LANCASHIRE CUSTOMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1938, Page 12

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 Superstitions,” in a talk arranged by the Lancashire Industrial Development Council, in collaboration with the New Y.::’.: office and the British Travel Association, 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 aiid refuse to lot the car go on its journey to the church until the hest 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 effigy of himself tied round the chimney.” He did not forget Easter Monday egg-rolling at Preston, where the eggs, 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 miles to an onion show.

Mr Thompson was asked 1 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.