Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Regularity]

The best things about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes are that you are a mile away from them, and you also have their shoes…

[Nearholmer]

17 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Would you tell someone that it's all boll0x if they put up with years of verbal and physical abuse because of the colour of their skin? 

 

Yes. Because saying that someone is less of a human being on that basis is b@ll@x.

 

Asserting clearly that a lie is a lie isn't dismissive of what's happened to a person, its getting the facts straight. Added to which, its telling the person who has been victimised, and if they are in earshot the bully too, that I know who is in the wrong.

 

If bullies are told calmly and clearly, often enough, by enough people, that they are in the wrong, they often get the message.

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

15 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

so stubbornness can pay off.

 

Determination. Thats a positive quality.

 

I take the view that I'm determined, whereas some other people can be stubborn so-and-sos.

 

My good lady sometimes takes a different view, calling "Sussex Stubborn", because the county motto is 'We wunt be druv'.

 

This is what wikipedia says about it:

 

According to the "Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs", "Sussex won't be druv" is a local proverbial saying dating from the early 20th century.[7] In 1875 the Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect stated "I wunt be druv" as a "favourite maxim with Sussex people".[8] Although used all over Sussex, the phrase probably originates from the Weald, and there is evidence that in Wealden areas common people were freer from manorial control than in the rest of Sussex. Twice in the late Middle Ages Wealden peasants rose in revolt: once in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, under the leadership of Wat Tyler and the radical priest John Ball, and again in 1450 under Jack Cade, who was pursued and fatally wounded at Old Heathfield, where he had connections.[9] The phrase "I wunt be druv" is mentioned in EV Lucas's 1904 book Highways and Byways in Sussex (1904).

 

I've emboldened the key bit, because thats where I'm from, and where my father's family lived, almost certainly from 1066.

[MrWolf]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Yes. Because saying that someone is less of a human being on that basis is b@ll@x.

 

Good. Because I've found on my travels that there's only two kinds of people in the world.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Asserting clearly that a lie is a lie isn't dismissive of what's happened to a person, its getting the facts straight. Added to which, its telling the person who has been victimised, and if they are in earshot the bully too, that I know who is in the wrong.

 

A lie, if told often enough and loud enough is eventually believed. That's basic propaganda.

Also, school and work to a lesser extent is a popularity contest. If the leader tells the followers a lie, they go along with it, either out of loyalty (the closest followers) or out of fear and not wishing to stick their heads above the parapet and become an outcast themselves. This has been proven many times by the populace of dictatorships.

People don't care so much about facts when they'd rather be seen as part of the popular group that leads opinion.

 

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

If bullies are told calmly and clearly, often enough, by enough people, that they are in the wrong, they often get the message.

 

 

 

That's about as effective as telling the kids who do get bullied to just keep away from their tormentors. Which leads to a lot of kids simply skipping school and doubly losing out.

Humiliating said bully in front of his friends and his victims I found particularly effective.

[MrWolf]

13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Determination. Thats a positive quality.

 

I take the view that I'm determined, whereas some other people can be stubborn so-and-sos.

 

My good lady sometimes takes a different view, calling "Sussex Stubborn", because the county motto is 'We wunt be druv'.

 

This is what wikipedia says about it:

 

According to the "Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs", "Sussex won't be druv" is a local proverbial saying dating from the early 20th century.[7] In 1875 the Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect stated "I wunt be druv" as a "favourite maxim with Sussex people".[8] Although used all over Sussex, the phrase probabl y originates from the Weald, and there is evidence that in Wealden areas common people were freer from manorial control than in the rest of Sussex. Twice in the late Middle Ages Wealden peasants rose in revolt: once in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, under the leadership of Wat Tyler and the radical priest John Ball, and again in 1450 under Jack Cade, who was pursued and fatally wounded at Old Heathfield, where he had connectio

ns.[9] The phrase "I wunt be druv" is mentioned in EV Lucas's 1904 book Highways and Byways in Sussex (1904).

 

I've emboldened the key bit, because thats where I'm from, and where my father's family lived, almost certainly from 1066.

 

That's the kind of thing which interests me too. It's actually a good thing to know some of who you are, where you're from and be proud of it.  We hear so many negatives about our imperial past (and get beaten over the head about it) that we tend towards shame for our history.

That was only a couple of hundred years out of thousands and run by a small minority. Our history is fàscinating especially when you look at how the ordinary people lived, worked and fought for a better life.

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by MrWolf
Useless internet

[Nearholmer]

1 minute ago, MrWolf said:

A lie, if told often enough and loud enough is eventually believed.

 

Which doesn't stop it being a lie, and doesn't remove the obligation to call it out as a lie.

 

Calling lies out is often unpopular, and its got plenty of people shot, or worse, but thankfully, that hasn't stopped brave people doing it.

 

4 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

That's about as effective as telling the kids who do get bullied to just keep away from their tormentors.

 

You seem to be assuming some third party authority figure is telling the bully they are in the wrong. That, I would agree, usually doesnt work.

