"L.B.S.C." and the words he used.

One of those nights/mornings after discovering that a CB had tripped after I went horizontal last night, following a number of power dips earlier, putting the plugs circuit out of action.

Time for a mug of traditional Ovaltine and catch up on reading 'Ours', and I'm always taken by Curly's use of words/sayings in his 'Shop Shed & Road' series.

Volume 55, No. 1320 p203:

"Mr. Sharpshins" - a clever person?

Origin?

He describing someone thus, who says " Oh! should it ? " when Curly wrote "Everything which is worked from the cab of a big engine should be ditto on its small sister"

Edit 1:

Another over the page:

. . . 'but he hasn't caught me bending, all the same' . . .

Response to friend Sharpshin's query about cab operated loose eccentrics.

Edit 2:

. . .'make some of the " blesses " scratch their heads and ponder', . . .

Edit 3: Last one for now as going back to bed

jimmy - as in . . . 'put a jimmy in the blastpipe' . . . I know what it does and not much else, although frowned upon by management.

Geoff - TIG work on trolley jack yesterday

Edited By OuBallie on 15/05/2015 04:39:15

Edited By OuBallie on 15/05/2015 04:45:11

Edited By OuBallie on 15/05/2015 04:54:38

Hi Geoff,

I'm sometimes intrigued by LBSC's use of colloquialisms from earlier times. One that really had me going was, 'I don't give a Continental', used like we might say, 'I don't give a monkey's'. I was looking for something in locomen's cockney rhyming slang, probably rude, but then I thought to google it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_American_currency

It turns out a Continental was a paper American dollar issued around the time of the American Revolution, which quickly became thought of as worthless.

So much for my dirty mind!

Regards,

John.

One of the appeals of his writing is that he uses a lt of terms that were possibly slightly obscure at the time - enough that a reader might have to get to the meaning from the context, or he uses words in slightly unfamiliar ways. Solving even minor puzzles gives you a little endorphin boost and I am sure that is why writing in this conversational style is more enjoyable than dry description. I suspect that he would have made a good novelist given his ability to spin a yarn.

'jimmy' - jiggle, bend a little to make it straight. Possibly related to 'jemmy' - a short pry bar much beloved of burglarisers.

'blesses' - My guess - you look at a child doing something cute such as trying to imitate an adult and say 'bless', so...

A lot of his references are literary/biblical and are now drifting into obscurity partly because we now get our cliches from film and TV. For example - 'the laws of the Medes and Persians' is from the old testament - any law set by their king could not be changed, ever, so he used this expression when challenging what he saw as dogma.

Neil

I certainly remember my Granfather using the term "Sharpshins" it seemed to be applied to a quick thinking - highly responsive person. (Pretty much ruled me out).

Edited By V8Eng on 15/05/2015 09:07:47

It seems that 'sharpshins' is the American term for a sparrowhawk or other small raptor, which makes sense.

Neil

Inspector Meticulous is a favourite of mine.

Inspector Meticulous was, IIRC, a reference to one of the ME contributors of the time. It's certainly entered Model Engineering vocabulary!

As he was a Freemason, he often referred to people as Bro. - as in Bro Wholesale (Was that Noel van Raallte of Bursledon?) and Bro. Coopie, who kept chickens. I seem to recall "Tubal Caine" being picked up by LBSC in a letter by Tom Walshaw; whether it was his or an ME typo I don't know, but LBSC referred to him thereafter as "Bro Tail-lamp" - referring to the extra "e" at the end of Tubal Cain's name.

What a character, though. What can you say about a chap who would pull his own teeth out after his dentist retired?

hi nigel,

on what evidence do you state 'LBSC' was a freemason?

i am not aware of any such evidence.

cheers,

julian

I agree with you Julian, I've never seen any connection between Curly and Freemasonry, although in his day it was very much a secret society and you would have to know someone very well before he would admit to being a member. 'Bro' is much more likely to have a trade union connection.

Neil, A jimmy is a device that drivers would fit across a locomotive blast pipe to improve the draft. Most were made by the shed fitters for a small consideration. The drivers would never leave a locomotive with a jimmy in place because the use was a disciplinary offense, hence being frowned upon by management.

Eddie

Curly's freemasonry is discussed in Brian Hollingsworth's biography, particularly with reference as to whether his cross-dressing would be an issue (apparantly not).

Rod

This article may be of interest.

MichaelG.

AKA, a Continental buck.

Thanks Hopper, I've learnt something else!  So I was right to have a dirty mind! 

Also I think 61962 has hit it with the trade union use of 'Brother'. I've worked on the railway all my life, and locomen would often address each other as 'Brother', although it was mostly done in an arch, slightly tongue-in-cheek way. LBSC would have encountered this in his young days as a railwayman.

Regards,

John.

Edited for an appropriate emoticon. 

Edited By OldMetaller on 16/05/2015 06:55:57

The name changing is not really unusual. My maternal grandmother was 'Maureen' and it was only found on her death in the 80s that her real name was 'May'. Her father in law (my great grandfather) lived under the name 'Leonard Davies' but on his death (in the mid 60s) it transpired thAt the real Leonard Davies was shot in London. Police found papers for both Davies and his cousin 'Grocutt' who had disappeared at the time of the murder under the bedroom floorboards.

That's just scratching the surface ... you couldn't make it up...

Neil

Not LBSC, but colloquilism's - my Grandfather who was a plant fitter who used to exclaim "Flea Roast!" at moments of exasperation at something going wrong in his workshop (alternately with "Blood and Sand!", which was in general use when I was growing up). My Dad hasn't a clue what it meant nor where it came from -

Steve

Part of my family tree is Mathieson, perhaps they were related to Curly, although the came to NZ in the 1840/50s.

Ian S C

On the subject of colloquialisms, one I remember from my childhood was 'Cheese and ricecakes!', often spoken with passion after bashing one's shin!

Regards,

John.