Yo’m ’avin’ a loff – old Black Country tales

IN THE 1930s local journalist T.H. Gough wrote a regular column in the Dudley Herald, compiling humorous tales, jokes and sayings of the old Black Country. Rich in the dialect of our region, these tales were compiled in a series of volumes that proved very popular with readers in the years before and after the Second World War.

A man and his spouse who hailed from Ruiton, Gornal, having loaded up their cart at the railway depot at Dudley, set out up the hill from the station to start their round. The woman, seizing one after the other blocks from the back of her until she had at least four blocks on her lap, was asked by the man what she was nursing the “saut” for. “To ease the ’oss, yer fule,”

A man who has been out of work for a long time met with another out-ofwork.

“I’ve started on a job,” said the first man, very pleased to break the news to his pal.

“O, am yer; w’at am yer workin’ at?” was the enquiry. “Cud yer get me in at the same plaece? But let’s ’ear w’at yo’ dun fust.”

“Why,” said the friend, “I’ve got a job in the line, tappin’ bolts and things. W’en it rains we gos into a ’ut an’ plays cards an’ dominoes. Yo’ cum an’ see our foreman in the mornin’ an’ p’raps ’e’ll set yer on.”

The man took the advice, and the first question he was asked was: “Have you got your cards?” (meaning Unemployment and Health Insurance cards). “No, but I’ve got me dominoes,” said the man.

A woman factory hand went to the club doctor’s surgery with a view to going on the “box”. “Name?” asked the doctor as he prepared to make an entry in the records. “Brown,” said the woman. “With an ‘e’?” was the next question. “No, I cum by meself; I’ve been a widow two ’ear.”

“I had four kinds of cake at the party,” said a girl. “Plum cake, currant cake, seed cake and stomach ache.”