‘Sell the pig and go to Putney!’
H “e’s like a long drink of water,” my mother used to say of anyone she considered to be a bit boring, but I have no idea what she meant when she described someone behaving ‘like a dying duck in a thunderstorm’. I’m pretty certain it wasn’t meant as a compliment!
Mary Tappenden discovered there was a story attached to her grandmother’s favourite saying: “As a child I often heard her remark, ‘What a sight, Hackett!’ and, much to her amusement, I used to say it myself as an adult!
“When somebody asked what it meant, my grandmother explained that many years before, a local man – well known for getting drunk – was being taken home in a wheelbarrow. The vicar saw him and exclaimed, ‘What a sight, Hackett, and you with all those little ones at home!’. That was how it became a popular expression in her village.”
Grandmothers are a rich source of strange sayings. Denise Bissitt’s nanny, a proper Victorian lady, used to remark, ‘Mind your own business, eat your own fish, and don’t poke your nose in my little dish’.
Barbara Jones’ sister was amused when her grandson told her: “You do say some funny things, Nanny!” His remark reminded the sisters of their teenage years when their father used to comment if they were wearing too much make-up or ‘unsuitable’ clothes: “You look like Sally Slapcabbage from the Boneyard.”
Driving over Putney Bridge on a visit to London last year reminded Cynthia Pearcy of her mother who used to
‘If she was having an off-day, she would say she felt like “a wet egg on a shovel”!’
exclaim if anything surprised her: “Well, I’ll go to Putney!” Cynthia writes: “I’ve never heard anyone else say it. Bessie Hardy says if she ever worried about missing out on something important, her gran would remark, ”What’s for you won’t go by you.” When Peter Jones joined the army at 17, his mother doubted he would last the course and warned him: “Don’t think you can write home if you don’t like it and say ‘sell the pig and buy me out’. ”Happily, Peter enjoyed ten years of military service – and the family’s metaphorical pig never went to market...
If Lee Chidlow and her brother refused to eat their crusts, their mother scolded: ‘Wilful waste is woeful want and you may live to say, Oh how I wish I had that crust that once I threw away.’
Lee says: “How true! One day my brother and I found ourselves deep in the country when our car broke down. What we would have given for a crust!”
Barbara Allen’s mother had a wealth of sayings: “If she was having an off day and we asked how she was, her answer was, ‘Like a wet egg on a shovel’ which reminded me of my grandfather who worked in a brickyard and often cooked his egg and bacon on a shovel over a brazier.”