I was telling Mrs B a story about a small, shell-backed creature last night when she fell out of bed laughing. "What did you call it?"

"A toytoyse."

I though she was going to choke. "A what?"

"Err... a toytoyse."

By now tears were rolling down her cheeks. "Do you mean a tortoise?" she asked in a notably superior tone.

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is your pronunciation."

After lecturing me on the Queen's English she drifted off into a regal sleep leaving me to ponder my Northern heritage.

I thought about my granddad confounding my friends with phrases like: "Tha'll be wanting thi tae." (You must be hungry). "Tha favvers thi faither." (You look remarkably like your father). And the bewildering: "Who said who'd sin thi but who dun't know who's who." (She said she recognised you, but she's not very bright.)

There was a wonderful sign stuck to the mirror of his Working Men's Club, which read: 'Don't wipe slutch on the towel.' I always thought 'slutch' a far more descriptive word than 'mud'.

My Aunt Alice always referred to the bus terminus as: 'Where't buzzes twizz', a pullover was a 'ganzy' and 'pobs' was a bowlful of bread and milk made whenever anyone was ill.

I remembered the rag and bone man ( little did he know he was at the cutting edge of recycling), and the wagons that delivered dandelion and burdock, cream soda and sarsaparilla in stone jars. I wonder what happened to them?

My gran once told me a neighbour's son had nits and had been frog-marched to the barber's to get his hair 'powed'. I had no idea what she meant until he returned looking like a Prisoner of War.

After attending a small town primary school I was sent to a large Manchester secondary. On my first day my Uncle Arthur took me to one side and said: "If that wants out tha mun ask." (If you want anything just ask).

Come winter everyone had their own cold remedy: A mustard poultice was very popular as was goose grease and dog fat all of which I somehow managed to avoid. My mother swore by iodine (I can smell it now), which, together with TCP, she used to cure every ailment known to man. As I recall there was a diabolical medicine named Liquora Fruita, which some poor kid in our class had poured down his throat daily. I have no idea what it was meant to cure but the smell was horrendous.

Butter was used for bumps on the head, soap for scalds and burns and blowing your nose was supposed to remove any object from your eye. I remember Tommy Sewell screaming blue murder when he was hit in the eye with a home made glider. "Keep blinking it'll work its way out," we urged him all the way to hospital.

I remembered ice on the inside of the windows in winter and lighting the fire with the aid of a large sheet of metal called a 'blower' placed over the fire to make it 'draw'.

My dad had an amazing array of phrases: "I'll make you laugh on the other side of your face," was one of his classics. Telling me off always seemed to give him amnesia: "Who do you think I am?" he would ask, then he'd forget who I was: "Who do you think YOU are?"

He had a peculiar habit of responding to any excuse I offered with: "Football! I'll give you bloody football. I'll football you into the middle of next week." No matter what explanation I used to get out of trouble his response was always constructed the same: "Bubble-gum! I'll give you bloody-bubble gum. I'll bubble-gum you into the middle of next week." Although his syntax was incorrect correct the meaning was crystal clear.

My favourite Aunt was Aunty Ann. She came to see me carrying an old shoebox when I was housebound with scarlet fever. "Eh you look proper poorly," she said sympathetically. "Here, I've brought you something to cheer you up."

"What is it Aunty Ann?"

"See for yourself... it's a toytoyse."

  • The views expressed on this page are those of Vic Barlow and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Express... or owt of anyone who can speak proper.