Fourth series, episode 24
All 156 episodes are available here on the HebWeb.
In the final episode of series 4, there's advice on frightening small children, Uncle Billy's tapeworm, a monsoon in my ear, a lump of coal in my hand, countries buying football clubs and a 3 am siren.
Awe and wonder
I lost some of my awe and wonder when I learnt that Father Christmas was my dad. Six decades later, we tried watching the BBC Christmas Carols from Halifax
Minster, but turned over to see the Nutcracker down in that London and my awe and wonder got topped up again.
The Murphy Millers came to ours and a great time was had by all.
How to frighten your kids
Play them this chilling music …
You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
He's checking it twice
He's gonna find out
Who's naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town …
In Marina Warner's No Go the Bogeyman (1998) she examined the prevalence of bogeymen, ogres and giants in popular media over the ages. Lullabies aren't just for Christmas of course and they're not always kind hearted. Here's a song collected in Lovechild's Tom Thumb's Pretty Songbook (1744):
Piss a Bed
Piss a Bed
Barley Butt
Your bum is so heavy
You can't get up.
Whilst living in Iceland, WH Auden collected a 'no nonsense lullaby':
Sleep, you black faced pig
Fall into a foul pit full of ghosts
Ancient and modern
Tis the season to be jolly, but sometimes we like something darker as we sip our mulled wine. Ghost stories spook us at this darkest time of year, and there's a bloody side to the Christmas story. Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents was a theme in medieval festivals, such as in the Coventry Mystery Play.
But if you fancy something cheerier, look to the ancients to revive your spirits. Dionysus was the Greek god of wine-making, orchards, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness and theatre. The Romans adopted Dionysus as Bacchus and Christians maintained the tradition. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the action takes place, as Judy Dench has explained, 'when The Lord of Misrule appears: mayhem reigns – with debauchery and drinking and everyone having a rollicking good time.'
In the 1970s, when hippies started buying up properties in our valley, locals gossiped that these New Age offcumdens practised pagan rituals in the remains of the ruined church at Heptonstall. Perhaps it's still happening.
Bacchanalia in Heptonstall
Welcome to our village
We like to celebrate
At Easter there's a Pace Egg
In Summer there's a Fete,
Just now we've had our Harvest,
And sometimes for a lark,
There's a bacchanalian orgy
In the graveyard after dark.
For a lark (for a lark)
After dark (after dark)
A bacchanalian orgy
In the graveyard after dark.
And at our evening classes,
There's witchcraft and – hooray -
'Air frying your placenta
For that special birthing day!'
And when your class has ended,
There's a warm up round the park,
Then a bacchanalian orgy
In the graveyard after dark.
For a lark (for a lark)
After dark (after dark)
A bacchanalian orgy
In the graveyard after dark.
When I'm 74
Recent research has found that today's older people show less rapid decline than previous generations. Data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging found that Baby Boomers display 'better physical and mental functioning than earlier generations'. 70 is the new 60. I'm actually only 64 in telomere years. Perhaps I'll finally book that cottage in the Isle of White, if it's not too dear.
A tale from the Durham coalfields
Kath's Uncle Billy had a tape worm when he was a lad and he started to waste away. So the doctor came and told her gran to bake a lovely, big meat and potato pie, oozing with flavour. Meanwhile, Billy was tied to a chair. When the pie was brought out lovely and golden brown and piping hot, and placed on the kitchen table in front of him, Billy started squirming and rocking in his chair, desperate to grab a mouthful of the pie, but the ropes held him fast. Eventually, a huge, snake like worm leapt from his mouth. The doctor threw his coat over it and wrestled it onto the fire. Then Billy was allowed to wolf down the pie!
I once shared this family legend with Michael Rosen. He knew a different version, where the tapeworm's head appeared from a different orifice, looked round for a moment and then the doctor whacked him on the head with a hammer.
Lend me your ears
I had my free hearing test and said to the audiologist, I'd never had tinnitus. But blow me down now I've got a slightly distant but perpetual monsoon in my left ear. Not the shrieking din that's PW's constant, unwanted companion, more like the drenched atmospherics of a tropical jungle but without the animal noises.
The tests showed I was losing high frequency sound. I looked at my test photographs and saw what looked like amber syrup in my ears, which reminds me of an incident a few years ago. Note the perfidious role of my editor in the following true tale!
A few years back, there were news report of a drone buzzing over one of our airports. Planes were grounded for several days …
Play for Today
The scene: a domestic interior in Hebden Bridge
Joan* What's the name of the airport where that drone attacked?
Frank: Gatwick.
Joan: No, it's not Stansted.
Frank: Gatwick.
Joan: Cat wee?!
George: Fucking Gatwick!
Joan starts laughing. Her shoulders heaving, she wipes tears from her eyes. She finally calms herself, but when Frank tries to say something else she looks up at him and that starts her off again. After several attempts, Frank gives up.
*The character known as Joan points out that she has a slight hearing loss and might ask the esteemed Editor of HebWeb to name and shame 'Frank', if he doesn't watch his step.
(From Murphy's Lore (2020), now available once more from The Bookcase)
Books we bought
Kate bought me Orbital, Samantha Harvey's Booker prize winner. Despite enjoying the reams of fascinating data and delightful conjuring up of imagined views through the Space Station's windows, I felt I was being lectured. The six astronaut characters floated off somewhere and I couldn't get them back. Too much tell, not enough show. My friend, the Tod poet Theresa Sowerby agreed.
