2003 - A Jarful of Angels (33 page)

Alley Bompers
: shiny silver marbles

Bailey
: backyard, but often, as in the iron workers’ cottages, a communal yard that ran the length of the terraces

Belloching
: roaring or shouting

Black Pats
: the local name for cockroaches

Bosh
: kitchen sink

Churros
: popular snack in Spain, loops of deep-fried batter usually in a spiral shape

Cop
: name for the local co-operative society

The Corn Shop
: shop that sold all types of chicken feed, horse feed, etc

Cwtching
: cuddle

Daps
: local word for plimsolls

Doubler
: working a double shift

Duiv
: God

Fausty
: damp-smelling, dirty

Fussell’s Milk
: a thick white condensed type of tinned milk

Grandfather chair
, high-backed chair, often called a Captain’s chair

Gwli
: the gwlis were the back lanes or alleyways that divided the rows of houses

Had her⁄his hair off
: (Bessie had her hair off) Bessie was in a temper

Haisht
: hush, ssshh!

Half-soaked
: not all there, dopey

Jackie Long-Legs
: Daddy Long-Legs

Kidney beans
: runner beans

Peed the bed leaking
: wet the bed in a big way

Pwp
: shit

Spanish
: liquorice

Tamping down
: (as in tamping down with rain) raining very heavily

Toc H lamp
: (She was as dull as a Toc H lamp) used to describe someone dopey. Badges worn by members of Toc H had an oil lamp on them (oil lamps burn with a very dim light)

Tom Pepper
: liar

Tump
: hill⁄hillock

Twp
: dopey, not all there

Wetted
: as in wetted the tea (brewed, mashed)

Wimberries
: another name for bilberries or huckleberries

Yellow poppies
: the Welsh poppy.
Meconopsis Cambrica

(Latin)

EOF