Two West Dorset pubs in ‘miniature masterpiece’
THE ILCHESTER ARMS in Symondsbury and The George in Charmouth both feature in Local Life, a 1982 film about the pleasures of pubs that has recently been re-issued by the BFI and acclaimed as “a miniature masterpiece”.
Local Life is the last piece on Roll Out The Barrel, a 2-disc set of films about British pubs. All of the films were made between 1944 and 1982 but they zig-zag through more than a thousand years of history.
Local Life is described as “a miniature masterpiece… a truly touching surprise” by Patrick Russell, Senior Curator (Non-Fiction) at the BFI National Archive.
Writing in the booklet accompanying the DVDs, Mr Russell adds: “Had Local Life been made 40 years earlier it might well be remembered as something of a classic. As it is, it’s a glorious anachronism for 1982.”
By “glorious anachronism” Mr Russell means that Local Life is tastily reminiscent of the heyday of British industrial filmmaking. But what’s also striking is how much longer-ago the people in the film do look.
When I first saw it, I didn’t know when it was made, and I would have put some parts ten or even twenty years earlier, especially perhaps the bits in Cornwall (I recognised Port Isaac straight away).
But on second viewing there are more tell-tale signs of the early Eighties, such as a few interpretations of the once world-conquering Lady Di hairstyle.
From bousing to boozing (via twiddick)
The George in Charmouth is included primarily for a fancy-dress charity fun run, up The Street and down to the sea, where buckets are filled up with haste and water, and participants then dash off again.
The Symondsbury Mummers can be seen performing in the car park of the Ilchester Arms in Symondsbury, with people watching.
The excerpt shown is from Part III of the Symondsbury Mumming Play, featuring Tommy the Pony – actually, the actor who plays the King of Egypt also appearing as a hobby horse.
The script below is taken from the version of the play printed in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Dec., 1952), pp. 1-12
BET: You can’t sit him Jan.
JAN: You just get off. I’ll soon see wh’er I can sit him or no.
(Bet gets off and Jan gets on the Pony)
JAN: Gee up, Tommy. Gee up, Tommy.
BET: You can’t sit him. Kick, Tommy.
JAN: Gee up, Tommy. Gee up, Tommy. I’ll see wh’er I can sit him or no.
(Tommy throws Jan off and kicks him. Jan gets up and knocks Tommy down)
BET: You naughtly old rogue. You have killed my pony, you have you old rogue.
JAN: What did’st bring that kicking thing in here for?
To kick a man’s brains out ? Tell’ee what we’ll do, Bet
We’ll have a leaf-twiddick and bouse him up
BET: Bouse you up, you old rogue.
The word ‘twiddick’ isn’t in the complete Oxford English Dictionary - it’s a West Dorset word! – and no one I’ve spoken to can say exactly what a ‘leaf-twiddick’ would look like, or how exactly it would work, but the general sense is clear and it must mean something along the lines of twiddle, or twirl, or twist.
The word ‘bouse’ is included, although the Symondsbury Mumming Play isn’t cited. The first meaning given – from 1593 – is ‘to haul with tackle’. But ‘to bouse up’ also means ‘to drink heavily, to make oneself tight’ – that is, to booze, as we now say – so there is a play on words between Bet and Jan.
A ‘bousing ken’, incidentally, is thieves’ slang for ‘a low alehouse’.
As soon as you start to look into these things you can find yourself getting into all sorts of the ken-marks* of British life.
Which, of course, is the final point about pubs.
As another of the pieces in the Roll Out The Barrel booklet says, the most abiding impression left by Local Life is “the sense of connection… According to research recently released by CAMRA, the pub is still, some 30 years on from the making of Local Life, a core part of British identity for more than three-quarters of Britons.”
*ken-mark – ‘a mark by which a thing may be recognised’