In answering the question on Yorkshire Pudding's blog: "How much money have you got stashed away in your house and where exactly do you keep it?", I said none because my wife puts it in the didlum. Did anyone know what I was talking about? It's all right. I'm used to it.
When I was little, my mother paid each week into Nanna Fenwick's didlum. Nanna Fenwick (that's Fenwick with a voiced W) was a fearsome but trustworthy woman who lived across the back lane. Her didlum started each year around the beginning of February, and if you paid in, say, ten shillings a week, you would have about £20 when it paid out in time for Christmas. You only got back what you paid in, without interest, but it was safe from the temptation of a tin on the mantlepiece. I don't know how many people paid into her didlum, but I suppose Nanna Fenwick put it all in the Post Office and got a bit of interest herself for running it, not that there was much interest to be had anywhere then.
I guess they are too posh to have any didlums in Sheffield.
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Tuesday 17 October 2023
Didlum
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We had didlums at the place I worked in the 80s, though they were run slightly differently. Each person drew a number 1 to 52, and you received the £52 collected (£1 per person) on your allotted week. It was never good to draw one of the early numbers.
ReplyDeleteNot heard of one like that before: a cross between a didlum and a raffle.
DeleteSo is that a legitimate word or was it just made up by Nanna Fenwick?
ReplyDeleteLegitimate. A pun of course. They were once common in Northern England.
DeleteSounds like a private Christmas club, the kind stores had so people could set aside money to spend there at Christmas.
ReplyDeleteExactly, but run privately. With the store scheme you had to spend it at the one store.
DeleteOf course we have didlums in Sheffield and I am the trusted treasurer of one such scheme. How do you think we could afford to go on holiday to Sicily this summer?
ReplyDeletePlease send me your bank details so we can join.
DeleteLearned a new word today. Not sure I'll ever use it.
ReplyDeleteBut it's such a good word. There must be a way you can use it.
DeleteWhere I live in Lincolnshire it's called mutual aid.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like something different to me.
DeleteI knew plenty of didlum experts. Still plenty around now.
ReplyDeleteWe're you writing about them just the other day?
DeleteI've never heard of didlums - diddlers, yes!
ReplyDeleteNorthern humour.
DeleteI thought the electric slot meter was my money box.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder your dad encouraged you to save.
DeleteStrikingly close to 'diddums' to! Christmas clubs were a thing of the past though there are special Xmas stores where you can save up for the festival.
ReplyDeleteAnd not spend it anywhere else but in that store.
DeleteI cannot imagine trusting a neighbor to hold my money for me and give it back a year later. There is a sweetness to that scenario that is missing from today's world.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely missing. Those were the days when, if you did keep money in a tin on the mantlepiece, and everyone knew it, you could leave your house unlocked and the money would still be there a year later.
DeleteI saw it is a defined word in google, and recognized the "savings club" business by the definition. There were such clubs around as I grew up, run by schools or businesses or even individuals. I never knew of any interesting name for them. And I don't see how didlum is a pun. Help, please.
ReplyDeleteI suppose word play rather than a pun: "Diddle Them". Northern humour that they weren't to be trusted.
DeleteI don‘t know about similar saving schemes in my area, but maybe they were there before I was born, or I simply never knew of them.
ReplyDeleteAt elementary school, our class teacher ran a pocket money saving scheme for the class. It was all official with little booklets where you could stick a sort of stamp in to prove you had given the teacher money for you to save, and follow your progress. I can‘t remember how much I ever paid in or took out, but it can‘t have been more than a few pennies, since my sister and I had very little pocket money.
Did you remember to draw it out? It might be worth a whole Euro now if you didn't.
DeleteOh, you gave me a bright idea, Tasker: next year I will open up a "didlum" for the triplets. (And call it that way - they soak up English words like a sponge). Thus they learn to save a bt (though the "single" from the triplets - the others are twins - started to save in a penny bank (it plays "God Save the Queen"!) - she doesn't't need any help then :-)
ReplyDeleteIt is clear from the comments that very few English speakers know the word "didlum". It is very northern. Good luck. I do hope you are not planning to diddle them.
DeleteLate to this, but related concept in Australia was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starr-Bowkett_Society
ReplyDeleteInteresting, but it doesn't look quite the same thing. Didlums were amateur affairs.
DeleteYou are right, though one bit that caught my attention was that Starr-Bowketts fell out of favour in England because there was a bit too much diddling going on. ("How much is too much?" you may well ask. - I guess rigging the draws for the loans.
Delete