Scrumping and the name of places.

I was born in Ruislip now a suburb of London, but then a curious hybrid of John Betjeman’s Metro-land and a fast disappearing rural Middlesex. Cows regularly visited our garden and I walked to school across fields. I learned that ripe damsons are delicious, sloes look like miniature damsons, but produce horrendous mouth wrinkling and crab apples stomach ache. In common with my hungry peers this led me to a life of crime – well we never though of scrumping as a crime but a reward for being able to climb fences and trees and outrun policemen, farmers and gardeners. If caught one got a wack, a punishment that did nothing to deter us. When autumn faded and trees were bare I would save my pennies and buy a bag of apples from the local farm – indeed I can’t recall a day of my life when I did not eat an apple. Together with friends I loved standing outside the smithy munching apples as we watched a horse being shoed. The heat from the glowing furnace, whoosh of the bellows, blacksmith’s hammer beating a melody and the smoke rising from the hoof as the new shoe was seated. The smells and sounds are with me as I write and the recollection of our awe as we earnestly agreed that horses were incredibly brave animals.

The fields, farms and smithy are gone. Scrumpers no longer get a wack but a social worker or court appearance. What’s left? Well the name or rather its pronunciation. Ruislipians call it Ryeslip outsiders say Rueslip. As children we would hurrumpf like miniature old men and mutter “Foreigner” under our breath when we heard the Rue pronunciation. I think this started an interest in place names and a habit of asking someone “How do you say the name of this place?”

We just spent a week in Gloucestershire a west midlands county that borders on the counties of Worcester and Hereford. Driving northwest from London the first major city is Oxford where already the soft yellowy stone heralds the Cotswolds with its honey coloured stone villages. Turning west toward Wales one leaves the Cotswolds and enters a world of houses built of old-rose coloured brick and a few of grey stone that become more prevalent as one nears the Welsh - Hereford border.

Near our holiday cottage was the village of Pendock, which got me thinking because the prefix “Pen” is Welsh and means head or end. It interests me that language or their words can persist even when the locals no longer know where the word(s) came from. Villages and towns with the Pen prefix exist in counties bordering Wales but in northern England too. Much of lowland Scotland and northern England shared a Celtic language closely related to Welsh that died out in the 12th Century. Apart from place names the most intriguing survival is a sheep counting system still in everyday use. The number 15 is Bunfit in the Lake district, pymtheg in Welsh pymthek in Cornish and in Breton pemzek.

Welsh is enjoying a strong revival indeed some of my cousins raised their children exclusively in the language deciding that it was time enough to learn English when they went to school. Breton has not been so lucky but is closely related to Welsh. According to my mother my Taid (Grandfather) could converse with a Breton who spoke his native tongue and Taid spoke Welsh. The similarity may be like that between Dutch and German. Even with my poor German I can understand some Dutch if it’s spoken clearly (and slowly) reading is simpler.