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| Ello Me Ansum; a dialect tale (issue 52) |
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‘Ello My ‘Andsome. Ee’s some lovely to see ee (by Randle Hurley). Commost on in an I’ll put on a nice dish of tay and we can have a sit down. Some warm this week idn uh? Nice te have this drop of sunshine id’n uh? I been out and about this week, havin’ a geek round and stretchin’ me legs. You wouldn’t believe how many flowers there is out now. That blackthorn de look handsome, all they little white blossoms against they old black bushes with their git thornes. There’s loads of dafs of course but they’re goin over a bit now? Handsome lot of they snowflakes we had this year didn’ us. See ‘em did ee? Like snowdrops but bigger. All gone now but handsome while they was out they was. And down Newlyn Coombe, in the river, there’s king cups, shining gold in the silver stream. There now. Hark te me! I’m getting some poetical in me old age. And now we got they three cornered Cornish leeks out all over the place. We shall stink of onions for a month or more. You can eat they you knaw. Well just the flowers. You can put em in salads and they de liven un up handsome. I heard tell you can eat they ransoms but that’s no good te we cos there in’t none of they round ere that I de knaw of. I knaw I de go on about they flowers but I de think they’re some ‘ansome I do. That’s my little bit of a hobby that is. Have I told ee about me trying te photograph every one of the different flowers that de grow round here? I did, did I? Last year? My gar, the time de go some quick. That’s the trouble with the flowers. This time of year you de believe you got un all under control. One lot de come out into bloom and another lot de fade. But in a month or so there’s so many bustin’ out that I cain’t seem te keep up and I de get bream mazed I can tell ee. Take they hawkbits f’rinstance. Hundreds of different sorts of they there are but there idn’ much difference between ‘em and as soon as I de learn about one sort then there’s half a dozon more in the ‘edges and I de forget all about the first one. Never mind though, keep ee on yer toes it do and stop ee droppin’ dead too soon. ‘Ere, have I told ee about me new hobby? Whatee mean, ‘I have’! I haven’t told ee what ee is yet. Well, now that I got this ‘ansome digital camera, I been taking hundreds of snaps cos ee idn’ like they old Box Brownies we used to have, you have’nt got to buy no film and the shop de only charge ee for the snaps you de have printed. Whateemean ‘get on with it’! I’m goin’ so fast as I can. Don’t ee be so teasy as you are and ‘ave another dish of tea. Now, where was I? Oh ess, I been takin snaps of all the old things round about what’s disappearing as fast as they can be scat down. I was up to the top of Causewayhead when the idea come to me. I was havin’ a bit of a rest on me way home, looking round and thinking all about Market Day and all the bustle there used to be there in the old days. The Round House is still there but I couldn’t see the old horse trough that used to stand at the top of Clarence Street. Took away years ago I ‘spect but I couldn’t mind the going of un at all. And the canon’s gone from outside the Library in Morrab Road. Stole that was. Loads of things we took for granted when we was growin’ up, been slowly disappearin’ for years and if I don’t go round with me camera, taking pictures, nobody’ll knaw nothin’ ‘bout ‘em at all in a couple of years So that’s me other hobby now and ee wain’t cost me nothing more than a few pence to print off the snaps that I de like best. Funny thing is, when you de go out with yer camera, lookin’ for things to photograph, when you find them, they’re gone already! That ‘ansome butter market buildin’ down Princes Street. I went down to snap that and I forgot they scat un down some years back to build a new telephone exchange. Now that’s bein’ scat down and they’re building somethin’ else. There now, old market lasted hundreds of years and the phone buildin’ didn’ last no time ‘tall. I tell ee what! Ignore all they shop windows with their ‘two for one’ of this and ‘ten percent off that’ nonsense, and look up a bit. There’s some ‘ansome buildin’s in Penzance you knaw, still there, where nobody de look these days. After you done that, have a look down and see the old shop drushells with the old names still on ‘em. ‘Drushell?’ Don’t ee knaw what that is? Why that’s the old Cornish word for doorstep. I thought you’d’a knawed that. You sure you’re from round ‘ere are ee? Anyhow, might be somethin’ te do with ‘threshold’ I b’lieve. I noticed the drushell of that takeaway where you can get a Indian’s dinner these days (dunno what the poor old Indian’s goin’ te eat if you de eat he’s dinner!). That used te be the old CrysÈde shop that did. Ess you do knaw! They used to do that ‘ansome silk printin’ and makin’ frocks for the gentry up to London and that was their shop, top of Chapel Street. My mother used to work for they, over St Ives where they did all the printin’ and tailorin’ too. That’s how she got to be so good a tailoress as she was. I still got one of the ties she made me from CrysÈde silk. Bit bright for nowadays ee is, so I don’t wear un much. Anyhow, you haven’t got to walk very far for the next one ‘cos ees in Meeks, the furnishers, doorway, next door, and the drushell de say ‘Meeks’ too, so they must have been there for some years they must. I shall have a few more ready for ee for when you de come round next time. ìIs that all I got?î ess ee is! I knaw ee don’t take long to take a snap but as soon as I de start, then somebody what I de knaw come along and ask me what I’m doin’ of and I got te tell ‘em all what I just told you so, one way and another, I don’t get many done in a day. Then there’s people standin’ in the way and Mr Meek coverin’ up he’s sign with loads of mats so you can only see a mossel of un. I tell ee, there’s more to this ‘ere serious photography than you de think. Everythin’ got te be thought out, proper job. Then you got to tell people why you de want to take photos of their shops and explain everything all over again. I tell ee, its some hard work, proper photographin’ is. I hear tell, as how you can put yer snaps from yer digital camera on a computer and then you can work wonders with ‘em. My boy, Anthony, says as how I should get on that internet and I can have he’s old computer if I de like. He said I could join they computer courses and learn how to do un all proper and if I got stuck he’d send he’s boy round to sort me out. I said to un ‘but he’s only lebun years old, how’s ee goin’ to be able to do that’. Seem me, my grandson is a bit of a genius with they computers and de knaw more about ‘em than he’s da do and he de do ‘em for a livin’! Shall us have a go? Be a bit of a laff wouldn’uh? And if we de go wrong then we can get little Pender to call in on he’s way home from school and get us goin’ again. That Mrs Rosewarne from up the club de make me some teasy, goin’ on about what she de do on the internet. Ees about time we took she down a peg, don’t ee think? Right on my ansome. I’ll get the boy to bring the computer round and set un all up for us. I shall speak to June Harvey and ger ‘er to put our names down for a course over the institute. Mind you de come an see me next week my ‘ansom and we shall have some fun. Bye Now |