LANARK-HISTORY-L Archives

From: "maryegger" <>
Subject: Shirracking, contd. - Warning: delete or read
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 15:11:54 -0700
In-Reply-To: <BAY15-F2809v8txhYmK00081f09@hotmail.com>

Aw Hen,

I was ready to pack it in and unsubscribe from this Lanark site after
the attack on my "good manners," or lack thereof, my ignoring copyright
laws (which was not so), and my "boring blethers," as pronounced by
those of a very few of the male species, until I read your latest
"golden treasure." If I unsubscribed, I, too, would miss the colour and
fabric of life in Glasgow as it was and is through your eyes, so ah'm
hingin' in therr, Jean, but if there's another attack on my
well-intentioned efforts, my "lack of" manners, and inferences that I
didn't play by the rules, ah'm outta here, for to paraphrase
Shakespeare: "He who steals my purse steals trash, but he who steals my
good name steals all that I have" ---.

My husband is American, but he loves to go back with me to visit family
in Scotland, and Glasgow in particular. When I related your story to
him about the shirracking (sp?) you gave your "insensitive" clod of a
neighbour, we shared the best laugh in I don't know how long. I
literally howled with laughter as I could just imagine you...and your
language. How LONG has it been since I heard the word "git" and the
full savour of its connotations! It was priceless, and I thank you from
the bottom of mah Glesga hert for such a day brightener.

I always thought the word shirracking (with its various spellings) came
over with the Irish to Glasgow. The reference in the Concise Scots
Dictionary I have states: Shirraghi; Shirragie; Shirraglie; Shirrochy -
contention, squabble: Shirrang: wrangle, squabble: All meaning the
same thing. It doesn't say where the word came from, but it is well-used
in Glasgow, no matter its source, and EVERYBODY knows exactly what it
means, and thankful that we've never been at the butt end of one!

I was an onlooker at only two such shirrackings when growing up in
Glasgow when one neighbour, (who shaved her eyebrows and always
pencilled them in with indelible pencil, then slaked over them with her
spittle, to form a purple line), had a big one-sided shirracking, or
"rammy," with the more "refined" neighbours because they had had the
temerity to get after her son for running over their lawn after his
fitba'. When you lived in the schemes the neighbours were very
territorial and it was worth your life to step one foot on their lawns
or retrieve your ball from their rock gardens. As one neighbour
remarked on the sidelines, but for all to hear, and obviously in
sympathy with pencilled eyebrows, "Aye, wifie, yer gerden'll be therr
when we're a' deid!" How prophetic, because the schemes and their
gardens are still there, unlike so many of the tenements, while the
neighbours are long-since dead.

The other shirracking occurred in Haddington*, East Lothian, of all
places, where my mother had gone to live with my sisters as part of
Glasgow's overspill**. One woman was gie'in' another laldy about
something, whilst everyone INSIDE the Co-op building stood around behind
the windows tut-tutting at such unseemly behaviour...I being among them!
Nobody had the nerve to go outside and try to do some conflict
management. I don't know what the squabble was between them, but as you
remarked, Jean, it was a great excuse for the weans to gather around
soaking in the volume and content, for there was no lack of words or
descriptive matter to fit the person who was the subject of her
attacker's ire. Whit an ejication that wis in the use o' the guid auld
Scots tongue! Afterwards, I wondered if the shirracker was a Glasgow
transplant, as her behaviour just didn't fit in with my image of more
"bucolic" Haddington and airts.

Anyway, thanks for such a descriptive "essay," I hope the eejit of a
neighbour's ears are still tirlin'.

Life in the tenements could be grim: My mother related how one time she
left my sister, as a baby, outside in her pram to benefit from some
sunshine in between the usual bright showers, when some eejit poured a
bucket of cold water over her! I don't know if my mother got involved
in a shirracking over that incident as I wasn't born then, but she
should have, plus called the polis!

In my own case, there was a vacant lot adjoining the tenement building
at St. James Road, just before it intersected with Stirling Road,
Townhead (all gone to make way for the University of Strathclyde and
student housing). The last of the hovels were in this vacant lot, and I
was warned never to go near them, for weren't we, a family of ten living
in a room and kitchen, more top drawer.

Aye the biddable one, I ignored my mother's warning, and was busy
playing away making mud cakes, decorated with some nice wee buttons out
of her button box, when I was the object/subject of yet another
eejit...maybe a younger brother of the first eejit who almost drowned my
sister ... as a big pailful of sand was dumped on top of my head.

Such were some of the experiences of tenement life. Mine was
short-lived as we moved away when I was five, but I am sure my older
brothers and sisters must have had many other "interesting" tales to
tell.

Notes:

*Haddington is the supposed birthplace of John Knox, the Protestant
Reformer, and Jane Welsh, wife of Thomas Carlyle. It boasts the largest
parish church in Scotland, St. Mary's "The Lamp of the Lothians." It's
a lovely spot about 20 odd miles from Edinburgh.

