MARY'S BIT or GEORDIE REGGAE? AYE, IT'S A THING!
I've been known to declare I speak three languages -- English English, American English, and
Geordie, the dialect of Newcastle on Tyne and, some say, Gateshead across the river. Ruined Stones, our second Grace Baxter novel, being set during Second World War Newcastle necessarily used the local terms in various characters' conversations. Ever helpful, we provided a brief glossary of terms used, and I was reminded of this when a friend in England asked me if Mr Maywrite was learning to speak Geordie.
But it didn't end there! Dear me, no. Not long afterwards the same friend wrote to say she had asked Gary Hogg, presenter of The Geordie Hour, to play something for Eric and I and that it would be broadcast the following week. And what is the The Geordie Hour you may ask? Well, it's an hour-long broadcast on Radio Tyneside's hospital radio network, and it's devoted to music by local musicians or those who are not from the area but have some connection to it. They also occasionally broadcast area stand-up comics or recitations after the fashion of Stanley Holloway, but with a local flavour.
Speaking of flavour, a couple of Sundays ago the programme played a Geordie reggae rendition of The Banana Boat Song, in which the chorus advises the singer he would get wrong if he divint gan eeyem (translation: he'll get in trouble if he doesn't go home).
Artists played includes not just the famous but also names unfamiliar to me, including Holy Moly & The Crackers, Pons Aelius (a nice nod to the city's Roman roots), and the Toy Dolls, whose James Bond Lives Down Our Street really ought to be nominated for the Rock Song Title Hall of Fame, if such there be. Mean to say, can programme listeners really see 007 catching the number 32 bus, though doubtless he would do it in style.
Adding to the fun for me is hearing the familiar accent again. Some experts reckon its roots are in the Scandinavian and Germanic languages spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, and others opine there was a strong Celtic and Norse influence on its development. Which may well be so but alas, for the fleeing sands of time! My family in England have been known to observe I am losing my accent. True, at times it's been thought to be Scottish or (oddly to my ear at least, no pun intended) even Australian, when it isn't being guessed as demonstrating New England origins. However, if any subscribers have an interest not only in the programme content but also in hearing purer Geordie than mine -- and why not, given those accents were voted the most appealing in the country a decade or so back? -- the Hour is broadcast at 5 pm on Sundays their time and repeated on the following Wednesdays at 9 pm. We listen courtesy of the intertubez but there are several others options as listed here:
https://www.radiotyneside.co.uk/f18/main/pages/howtolisten.php
On that particular Sunday we were surprised to hear not one but three call-outs to us during the course of the programme. And the recording Gary played for us as the Hour ended? A brass band performing Tyneside songs. Their selection included the city's unofficial anthem Blaydon Races, which relates the eventful journey of a crowded omnibus gannen (going) along Scotswood Road to visit the titular races. At one point the fast-moving bus loses a wheel, resulting in an accident causing some riders to have broken noses and ribs. Local landmarks are noted as the bus belts past them, including the Armstrong factory as it was known in 1862, the year in which the song is set and thus well before its merger with Vickers.
It was a particularly appropriate choice, because the street in which the Reed family lived ran down to that very road, debouching opposite the Vickers-Armstrong canteen. So the lyrics and that particular recording of Blaydon Races also evoke memories of Sunday mornings, when four or five Salvation Army members playing brass instruments would come around regularly to play on street corners, including ours.
NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER
That faint clicking you hear is either death watch beetles at work in the antique timbering of Maywrite Towers or the sound of the BSP ticker idling, for there is but one item of news this time.
We have been experiencing some bother getting the August Orphan Scrivener distributed, and even now we are not certain it was actually transmitted. So if any subscriber did not receive that issue, they may like to point their clickers to our website, where it can now be read at
http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/tos118.htm
ERIC'S BIT or I LICKED THE STAMP HABIT
A few days ago I picked up a sheet of the new postage stamps commemorating the first moon landing. I asked for them because I liked the way they looked and the milestone they depicted, not because I am a collector.
In my wild youth I did have a brief fling with philately but nothing came of it. Yes, I licked my stamp habit. I couldn't tell you what became of my album, or even whether it was a Harris or a Scott. Collecting has never appealed to me, especially when it mostly entails looking through catalogs and spending as much as you can afford to accumulate things. But that may be because I could never afford to spend much.
My dad collected stamps and succeeded in getting me interested for a while. Those old bits of printed paper commemorating ancient events and personages long dead were fascinating and educational. As a child I had never heard of the Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi, or the Columbian Exposition or Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. Also, the commonest stamps could be had very cheaply.
To be honest though what fascinated me most were the eccentric varieties of postage. I liked the stamps which were relegated to the back of album, stamps I'd never have reason to see, like registered and certified delivery postage.
Foreign countries produced the most exotic stamps. Tonga's banana shaped stamp for example, or the rose scented stamps issued by Bhutan years after my interest had waned. Bhutan also put out a stamp which, when placed on the phonograph, played the country's national anthem. Serious collectors abhorred this sort of thing and for good reason. They weren't real stamps in the sense that they were intended to be used for postage. They were printed outside the issuing countries to be sold to collectors and probably never graced an envelope in Bhutan or Tonga.
One set of stamps was issued by the American owners of Kaulbach Island in Canada. They were only to be used to prepay the cost of a carriage service that operated between Kaulbach Island and Chester, Nova Scotia. The bottom of each sheet of Kaulbach Island stamps provides the following instruction: "Not valid for the carriage of mail by the Canada Post Office. To be used only in the Kaulbach Island Local Carriage Service and may be placed only on the back of envelopes. Use Canadian postal stamps on all mail for posting in Canada."
I guess Mary and I could issue stamps to be used only for the transport of mail from our local post office to Casa Maywrite.
AND FINALLY
Thus ends this All Banana Issue, so we'll close by reminding subscribers that, courtesy of the seemingly magical and invisible machinery we know as the intertubez, we shall reappear in subscribers' in-boxes on December 15th.
See you then!
Mary R & Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, to be found hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/ There you'll discover the
usual suspects, including more personal essays, a bibliography, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. It also hosts the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!
Meantime, our joint blog, largely devoted to reviews of Golden Age of Mystery fiction, lurks about at http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/ Intrepid subscribers may also wish to know our noms des Twitter are @marymaywrite and @groggytales. Drop in some time!
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