White rabbit custom found across the country

From: Mrs FJ Walker, Daykin Close, Darton, Barnsley.

WITH reference to Mrs Buckley’s letter (Yorkshire Post, September 7), I have a slightly different version of the saying “white rabbits”.

As a Londoner born in the 1940s, my sisters and I were taught to say “lucky white rabbits” on the first of the month.

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However, for good luck to come our way, these words had to be said before we had spoken to anyone else that morning (not always easy to remember as we shared a bedroom).

The saying is still going strong in the family today.

From: David J Whitehead, Sunnydale Crescent, Hinckley, Leicestershire.

WHILE in Mablethorpe, I purchased a copy of the Yorkshire Post and in response to Mrs Buckley’s letter I am pleased to add my ten penn’orth to her letter.

I can tell her and other readers that in Warwickshire and Leicestershire the practice of saying “white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits” on the first day of every month is not uncommon.

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Certainly it has been chanted in Warwickshire in the coal mining area for at least 80 years as my late mother-in-law taught my wife to recite it, preferably before uttering any other words.

I shall await learning of any other instances, particularly if outside the traditional mining areas of the country, with considerable interest.