The English Facts of life, death and everything . . . . . .

Most people used to take their yearly bath in the month of May. They usually married in June because they still smelled fairly clean then. Brides who started to smell carried a bouquet of flowers to hide their body odour.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the first bath and the clean water. He was followed by all the other sons and men. Finally the women and children were given the bath. Babies were bathed last of all.
After all the baths were taken the bath water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Consequently, the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.

Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets – dogs, cats, mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained the thatch became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Consequently, the saying, “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

Thatched roofs prohibited nothing from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. So, they found if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Consequently, the origin of beautiful big four poster beds with canopies.

Beds were made of a wood frame with ropes stretched between the frames creating a rope lattice on which to sleep. Before retiring for the night is was common to retighten the rope lattice. Hence the saying “sleep tight”.

Typically the floors were dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, Consequently, the saying “dirt poor.”
The wealthy had slate floors, which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside.
A piece of wood was placed at the entryway, consequently, a “thresh hold”.

They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Everyday they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn’t get much meat.
They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had Been in there for a month. Consequently, the rhyme ” peas porridge hot, peas, porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.”

Sometimes a poor family could obtain pork and would feel really special when they could afford it. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man “could really 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 a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food causing lead poisoning. This occurred most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes. . . for 400 years.
Most people didn’t have pewter plates, but had trenchers – a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get “trench mouth.”

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

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them 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. Consequently, the custom of holding a “wake”.

England is very old and quite small, and started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and reuse the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside.
They realised they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and 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 to listen for the bell. Consequently, on the “graveyard shift” someone would hear a bell and know that someone was “saved by the bell” or he was a “dead ringer” .

http://www.richmondancestry.org/did.html

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