**Glasgow's overspill policy began around the early 1960s, before the
city and the country's population did a spiral downward. From what I
recall, it was decided that there would be a green belt encircling the
city, and that there would be no more expansion outward to gobble up the
adjoining farmland and communities in Dunbartonshire, Stirlingshire and
Renfrewshire, right on Glasgow's doorstep. As a result, places like
Haddington set up satellite plants (I THINK one was Mitsubishi), and
believe it or not, families in Glasgow were hand-picked to work and live
in Haddington, with housing provided, while Glasgow still had a
tremendous shortage of houses post-war. My two sisters, husbands and
families were among the lucky ones to be chosen to start a new life in
East Lothian, with my mother tagging along.

In turn, their Glasgow-born children married local people, and now their
children have planted their roots on the east coast, and not in Glasgow.
Which almost brings some of my family full circle, as one Anthony
Hillcoat and Margaret Wylie, potters from Northumberland, England, moved
to Prestonpans, East Lothian, in the late 1700s. In turn, their
children moved to the west side of Scotland to Greenock and Paisley. As
time went on, some of their descendants ended up in Glasgow, and this is
where my great-greats and some extended family come in.

Others of this name stayed in England, while some emigrated to Australia
and other parts of the world, including diverse places such as Hong Kong
and India.

Maisie



-----Original Message-----
From: jean smith [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 11:48 PM
To:
Subject: [LKS] Glesga Snippets


Hi List, How is this fur a snippet or an irrelevant posting.....
I live in a lovely wee area called the Murray which is in
East
Kilbride, most of you know I have my grandchildren up here at weekends
and
sometime send postings of their wisdom and sayings....
To put you in the picture my computor desk is placed right up

against my living room window which is generally opened and I msut gaze
out
this window often with tongue out and a dazed expression on my face
when I
am writing or deep in research.....
A fella recently moved in over the road who had taken deep
umbrage
at me with this practice ,,, This doughball (the man, Him,) has
processed in
his tiny mind that I am oot ti get him and the making of faces or rather
my
thinking face has incensed him to a point that he came to my window this

weekend and passed very loud rude remarks to me in quite a vicious
way.....
"Misses" said he "Do you know how ugly ye ur" yu wi yer mashed up
face
'n yer eyes constantly peering oot at me 'n ma wummin" "get a life ya
fat
git or ma missus wull be up tae put ye oot yir misery" I will not
enlarge on
his further conversation but they elaborated on my finer points in some
detail and to my disadvantage............
I at that moment had a young teenage boy up for a wee bit of a chat

concerning which Church he should attend and how to go about it...Well
if
any of ye have ever heard of the famous Glesga sherrickins, you can
imagine
how I replied..."have any of you ever tried to explain geneaology when
you
are so angry and words are tripping oot yir mooth?
A sherricking in Glasgow was the dread of all men (usually) it would

generally happen if the man stayed in the pub too long or was found to
have
commited some indiscression ....There would be the wummin arms akimbo,
feet
tapping, every window in the area opened, us weans in a wee circle round

about the couple and the fella looking furtivly around him then her
tongue
would let loose and he would be given laldie all his faults would be
explored top decible and the fella would hive to jist stawn there saying

"awe Hen noo that's enough, cumoan we'll talk aboot it at hame ."
and so on......I did not know I had this in me..... My parents would
never allow us to listen or watch a sherricking and we were always telt
ti
get up the stair when one happening.....
But did I give that dumpling it tight, whilst saying to this lovely
wee
teenager "don't listen son" then aff I was gien this edjit it again...I
am
laughing at this whole episode because this is a quiet place to live and

Saturday night brought every neighbour to their window, every wean was
called home, oh,the resemblance to the auld Glesga scenes was there.....
There wiz ah wurds tripping oot ma mooth. Trying to get the word
geneaology family research and so on spoken at the fastest Glasgow rate
was
tying my tongue in knots but I was determined to make this man
understand
that I found dead folk more interesting than him. I threw in a few wee
comments on his lack of intellegence and analytical prowess threatened
to
lay his misses oot in the best Glesga style whilst consoling my two
grandchildren who were with me and assuring the young gentleman( who was

sitting white faced clutching a Bible).. that all was well and in order
and
things would be dealt with......Whit a night...Please do not think this
is a
common occurence I have lived in this area 30 years and have never
experienced anything like it......Enough to say the man and his wife
will be
removed from their abode in due course and hopefully resettled in a
lunitic
asylum.....
NO relation to geneaologys you may say but beleive me it has...I
must
look really awful when I am thinking aboot ma ancestors and so on....So
bad
that it was taken as a challenge.....by a man with no discernable
qualities....I wonder if my greats hive a deck at ma face and hide? it
may
be my brick walls are intentionaly built by them to keep me away......
On a serious note list, I love having the space to relate my
journeys
in research to you, the ups and the downs of life here in Glasgow and of

course the sharing and finding of all our ggreats.....One person triumph
is
a shared triumph and I just love it when a lister gets a "hit" My
passion is
geneaology, my love is family and people this list meets all my needs
and
once again I thank you all for jist being
yirsells.....AwrribestfrayGlesga.....Jean Now i am aff to the diet
clinic........see ye awe later.....











Researching..McGhie, McGhee, Fulton,Small,Litterick Carnochan,Lyburn,
Loch,
Galloway,
In..Isle of Whithorn, Glasserton, Mochrum, Kirkcolm, Leswalt,
Sorbie,Kirkineer Glasgow.
Low, Barr.
In Dundee Glasgow

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• Shirracking, contd. - Warning: delete or read by "maryegger" <>