A Victorian Rude Boy

One student summer job was in a cold store as warehouseman. Bottom-of-the-heap jobs always attract some interesting characters - one of my fellow employees lived rough, sleeping on the local golf-course at night (he told me how to bend and pin down hedge branches and cover with polythene to make a sleeping place).

Another employee was a strapping, big-built girl of eighteen or nineteen, with whom another worker was hopelessly enamoured. "He sticks to her like a fly to a cow's a***", said someone in the canteen. But he stood no chance - she was having an affair with Dave, one of the forklift drivers, a wild chap built on the same heroic scale, with a wife and children at home.

Home time and Dave is clocking off on the old punch-card machine, she shouts across the room. "Dave ! Will you do me ?"

"Aye - I will tonight !" and they both roared with laughter.

They could have been the couple of cheerful pagans George Borrow met in the 1860s.

After an hour's walking I overtook two people, a man and a woman laden with baskets which hung around them on every side. The man was a young fellow of about eight-and-twenty, with a round face, fair flaxen hair, and rings in his ears; the female was a blooming buxom lass of about eighteen. After giving them the sele of the day I asked them if they were English.

"Aye, aye, master," said the man; "we are English."
"Where do you come from?" said I.
"From Wrexham," said the man.
"I thought Wrexham was in Wales," said I.
"If it be," said the man, "the people are not Welsh; a man is not a horse because he happens to be born in a stable."

"Is that young woman your wife?" said I.
"Yes;" said he, "after a fashion" - and then he leered at the lass, and she leered at him.

"Do you attend any place of worship?" said I.
"A great many, master!"
"What place do you chiefly attend?" said I.
"The Chequers, master!"
"Do they preach the best sermons there?" said I.
"No, master! but they sell the best ale there."
"Do you worship ale?" said I.
"Yes, master, I worships ale."

"Anything else?" said I.
"Yes, master! I and my mort worships something besides good ale; don't we, Sue?" and then he leered at the mort, who leered at him, and both made odd motions backwards and forwards, causing the baskets which hung round them to creak and rustle, and uttering loud shouts of laughter, which roused the echoes of the neighbouring hills.