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STAFFORDSHIRE SAYINGS.
STAFFORDSHIRE SAYINGS,
FROM THE NORTH-WESTERN OR "POTTERY" DISTRICT.
[Contributed to the Staffordshire Advertiser, Dec. 8th, 1877, and Jan. 26th, 1878, by Mr. G. Statham, Congleton, and a correspondent from Hanley.]
All of a spinning=all alike.
As bad as Swath Hoome (=Hulme), who was two hours getting his shirt on, and then he didna do it right. [Used in rebuking dawdling and clumsiness.]
Booked for Bucknall=going to be married. [Hanley people formerly preferred to be married at Bucknall Church. Both places were originally chapelries in Stoke-on-Trent parish. Bucknall was erected into a separate district in 1807, Hanley not till 1827. Probably the fashion and the saying arose in the interval between the two events.]
Fly round by Jackson's end=make haste. Often used by mothers when sending their children on errands.
Going over Yarlet Hill=going to gaol, because the road to Stafford from the north of the county lay over Yarlet Hill.
Hanging Jos=eating before the appointed time. "Mothers when putting up children's dinners to take with them to school, or to their place of employment, often give the injunction, 'not to get hanging Jos.' 'He's hanging Jos' is a remark often made on a potworks when any one is seen to be mortgaging on what has been packed up for his dinner."
I shall go to Leek out of the noise. "This saying is of Congleton origin, and arose through a murder committed a hundred years ago outside that town by a man named Thorley, whose body was gibbeted on West Heath. The deed caused great excitement, and Thorley, hearing people all round him talking about it, uttered the words named, which from that
