Playing Hamlet (and Other Sayings) -- by Susan Price

Wikimedia, by Bhagerathe

 I was peering into the backyard, trying to work out whether it was worth pegging washing on the line.
It probably wasn't because, as I said to my friend, "It's getting very dark over Bill's mother's."

The situation over Bill's mother's has been a concern all my life: usually, but not always, when there's a load of washing to be hung out.

My mother mentioned the darkness over Bill's mother's at least once a week. She'd heard the phrase used by her mother and, for a while, it had puzzled her a great deal, because one of her older brothers was named Bill. So, surely, her mother was talking about herself? But she'd be nodding towards the dark clouds gathering over the hills, miles away. Who was this other Bill's mother and why was her mother keeping an eye on her?

I don't suppose there's anyone in Britain who doesn't know that the phrase means, 'I think it's going to rain soon (because rain clouds are darkening the sky over there).' In the Black Country, where I was born and raised, it's claimed as 'a Black Country expression' but I know for a fact that it's used in the North too. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that even soft Southerners use it.

Who was Bill? I've been told that he was originally Kaiser Bill. Perhaps the dark, gathering clouds were originally the clouds of war, who knows? I'm not very convinced. As well try and catch a will o' wisp in a jar as pin down the origins of these odd sayings.

Another Bill might claim some ownership of another Black Country phrase: 'Playing Hamlet up.' I heard this often during my childhood too. If someone was thought to be making a fuss over nothing, exaggerating their troubles and generally being a bit of a Drama Queen, then they were said to be, "Playing Hamlet," or "Playing Hamlet up," with the sense of 'upstaging' or 'outdoing Hamlet.'

How come my family of miners, steel-workers and factory-hands knew anything about Hamlet? -- Well, for one thing, the 'Wakes' or fairs used to have small touring theatres which would, typically, put on short Victorian melodramas. An aunt had a party-piece which consisted of a one-woman potted melodrama. It went like this:--

Wikimedia: 'The Victorian Web'

Cowers, with hands clutched under chin and eyes upraised: I can't pay the rent!

Leers, while twirling imaginary moustache: You shall pay the rent!

Takes a step forward with heroic, upraised fist: I'll pay the rent!

 Besides these melodramas, the theatres put on what might be called 'Classic Digests': short versions of Shakespeare, Sheridan and, I suppose, anybody else who'd been dead long enough not to ask for payment.

So the Black Country was familiar with Hamlet but, apparently, not impressed by all his fuss. After all, Dads were bumped off fairly frequently in the old Black Country: mine accidents, steel-rolling mill accidents, foundry accidents...

I was talking with a friend, born and raised in London, about these odd little sayings, and I mentioned 'Playing Hamlet up.' That wasn't a Black Country saying, he said, because his Granny often said it, in London. He paused on a sudden thought, and laughed. "But she came from Walsall!" Which is certainly a Black Country town.

A phrase I'm fond of, and often use, is, "That's killed me pig." Its meaning is, "I'm exhausted with this task, I can't go on any longer, I have to stop and rest." I heard it frequently as a child, and still hear it now, from older friends.

Many Black Country families kept pigs in their back-yards, as their rural ancestors had done. Most of these pigs were eventually butchered and eaten, although a great-aunt of mine took to the runt of one litter, which had been born with weak, twisted legs. She splinted the legs to straighten them, and took the piglet into the house to feed it, since it couldn't compete with its brethren at the trough.

The piglet lived the life of Riley (there's another of those odd expressions.) Since houses in those days had stone-flagged or tiled floors, with a couple of rag-rugs if you were lucky, the piglet made a great din, clattering and banging over the floors on its splints and squealing, as piglets do, with a sound like iron being scraped on iron.

There was no chance that this piglet was going to share the early end of its brothers and sisters. As it grew larger, it was supposed to move into the yard and live out there -- but I'm told that if you visited my great-aunt, there was usually a very large pig grunting and snoring comfortably on the rug in front of the fire. Was it house-trained? Can you house-train a pig? They're said to be highly intelligent. Surely it must have been house-trained...

Less fortunate pigs were killed when they were deemed fat enough. It was often enough done at home, as it always had been. There were no laws, then, to prevent it. A neighbour or friend more experienced in pig-killing might be called in to help.

It's been going on a long time... Pieter Bruegel, Wikimedia

It was, by all accounts, a long, exhausting exercise. First, catch your pig...A large, strong, intelligent
animal with a fearful bite. And once caught, you had to stun the beast and... But I won't offend your modern sensibilities.

Enough to say, even once safely dead, a fattened up pig is a large, heavy animal to deal with, involving a great deal of physical effort.

And the reason it was prized and kept in back-yards, is that there was hardly a part of a pig that couldn't be eaten: so almost every bit of it had to be either preserved by salting or smoking or eaten immediately. Some would be given away, as gifts or part exchange for some goods or services. Butchering your dead pig was, therefore, a long, long, involved process that nevertheless had to be done quickly, in as few hours as possible, because no one then had home freezers or even fridges. It meant hours and hours of heavy work.

If you'd become fond of your pig, I suppose there emotional exhaustion to add to the physical.

Hence the saying, expressive of great weariness: "I've killed me pig." It's a phrase that can be played with endlessly. A friend, tired from working in the garden all day, sighed, sank down on an upturned bucket and said, "Me pig's moribund. Bring me tea."

"Me pig's pegged it... Me pig's expired... You behold a late pig... Are you coming to me pig's funeral?"

This blog's pig has breathed its last. But if you've any odd old sayings of your own, I'd be glad to see them in the comments. 

Wikimedia commons: Alan Fryer

Susan Price has won the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Fiction Award.

You can learn more about her books at her website.