# Life In Old England



## SueM (Jan 23, 2004)

Life In Old England

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly 
bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, 
they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers 
to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a 
bouquet when getting married. 

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the 
house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other 
sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of 
all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually 
lose someone in it. Hence the saying, 
"Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water".

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood 
underne ath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all 
the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. 
When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals 
would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying . 
"It's raining cats and dogs".

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.. 
This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other
droppings could mess up your nice clean bed . Hence, a bed with 
big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. 
That's how canopy beds came into existence. 

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.
Hence the saying, "Dirt poor". The wealthy had slate floors that 
would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh 
(straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, 
they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would 
all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the 
entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold".

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that 
always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added 
things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and! did not get much 
meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the
pot to get cold over night and then start over the next day. 
Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. 
Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas 
porridge in the pot nine days old".. 

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite 
special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon 
to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home 
the bacon". They would cut off a little to share with guests and 
would all sit around and "chew the fat".

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid 
content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead 
poisoning> death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for 
the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. 

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt 
bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the 
top, or the "upper crust". 

Lead cups were used to drink al e or whisky. The combination 
would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. 
Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and 
prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table 
for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat 
and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the 
custom of holding a wake. 

England is old and small and the local folks started running out 
of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would
take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When 
reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have 
scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying 
people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, 
lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a 
bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night 
("the graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could 
be, "saved by the bell" or was considered a ..."dead ringer".


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## MarineFish (Mar 6, 2006)

wow sue thats great i have learned all i need for one day now....


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## dolphinkid (Jan 26, 2006)

*lol thats awsome sue! thanks for sharin!! :mrgreen: *


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2006)

that';s really cool. except the stuff about bathing, which is very disgusting. I knew they didnt bath often, but i didnt know it was annually. :shock: lol


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