 

What does work is the peers of the bully telling them they're in the wrong. The best person to do the job is the person they're attempting to bully, of course. Which is to risk having the proverbial beaten out of you, but provided that isnt actually terminal you can tell them they're in the wrong again when you recover. Or, beat the proverbial out of them if you're not in the mood for conversation and think there's an odds-on chance of succeeding.

 

 

[MrWolf]

I think that we're pretty much in agreement here. 

Unfortunately, sometimes violence is the answer. I didn't want, nor was I likely to be offered king of the school status, but when I came back after my two weeks holiday courtesy of the management, I knew that others viewed me differently. Some wanted to get to know me, others gave me a wide berth.

[wagonman]

9 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

There was a theory in our school that all of the teachers were people who hadn't quite hit their career mark.

 

English: failed authors.

Social studies: failed politicians.

Geography: failed explorers.

History: failed archaeologists.

Science: failed inventors

Music: failed musicians.

Art: failed artists

 

PE: failed Nazis...

 

 

 

 

I suspect our PE master was really quite a successful Nazi...

[Annie]

1 hour ago, wagonman said:

I suspect our PE master was really quite a successful Nazi...

I always thought there was something seriously wrong with PE teachers since they got so wound up over what was an essentially a pointless brain dead activity.  Perhaps they were constantly worried that that someone in the Dept of Education was going exclaim, 'What are we paying all these useless people for!' and sack the lot of them.

 

Being someone who enjoyed walking and walked a fair distance to and from the railway station every day I never understood why I should be dragged away from my studies and have to change out of my school uniform in order perform completely pointless and daft physical jerks.  That said I was a good distance runner which I liked because it was just me without any of the team sport 'strength through joy' doctrine that my school seemed to subscribe to getting involved with it. 

 

As for those considered to be the school's best sports people, - who were of course all male since anything the girl's teams did was never mentioned, - we were supposed to look up to them as Übermensch with the expectation that we all should bow down and kiss their feet.  As far as I could see they were all knuckle dragging louts not worthy of anything let alone adoration.  Those of this elect band who played Thugby were of course candidates for immediate beatification.

 

I both liked and hated school.  I liked learning, I liked haunting the library and reading, - I loved books.  What I didn't like was having to be educated amongst a heaving mass of my fellow humanity, - though I wasn't entirely sure if some of them actually were human.  As a skinny bookish schoolgirl whom others seemed to enjoy picking on and bullying I had no problem with coming to an understanding of the principles of eugenics long before I'd actually heard of it or read about it.  And before anyone becomes outraged I certainly don't believe in or would want to see eugenics being practiced as a matter of course in society; - though I am well aware that it has been practiced in the past and is still being practiced in covert ways by members of the medical profession as well as genetics researchers.

 

I know the pandemic is a terrible thing in this the third year of the great plague, but I can't help liking the fact that it keeps people away from me.  I don't hate people, - I used to be a social worker for heaven's sake, - but that was mostly working with clients one on one, face to face.  It's hordes of people en masse that I don't like. 

 

[colin smith]

Of course, some us simply are superior. Luckily, I am utterly brilliant at hiding it.

[Andy Hayter]

And since you are to modest to mention it, very modest as well.  

[MrWolf]

That's something that I rib my other half about. It goes from "you are most modest" to "you are the goddess of modesty".

She too was a thin bookish girl who  hurried through the hallways trying to be invisible. Over the holidays at the end of school she came out of her shell quite a bit and some hardly recognised her when she returned for the sixth form.

Unfortunately, the popular boy who had mocked her through school for her very minor disability and bookish behaviour and got the rest of the class to join in, decided to say in front of everyone "You got fit over summer, I might let you go out with me now" 

She bashed him square in the nose and left him sat on the floor enduring a merciless point and laugh routine from the audience. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by MrWolf

[Annie]

2 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

She bashed him square in the nose and left him sat on the floor enduring a merciless point and laugh routine from the audience.

And good on her too.  I've never met your wife, but I like her already.

[Compound2632]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

where my father's family lived, almost certainly from 1066.

 

Incomer. (Or whatever the local term is.) One of those crossing the channel in small boats, politically motivated, usurping our ancient traditions? Now if you'd said, almost certainly from 477, I'd have some respect.

[Nearholmer]

Of relevance is this really interesting introduction to what I reckon must be a really interesting subject https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/the-norman-conquest-of-england-women-invasion-and-migration

I’d love to be able to “get into” this conquest, inter-marriage, assimilation thing in relation to The Weald specifically, because there it seems to have all happened in a very short period of time, without an intervening period of ‘harrowing and laying waste’ as happened in The North. I’ve never worked out whether local Saxon losses were so great at Senlac Field that the conquistadors had free-run of the district and grabbed everything and everybody, or whether they established new farmsteads in what was still quite widely virgin forest. There were so few conquistadors, that’s the conundrum; it wasn't a mass invasion by huge numbers of soldiers, maybe 7000-8000 soldiers on the field, plus logistics (not very much of that, because the soldiers seems to have done it themselves).

