by Sylvia Kent
The voice she do change in time...
Anon
As the old rural world of Essex passed away, many traditions also disappeared, along with the dialect, songs and, in some cases, place names, although some show an amazing capacity for survival.
In the past, language, speech patterns and the old songs and rhymes of Essex were important when it came to passing on history and folklore by word of mouth, long before they were committed to paper. A good memory was essential for repeating family history, customs and stories from the past. Before the 1870 Education Act, which made education for children compulsory, many country folk could neither read nor write. In a sense, dialect is as much a part of the body of folklore as the way in which it was told. Writer Richard Thomas, in his book Larn Yarsel Essex Dialect (1999), suggested that:
‘Learn’ and ‘learning’ are used generally in Essex for ‘teach’ and ‘teaching’. In addition, learning means education. The word ‘learn’ goes back to the Old English lieran which means teach and it is interesting to note that, in modern German, lehren means to teach. So an Essex father might say to his son, ‘I’ll larn you how ter do that boy.’ This might be to help him or to punish him for a wrongdoing. Whichever is the case, it takes the use of learn in Essex right back to its Germanic roots.
These days, the wide variety in vernacular speech from East Anglia to Cockney – from the seaboard at Harwich to more Home Counties accents on the Hertfordshire border – is only matched by our hugely varying landscape. It’s an interesting journey trying to trace local language through generations of use (and the present misuse), despite the efforts of Victorian and Edwardian England to standardise the spoken word. Essex, bordering London, managed to hang on to its own inimitable dialect into the twentieth century. But with the rapid expansion in population in Essex villages and towns over the last fifty years, things have changed irrevocably.
In 1920, author Edward Gepp, fearful that the Essex dialect and language were disintegrating, compiled a county dictionary in which he interviewed many respondents, recording their words and sayings. To his way of thinking, the changes that were taking place were as a result of the First World War, the movement around the country due to railways and alterations within the educational system. Another Essex writer and historian, Herbert Cranmer-Byng, well-known for his essays and lectures on the subject of ‘County Dialect and Humour’, reported in 1928: ‘Local language is a living culture – dialect is spoken, rarely written, so recording oral history in print has to rely very largely on phonetic spelling and people’s memory.’
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Dagenham, that once tiny ancient village close to the marshes, became the largest council estate in the world. Many of its new residents came from London’s suburbs and these ‘furriners’ brought with them their London and other regional accents, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and speech patterns, as well as their slang words, which soon became part of normal use.
Just after the Second World War, there was a huge exodus of people from mainly East London, not only towards Dagenham and Barking but, with excellent rail links, to Chelmsford, Southend and Colchester. Many of these places, including Basildon and Harlow, had been small villages for centuries, until the architects and planners settled at their drawing boards and designed the New Towns, producing yet more ‘incomers’.
General movement of people around the county and mass media, especially television, have crowded out our old ways and many now rely on the ‘box’ as a source of communication and conversation rather than witnessing the events occurring in everyday life. Television programmes such as Grange Hill and, more recently, Eastenders and Family Affairs have influenced the way people, mainly youngsters, speak. It is odd to read press reports that Liverpudlians, Glaswegians and folk from South Wales are beginning to sound like Londoners, using what is now called Estuary English, i.e. dropping consonants and flattening out vowels.
Steve Crancher, in his book Dijja Wanna Say Sumfing?, tells us that linguists have been discussing Estuary English since – and probably even before – the term was coined in 1984 by David Rosewarne. At the time, Rosewarne was involved in linguistic research at London’s Birkbeck College and his article in the Times Education Supplement described the accent/dialect as ‘a variety of modified regional speech’. Crancher writes:
It is generally considered that Estuary English is somewhere on a continuum between Received Pronunciation (BBC or Queen’s English) and Cockney. However, while the Hooray Henrys (the young upper class) of the 1980s have long since adopted it in an effort to gain some street credibility, the majority of people think of Estuary English as that used by Essex Man and Essex Woman (from towns in the south of the county) – that is, the part of the continuum closer to Cockney, than to Received Pronunciation. This is, perhaps, real Estuary English.
