Here's some to start us off!
‘If you can’t see it don’t ask for it, we haven’t got it.’
‘Go to Weston Underwood for that.’
‘Dirty shoes, dirty all the way up, and down again.’
‘If you’re sitting down, get up and black the grate.’
‘Cats and grates can’t be too black, nor can’t bedrooms.’
‘There’s only one thing newspapers is good for. Wrappin fish in.’
‘Books? What do you want books for? I can think up for myself things that have never happened, no, nor never will.’
‘You should wear the step out by washing not walking. There’s some as never do it and I know where they are going when they die. They’ll be doin’ the Devils step and that’s as big as here to Northampton.’
‘You don’t need no light on for talkin’.’
‘When you’re blackin’ and washing think of what’s comin’. Darnin’.’
‘If you can’t darn, I suppose you can still eat.’
‘Peel thick and you’ll be at the Town’s End and the workhouse.’
‘When the grate’s lit and you haven’t got hot water, chuck money away.’
‘There’s a chair each ‘aint there? What? Do you want the Methodists in?’
‘In Weston Underwood they buy special sticks to light the fire. Special sticks! What’s dried orange peel and the bellers for?’
‘Get out of the way while I’m manglin or you’ll be six foot long shortly.’
‘It’s boiled mutton that’s why the fat’s yeller. There’s plenty crying out for yeller fat.
‘The black bits on the ‘tatoes are the goodness.’
‘You’re more trouble than a waggon load of monkeys.’
‘The Devil will catch you idle, then you’ll have hairy trousers.’
‘Taste funny? Go to the workhouse, their jelly tastes very funny. It don’t taste of nuthing cos they don’t have it, nor don’t they have cake instead.’
‘No, they don’t always have bread with their afters in Weston Underwood, more’s the pity.’
‘Shop at the International! All striped aprons and a penny on everything for the bowin’ and scrapin’.’
‘Chucked a sack away! What’s he a millionaire all of a sudden.’
‘Next best thing to a kettle of boiling water is a pan of boiling water, and the next best thing to that is a clout round your head with the copper stick if you don’t stop all this talkin’.
Peter
I know you have seen the picture of Granny Perkins before, but the image is necessary to complete the impression you have just built up of her after reading the above!
