Didlum

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.

Hello, Cheeky!

Do you ever wake up in the night giggling uncontrollably about something remembered from long ago?

What set me off last night was a story from someone I worked with soon after leaving school.

At his junior school they had a class budgerigar. Its name was written on a sign on the front of its cage. It was easily detached. 

It was in the days when nearly all children walked to and from school, as did their teachers because they all lived locally. Not all cars then. The teacher used to leave her outdoor coat over the back of her chair in the classroom.

One day, she walked home with a sign saying, “My name is Cheeky”, fixed to the back of her coat.

That middle of the night giggling got me a thump in the ribs.