Along with the problem of Estuary English, Essex has had a bad press when it comes to county identity. Back in 1988, a tabloid journalist created a fictional stereotyped profile of a typical Essex man and his partner, Essex girl, from which many derogatory books and tabloid column inches have been published and which seem impossible to shake off. Although once humorous, they seem an unfair reflection on the county as a whole and many leading educationalists and Essex county councillors dislike the term. Among the 1½ million residents currently living in the county, probably now only a tiny minority speak in the once true Essex dialect – and these are usually older people living in the northern part of the county.
Old spoken Essex was a true dialect in its own right, not dissimilar to the speech patterns heard in its neighbouring county, Suffolk. James Wentworth Day, writer, raconteur and master of the East Anglian dialect, often included folktales in the county vernacular within his numerous books. In his 1979 Book of Essex, he writes:
They were fun, our little country railways. The last breath of rural Victoriana. The authentic puff-puffs of childhood. The pride of the villages ... There was that immortal tale of the opening of the great Eastern Railway in granddad’s time. Somewhere along the line there is a tunnel and when the line was opened in the tranquil days of the last century, Jimma bor and Billa bor discussed the momentous event in the inn that night.
‘Ha’ you sin that li’l owd railrood, Jimma bor?’
‘Noo, thet Ah hee’ant. Ha’ yu?’
‘Yis, bor. Thet run roight at the bottom o’ my master’s tharty acre. Sharp as yar owd clock goo ten in the mornin’. An’ du that travel! Thear ain’t a hoss in the parish what could ketch it – nor yit a long-dog. Do yu goo ond see that, Jimma bor.’
‘That oi will, oewd mate.’
Sharp at ten the next morning, Jimma bor, his missus and the kids sat like a row of rooks on the five-barred gate above the railway tunnel. On the stroke of the hour the train trundled by in a blast of steam and sparks, gave a piercing whistle and plunged into the dark tunnel, a dragon’s tail of sulphuric smoke waving behind it. That night in the four-ale bar came the sequel.
‘Ded you see that li’l owd railroad, Jimma bor?’
‘See ut! That oi did. Travel, bor! Oi niver seed nawthin’ travel that fast in arl moi days. There warn’t a hoss at Newmarket what could ha’ ketched it. That come a-roarin’ an’ a-hissin’ an’ a-flamin’ up the valley loike the Davvle hisself. But blast, bor! That ain’t that that travel so fast. That ain’t that that make so much row. Thass a double-cunnin b--, that is! That no sooner sets that’s eyes on me an’ the missus an’ the kids than that shruk like a hullet [owl] an’ hopped down a hole like a rabbit!’
Broadsides and Chapbooks
And certaynly our language now used varyeth ferre from that which was used and spoken when I was born.
William Caxton (1422-1491)
Although books were being printed in the fifteenth century, only the wealthiest in society could afford to buy them. Most were beyond the reach of ordinary working-class people, who rarely had the leisure time to study them, even if they could read. Many were semi-literate. For ov
er two centuries, from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century, street literature in the form of chapbooks and broadside ballads provided the basic reading matter of the poor. Chapbooks (or cheap books) were paper-covered booklets, usually of eight to twenty-four pages. The broadside ballads were printed as a single sheet of paper, folio size, and then later a narrow strip on quarto. Both chapbooks and broadside ballads were cheaply produced and poorly printed, often illustrated with crude woodcuts, but they were sold in their hundreds of thousands by specialist printers who, in the earliest days, ran their businesses from properties in London’s Seven Dials area.
The content of the chapbooks was varied: ballads, romances, folk tales, jokes, riddles, superstitions, news both true and fabricated, reports of trials, grisly murders, last dying speeches of condemned criminals, amazing wonders, sermons and whatever else the printers and hawkers thought would take the public’s fancy. Chapbooks provided the first real children’s literature and they proved an excellent means by which folklore could be distributed across Essex.