'I read it when it first came out. Prepared to be carried away but rather left in the lift off zone. Some great descriptions of Earth but then repeated. I wasn't convinced by the highly poetic claims. Get out A Christmas Carol & cavort with some ghosts.'
Good advice, although when the day came I found what I needed from Gavin and Stacy and Wallace and Gromit. I especially enjoyed the gnomic asides for adults in the Nick Park film.
I bought Kate, Shakespeare: the Man who Pays the Rent, Judy Dench's descriptions of her craft, which also acts as a refresher for readers. After she'd read it, I put aside Orbital and grabbed the great actor's memoire, in which she explains the significance of directors, stage designs, the company, the costumes and how she arrives at her own understanding of the bard's intentions (the latter by cogitating over her part in private). The other night I read Judy's reflections past midnight. As soon as I put the book down the monsoon in my ear returned
Nation States and football clubs
Having been temporarily laid low by influenza, I decided to watch the Monday night soccer match between Manchester United and Newcastle United. According to The Guardian, top clubs have urged the government to introduce measures preventing nation states from acquiring ownership stakes. This may become part of the mandate for a newly established independent football regulator. This followed the high profile takeover of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF). Meanwhile, Manchester City are owned by the Abu Dhabi-based Anan investment company for the royal family, which is owned by Sheikh Mansour. Meanwhile many of the Premier League clubs, including Liverpool and Manchester United have billionaire American owners.
New Year memories
Throughout the 50s we watched Andy Stewart's tedious Hogmanay show on the telly. Then, as the cameras flashed to Big Ben edging past 5 to 12, I was sent outside with a lump of coal and a shilling in my pocket, ready to bring in the new year. When I went inside I got my only hug of the year (my parents didn't want to make me soft).
On New Year's Eve 1999, the Craggs of Cragg Head had a party. Someone in the jovial company turned the electricity off at 12, causing screams and consternation. The Millenium bug had bugged us! Then he turned the lights back on. I joined a big ring of in laws for Auld Lang syne but had to break away, wafting the air, after emitting a silent but pungent fart. This event was captured
on a home video recording, copies of which I have tried to destroy. Then we all went outside to watch the firework displays flare up along the coast.
This year, I got out of my sick bed, had a glass or two of wine, watched the fireworks on the telly but was sound asleep when the flood sirens blared at 3.15 and PW moved the car to higher ground.
Readers Write
On Uncle Billy and the tapeworm, from Kath's cousin:
Val Dutson: Well, I used to tell that story to people and they believed me. I don't think anyone believed me when I used to go to the shop on my own when I was just over one, they thought I was making it up.'
Kath replied, "She was two." So no problem Val. And your mum gave you a note.
From Jenny Shepherd,
Hi George
We chatted briefly at the Stronger Together to Stop Calderdale Windfarm stall in St George's Square on Saturday 14th Dec, where campaigners were collectin signatures to a letter to Calder Valley and other MPs, that asks them to urge the government to ban windfarms on protected peatland as part of their reforms of onshore wind planning regulations.
I'm glad to see your HebWeb piece about the Calderdale Wind Farm proposal, but it's not correct to say "the scheme is backed by funding from a Saudi Arabian government attempting a high profile greenwash before hosting the 2034 World Cup."
In fact the developer's company, Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd, is funded by an unsecured repayable loan provided by a Saudi company, Al Gihaz Constructing - not the Saudi Arabian government.
Al Gihaz Constructing is a subsidiary of global Saudi investment company Al Gihaz Holding.
This info is in Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd's annual accounts on the UK Companies House website. There is a detailed account of the money behind the project, on the Stronger Together to Stop Calderdale WIndfarm website, in case of interest. Here's the link
My second point is that although at the stall you "defended the Labour councillors and our MP, formerly a councillor, by explaining that, when formally considering the Whirlaw application, councillors must be seen to impartially weigh its merits and demerits, otherwise their decision might be subsequently thrown out in the courts, which would be an expensive outcome", in fact Stronger Together to Stop Calderdale Windfarm has not asked Councillors or MPs to oppose the application, if/when it is eventually made. I don't know if whoever you were talking to at the stall told you about this, but it is the case.
Instead, we are asking all councillors and MPs, on a cross-party basis, to support our campaign to get the government to increase existing protections for protected peatland in the National Planning Policy Framework. This is something the government are considering doing, and it was supported by 90% of respondents to the government's recent public consultation on proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework.
Our ask if that the government does this by completely banning wind farms on these locations, through removing existing exemptions/derogations which make it possible for developers to override the existing protections.
If you'd like any more info about the proposed windfarm and the Stronger Together to Stop Calderdale Windfarm, please follow the campaign website and/or send me any questions/ comments you may have,
Best wishes,
Jenny Shepherd
Chris Ratcliffe: regarding my flu: "Hope you'll be sprinting along the canal again very soon."
And from us …
Best wishes from PW and me for a great 2025. I'm taking a short break from Murphy's Lore but will be performing Hot Times in Upper Calder at The Folklore Centre in Todmorden on Saturday, 8th February from 4pm.
Murphy's Lore, the book, is available to order here
If you would like to send a message about this piece or suggest ideas, email George Murphy
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