on.

I would be very interested to hear from an old-time butcher or vet as to which particular part of the cow’s anatomy constituted paddywack or fixfax.