With the growth of the printing trade, some kind of control had to be introduced before the presses became too powerful. The Stationers’ Company, which was founded on 4 May 1557, became the official authority responsible for its members throughout the country, controlling the printing and sale of books and broadside ballads. Everything emanating from the printing presses had to be licensed and recorded in the Company’s registers and the appropriate fees paid. In 1588, the registration fee for a broadside ballad was fourpence.
The chapbooks and broadside ballads must surely have brightened up many lives, containing as they did not only many of the popular songs of the day but also the latest news, politics, love stories and murders. Pedlars would carry them in their packs, along with needles and pins and other necessities that countrywomen needed. The latest broadsides were pasted up in inn parlours and milkmaids pinned them on the dairy wall, where they then practised the popular songs while milking the cows. Sometimes the enterprising pedlar would offer to teach his customers the latest songs.
A medieval pedlar.
David Occomore, in his book Curiosities of Essex, writes:
Elizabethan Essex did not escape the attention of ballad singers. Henry Chettle in his pamphlet Kind Hart’s Dream of 1592, tells us of ‘idle youths singing and selling ballads, in every corner of cities and market towns and especially at fairs and markets and such like public meetings.’ Continuing: ‘Now ballads are abusively chanted in every street and from London this evil has overspread Essex and the adjoining counties.
Ballads, my masters, ballads. Will se ha’ any ballads o’ the newest and truest matter in all London. I have of them for all people and of all arguments, too. Here buy your story ballads, your nice maidens, your grave seniors and all sorts of men beside. Ballads! My master, rare ballads. Take a fine new ballad sir with a picture to ’t.
Much of the content of the topical ballads was true for the most part, but often the facts were coloured by the ideas of the writer. And, of course, a good ballad seller could convince his public that anything in print was the truth.
The seventeenth century saw no improvement in the reputation of the ballad sellers and chapbook sellers. A number were found to be disreputable and in league with cutpurses who worked among the crowds that gathered around the seller in the streets and markets. In 1649, the magistrates were instructed to flog and imprison ballad sellers and confiscate their stock. These measures, along with religious and political unrest, led to a gradual decline and later partial collapse of the ballad trade.
Victorian England saw an upsurge in broadside ballad printing that was to overshadow earlier centuries. By the mid-1800s, the output of the printing presses was tremendous. Although London had the printing monopoly, there were several small family printing firms operating in Colchester and Rochford during Victorian times. Whenever a national event became news, the presses ran day and night to supply thousands of ballad sheets which were printed, packed and distributed to the pedlars who, being so close to London, were able to be on the Essex roads by dawn. They were eagerly bought by customers and pinned up in the inns and alehouses.
The most prolific output of material from local presses in Essex was at election times. A selection of these ballads has survived, if only to remind us that elections were at one time colourful affairs. ‘New Song to an Old Tune’ was issued by Mr J.B. Harvey of High Street, Colchester and refers to the 1847 election. This ballad mentions a number of prominent political figures of the day. Joseph A. Hardcastle (1815-1899), formerly of Writtle, was MP for Colchester from 1847 to 1852. Sir John T was Colonel John Tyssen Tyrell of Boreham House, who held one of the seats for the Conservatives in North Essex. Old Sir Henry refers to Sir George Henry Smyth of Berechurch Hall, who represented Colchester from 1826 to 1830. The line in the first verse. ‘Have brought in a yellow and turned out a blue’ alludes to the colours of the parties – yellow for the Whigs (Liberals) and blue for the Tories.
New Song to an Old Tune
Good news, said Jack Nokes to his neighbour Tom Stiles,
While quaffing their ale at a house in St Giles
For we Colchester Burgesses, trusty and true
Have brought in a Yellow, and turned out a Blue
Chorus: For the Rights of our Town
Our Country and Crown,
And the rights of our town.
What’s in a Name?
