LANCASHIRE CUSTOMS
IF A BRIDE IS UNFAITHFUL
Clog-dancing, the ancestor of modern | "tap dancing," is dying out, said Mr. Tom Thompson, the Lancashire dialect writer, in a broadcast reported in the "Manchester Guardian." "At one time every Lancashire lad could rattle his clogs to a 'double shuffle' or other intricate steps.", Mr. Thompson was speaking to listeners in the United States and Canada on ''Lancashire Customs and Superstiiutions" in a talk arranged by the Lancashire Industrial Development ! Council, in collaboration with the New I York office and the British Travel Asj sociation, and he mentioned one curious custom of North Lancashire.
"If you were to see a party of men gathering furtively round a farmhouse, you might be forgiven for thinking that there was dirty work afoot, especially if the men had guns. In North Lancashire they do that sort of thing to celebrate a wedding, and a rattling volley signifies good will to the happy couple. In the towns workmates of a bridegroom or bride will often tie a
rope across the street where the bride lives and refuse to let the car goi on its journey to the church until the best man forks out a shilling.
"If the bride in later years proves unfaithful she may hear some dark night an unholy banging of tin kettles and pans. If it is the husband who backslides he may go out of his house some fine morning and discover an efflgy of himself tied round the chimney." He did not forget Easter Monday egg-rolling at Preston, where the CBSS, if unbroken, are preserved as mementoes. There were, he said, gaily coloured preserved eggs in Preston which were rolled by grandfathers in their childhood, and which rattled, if shaken as though there were a pea inside, so small had the yolk become. According to Mr. Thompson, the Lancashire man loves to grow something he can eat. Especially is he fond of growing onions, and will travel milei to an onion show.
Mr. Thonyjson was asked to prepare the talk following a special request from the American side that Lancashire should again be Included in the series of talks dealing with the people and life of the British Isles. Manchester and Liverpool he described as cosmopolitan and little more Lancastrian than, say, Paris is to French France.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 151, 29 June 1938, Page 19
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386LANCASHIRE CUSTOMS Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 151, 29 June 1938, Page 19
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