“BETTY MARTIN” AND “BLACK MARIA”

Evening Star, Issue 22719, 5 August 1937, Page 11

“BETTY MARTIN” AND “BLACK MARIA”

MIGHtS OF SOME CemiOH SAYINGS How many people declare “that’* all my eye and Betty Martin” to convey their scorn of some statement? Some maintain that Betty Martin was a distant relation of Admiral Martin, an eighteenth, century sea-dog, and, so she imagined, heiress to his lands at Lowestoft, * Her claim was quashed, and Betty Martin vanished. But local residents never forgot her. For subsequently, whenever they sensed a false copten-; tion, it was her name which tripped contemptuously off their tongues. Another legend traces Betty Martin to an attractive gipsy girl. Apparently, under the strain of great provocation, she blackened an amorous constable’s eye, and - for long afterward Shrewsbury’s bright schoolboys jibed at the luckless lover, thus giving birth to the. phrase. Then perhaps Betty Martin was » man! For the phrase may have gained currency through an English sailor who, while in a foreign chutcli, heard the choir chanting, ‘Ah mihi, beat’e Martin ’ (‘ Ah, Grant me,Blessed Martin’). He innocently inquired what ‘ All my eye and Betty Martin ’ could mean! Other popular sayings are less involved. ' ■ “ Chancing his arm,” a synonym lot taking a risk, is probably only » Cockney corruption of “ chancing his harm.” But the army may have fathered it. Among soldiers it is st\ll used of a non-commissioned officer who" acts foolishly at the risk of his stripes. What lies behind “ It’s all along o' Colley Weston,” a phrase signifying a 1 situation of impending doom? Actually, Colley Weston is an old-world Northamptonshire village, famous fop its stone quarries, and it is this stone, used for church roofs and other buildings of architectural glory, which inspired the phrase. For, laid down in weighty slabs, it is liable to avalancna if one piece slips. Repairs must b« immediate, otherwise disaster camioo be averted. . , „ , ... “ All up at Harwich, by winch East Anglicans indicate confusion op mental disturbance, hails, it is said, from the days when, to forestall Napoleon’s invasion, beacons were built along the Essex and Suffolk coasts. They summoned all able-bodied men to rally at Harwich. ■ Once or twice a practical mker bred a beacon, following which the wholn battery was lighted, and at Harwich riots and scenes of disorder ensued a« to suggest a walk-over for Napoleon if ever he landed. • • ■ But the Rev. Barnard IN ash, wellknown authority on Suffolk dialect,refutes this explanation, maintaining that in its correct form the phrasa should run “ all up at harriage,” harriag© being a Suffolk term for an unholv muddle. Then, in a slightly different category is “Black Maria.” said to be derived from Maria Manning, executed with her husband at Horsemonger Lane Jail, Southwark, in 1849, for. murdering their lodger, O'Conner. Stepping on to the scaffold— it was a public execution—Maria created a stir by J'or funereal black satin clothes. (