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Nearholmer

[rocor]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Incomer. (Or whatever the local term is.) One of those crossing the channel in small boats, politically motivated, usurping our ancient traditions? Now if you'd said, almost certainly from 477, I'd have some respect.

 

I would personally state a date for an ancestral stake in the country on the year 43, mainly on the basis of having a Roman nose. Yes, it is roaming all over my face (Gratias tibi, ego hic ero tota hebdomada).

[wagonman]

13 hours ago, Annie said:

.  As far as I could see they were all knuckle dragging louts not worthy of anything let alone adoration.  Those of this elect band who played Thugby were of course candidates for immediate beatification.

 

 

 

At my school we played 'Thugby' – and nowt else – usually in a relatively genteel manner, except for the annual inter-house matches. Hardly one passed without need of the stretcher. Matron was always on standby.

[Tom Burnham]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Of relevance is this really interesting introduction to what I reckon must be a really interesting subject https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/the-norman-conquest-of-england-women-invasion-and-migration

I’d love to be able to “get into” this conquest, inter-marriage, assimilation thing in relation to The Weald specifically, because there it seems to have all happened in a very short period of time, without an intervening period of ‘harrowing and laying waste’ as happened in The North. I’ve never worked out whether local Saxon losses were so great at Senlac Field that the conquistadors had free-run of the district and grabbed everything and everybody, or whether they established new farmsteads in what was still quite widely virgin forest. There were so few conquistadors, that’s the conundrum; it wasn't a mass invasion by huge numbers of soldiers, maybe 7000-8000 soldiers on the field, plus logistics (not very much of that, because the soldiers seems to have done it themselves).

 

Rudyard Kipling goes into that theme in Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. Norman nobles who were given lands in England gradually found their interests coinciding with those of their Saxon tenants rather than with those of their relations who'd stayed in France.

[alastairq]

On the topic of 'football', and school, I managed to get around the topic, and what it entailed, when asked what 'team' I supported, I replied, ''Brechin City!''

 

That usually confused them, or else, shut them up.....seeing as Brechin City rarely if ever won anything [and no longer exist as such, I believe?], , nobody bothered trying to engage me in a pi$$ing contest.

I had issues back then, anyway..and managed to get myself expelled from the posh, all-boys, fancypants ancient grammar school that was my first secondary school.

Expelled with the forecast of not likely to achieve any O level passes at all...

I attended another local , but 'mixed' grammar school and achieved good grades in 9 O levels...All in less than 18 months.

Girls added a whole new dimension to school for me.

 

Then I left!

[Nearholmer]

28 minutes ago, Tom Burnham said:

Norman nobles who were given lands in England

 

Interesting. He was a Wealden chap, of course, at least by settlement, so doubtless got intrigued by it all for the same reasons. Whether he was working from solid facts, or speculating and filling in crossword clues, I don't know.

 

His house alone would set you thinking about it, because it’s got that ancient, snuggled down in the landscape, or grown out of the soil, feel about it.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Nearholmer

[burgundy]

11 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Interesting. He was a Wealden chap, of course, so doubtless got intrigued by it all for the same reasons. Whether he was working from solid facts, or speculating and filling in crossword clues, I don't know.

He was actually born in India and only bought Batemans, at Burwash (nearest station Etchingham, SER) in Sussex, in his mid 30s.

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, I added "by settlement" to clarify that. He clearly soaked it all up pretty well.

 

Its the location of Bateman's, and the way it typifies those Wealden houses, farmsteads etc. that makes it so interesting. I love the strange old names many of them have, and many of them have really early origins, even if the current buildings are 'only' four or five hundred years old. I named a layout after one, Orznash, and someone else used Horselunges, although that might technically not quite be in The Weald.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Tom Burnham]

Kipling used Etchingham station and I came across an anecdote about him and the booking clerk there:

Kipling (impatient at waiting in the queue for his first class return to London): "Do you know who I am, my man?"

Booking clerk: "Yes, I know who you are Mr Rudyard b...y Kipling, and you can wait your turn same as everyone else."

Suusex hog wunt be druv...

Edited January 18, 2022 by Tom Burnham
Typo

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, alastairq said:

On the topic of 'football', and school, I managed to get around the topic, and what it entailed, when asked what 'team' I supported, I replied, ''Brechin City!''

Brechin City used to be considered the strongest team in the Scottish League, as they were usually at the bottom of the lowest division and therefore holding everyone else above them!   There were those who, listening to the results on the radio, thought that their name was actually 'Brechin City Nil'!  

 

Jim (ducking to avoid incoming)

[Nearholmer]

10 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

There were those who, listening to the results on the radio, thought that their name was actually 'Brechin City Nil'!

 

Yeovil Town seemed to perform a similar function down here for a while. We went to watch our local heroes play them several years back, and it turned into an embarrassing thrashing, where we almost didn't want our lot to score any more goals, because it seemed like bad manners. I think they've done a bit better more recently. Our lot have certainly done worse.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Nearholmer