Thursday 3 December 2020

Suddenly 2020 Feels a Whole Lot Better

 


They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery .... if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor". But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot ... they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies, by then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!"
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof ... hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and 'chew the fat'.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When re-opening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night 'the graveyard shift' to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, 'saved by the bell' or was considered 'a dead ringer'.
And that's the truth ... now, whoever said History was boring?

 
This suddenly makes 2020 look a whole lot better doesn't it  😃



Sue xx

24 comments:

  1. What a super post, I love history and little snippets like this are so interesting, we have got it easy haven't we ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really enjoyed reading this post! Yes, you couldn't pay me enough to travel back in time. -Jenn

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brilliant post Sue, most of us have no reason to complain at all. My dads favourite saying was 'first up best dressed' he was the eldest of 3boys so all clothing was utilised to the fullest extent

    ReplyDelete
  4. Such an interesting post. I really enjoyed this, thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That was really interesting. I love the meanings of the old sayings.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow. Hugely interesting, I just hope I can remember that all to pass it on.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It wasn't much better for the poor in Victorian times either and that's only 150 years ago so as you say we really do live in privileged times even with Covid

    ReplyDelete
  8. Very interesting to know where they came from.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This came up on my Facebook Memories this morning as something I had Shared a few years ago, and I thought it worth sharing with you all. I find it fascinating. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Blimey Sue, I didn't know any of that except about the bell tied to a string on the dead person's wrist. It made me want to be cremated at the end, not buried! Thanks for such a smashing post. I really enjoyed learning all that stuff :)
    We are indeed very, very lucky and I don't take my home comforts for granted at all. G's uncle had 16 children, 14 of whom survived and G can actually remember all the children being barefoot and eating bread and dripping (jam if they were lucky) for their tea after school. Sunday lunch, the one decent meal of the week, was eaten in sittings as they couldn't all fit around the table. G is an only child as his dad, Vic, couldn't face having more and not being able to support them.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Just 6 years back, I went to Rwanda for my youngest son's wedding. We stayed in a guest house run by nuns and we would get a large bucket of cool water to wash ourselves each day. I would kneel on the floor and scoop water on myself and over my head. Some areas of the world don't have the everyday luxuries that we take for granted.
    I enjoyed these old stories that explain where our expressions come from. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  12. We are lucky to be living now.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yep. I've often heard people suggest that life is a constant journey downhill. Not a bit of it. It's taken centuries but we've now got central heating (well, here we have), pain relief, etc. There's cause for optimism. Of course things could be even better and history gives us every reason to think they will be.

    ReplyDelete
  14. this post is brilliant, very interesting x

    ReplyDelete
  15. I've loved this post. Absolutely fascinating. X

    ReplyDelete
  16. So interesting and certainly worth remembering when we are feeling sorry for ourselves. Thank you x

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love things like this! Thank you for the interesting reading.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks Sue - yes, we have it easy by comparison, don't we. Of course, many of us would have died much earlier too - of simply cured ailments, or of complex medical conditions that are a breeze for modern medicine to overcome. I'm certainly grateful to be living now. Has anyone done a similar piece on life in Victorian times, do you know?

    ReplyDelete
  19. How very interesting. The meanings behind various sayings and words has always interested me.

    God bless.

    ReplyDelete
  20. History was NEVER boring to me! This is an interesting read for sure, thank you for sharing. I have been reading about the 1920s, another time of flux and hardships. I am not horribly hurt by this isolation, I am such a strong introvert, but others, like my husband, are. So far we’re safe and sound, I hope to stay that way. I hope you do too.

    ReplyDelete
  21. This is an interesting history lesson, and you are right. Have a good evening.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Would you mind if I cut and paste this to my facebook page as a reminder to my complaining friends about how we have it better now even with Covid. I lost track of how many have complained about not being able to go to a bar or wearing masks.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Awesome. I often lie in my bed with the hearing on thinking of how cold it must have been for all of the generations of people before us, as they went to bed in the winter.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are now turned off for this old blog of mine. Thank you for reading the posts, I hope you enjoyed them. xx

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.