Our county abounds with some interesting and curious names that appear on signposts and maps, fulfilling such an essential function in our everyday lives that we take them for granted. The 1½ million residents of Essex have almost 855,000 acres in their county and the name of every hamlet, village and town provides a folkloric clue, linking them to the heritage and history of our local landscape:
The famous Essex Hundreds map.
Willingale Doe and Willingale Spain
Bulphan and Bobbingworth, Colne-Engaine;
Wenden Lofts, Beaumont-cum-Maze, Bung Row,
Gestingthorpe, Ugley and Fingringhoe;
Helions Bumpstead and Mountnessing,
Bottle End, Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Messing
Islands of Canvey, Foulness, Potton,
Stondon Massey and Belchamp Otton;
Ingrave and Inworth and Kedington,
Shellow Bowels, Ulting and Kelvedon;
Margaret Roothing and Manningtree –
The bolder you sound ’em, the better they be.
These names, like the vast majority that appear in Reaney’s Book of Essex, have original meanings that are not at all apparent from their modern forms. That is because most place names today are what could be termed ‘linguistic fossils’. Although the names were used by our ancestors as descriptions of places, in terms of ownership, appearance, topography, use or other association, most have become mere labels, no longer possessing a clear linguistic meaning. This is perhaps not surprising when we consider that most place names are 1,000 years old or more.
A map printed in 1957 and specially drawn by Anthony New for Essex Countryside shows the ancient market towns with new towns and the twenty Hundreds of Essex, displaying a diversity of names emerging from British, Latin, Old English, Saxon, Norse and Norman French. Each of these languages has influenced the form of our existing place names and make a fascinating, but complicated, subject.
The Old English ham, in names such as Daecca’s ham (Dagenham) generally means homestead, village, manor or estate and appears in more than thirty Essex place names; ford, meaning river crossing, appears in Romford; ing means a settlement of people, as in Barking (settlement of Berica’s people); and tun or ton, as in Leyton, means farm or fenced enclosure, in this case by the river Lea. Epping was originally home to ‘the people of the upland’. Ingatestone is one of a group of parishes south-west of Chelmsford which all take their name from a tribe called the Geringas. The use of this word implies an early Anglo-Saxon settlement in the area. The word tye (common) and hatch (gate) both crop up
often, as does ley (wood or clearing).
The poet Edward Thomas loved the sounds of Essex places. He came to the county in 1915 when he joined the Artists’ Rifles and was posted to Hare Hall Camp at Gidea Park. His family came also and they lived at nearby High Beech in Epping Forest. Off duty, Thomas explored the Essex countryside on his rusty old bike. Encouraged by his friend, the American poet Robert Frost, he began writing poetry, producing beautiful poems, many of which were published after his death in 1917 at the Battle of Arras in France. One trio of beautiful poems with Essex in mind begins:
If I should ever by chance grow rich,
I’ll buy Codham, Cockridden and Childerditch,
Roses, Pyrgo and Lapwater
And let them all to my elder daughter,
The rent I shall ask of her will be only
Each year’s first violets, white and lonely,
The first primroses and orchises –
She must find them before I do, that is.
But if she finds a blossom on furze
Without rent they shall all forever be hers,
Whenever I am sufficiently rich:
Codham, Cockridden and Childerditch
Rose, Pyrgo and Lapwater
I shall give them all to my elder daughter
Old Essex Sayings and Beliefs
Despite the sophistication of this modern world, Essex folk still seem to abide by an array of old sayings and superstitions to guide their lives. Some are connected to special times and events of the calendar, and no doubt many of them are confined to the older members of the county. Yet even younger people can usually reel off a repertoire of at least a few of the sayings they learned as children.
Here are just a few superstitions, known in other counties, but collected from Essex folk around the county:
Touch wood for good luck.
If you see a single magpie, hasten to spot another (one for sorrow, two for joy!).
It’s bad luck to open an umbrella indoors.
Avoid passing a person on the stairs.