Mum's evasive answers to my questions.

My Granny used to say 'Shit and sugar' in response to 'What's for dinner?'. She was a naughty Granny who was always telling us to swear.

@Gillybob - There was a music-hall song, 'Keep Your Hand On Your Ha'penny'! No doubt the saying came first.

When we didn't have bread and pullet, we often had bread and scrape...

I was always told if I pulled faces "you'll stay like that". I have lots of fun pulling faces with my toddler grandchildren and they roll about laughing.

Asking for anything was always a minefield, wasn't it?

'Them what ask don't get .... and them what don't ask dont want'.

In other words ... the answer is 'NO'.

'Do you think I'm made of brass?'

Any spendthrift who had more money than sense was described as 'having more brass than brains'.

She might have used it vampirequeen but it isn't hers I heard it when I was little and never understood it really-we never got butter on our parsnips anyway!
We might not be normal but we must have been tough. I think even the most loving home had that element of threat. Crying, complaining and laughing all got criticism. As for pulling a face about what was happening-well "The wind will change and you'll stay like that".

If we were being annoying but not enough for a slap, Mum would threaten to snickersneeze us or tell us that we would make a parson throw his book in the fire.

One of my sayings....and I have no idea where I picked it up ...is kind words butter no parsnips. I have a feeling it may have been a Victoria Wood sketch

mrsmopp, I'm not sure I did grow up normal. Maybe I acquired the gift of levitation when I was told, 'Don't walk on that floor. I've just washed it!'

Trisher,
I too suffered with having my hair combed roughly and pulled with a comb when it was in knots. ('Ow mum, you are pulling it!!!')

Mum said, 'you will thank me when you are older. Don't you know, a woman's hair is her Crowning Glory!!

Grandma2213, I got both of these on a regular basis.

So we weren't supposed to cry and we weren't supposed to laugh either, were we!
However did we manage to grow up normal??

"If you don't stop crying I'll give you something to cry about!" was a frequent threat from my mother, bearing in mind she was usually the one to make me cry in the first place.

Also, "You'll be laughing on the other side of your face in a minute." What on earth was that supposed to mean? I did know it was another threat that soon I would be crying again though!

'What's the time?'
(Looks at wrist)
'Two hairs past a freckle!'

My granny had a similar saying, 'Pride must abide' (yes, usually while vigorously brushing the knots out of my hair!)

Think the one that always got me and which I never understood was the "Pride feels no pain" said usually when some adult was forcing a comb/brush through the tangles in my hair, or pulling it tightly into plaits, or (horrors) twisting it into rags so it would hang in ringlets when combed out. I don't care what they said-it hurt!

mrs mopp - my mum said all those things. I'd forgotten The wild woman from Borneo.

If I said when I was a little kid,

"Would I grow up would I make a good nurse, secretary, teacher etc.," mum would reply.

"You'd make them cry."

When I had my first waspie belt in the early 60s mum said I looked like a bag of worms tied up ugly.

Thanks mum

Grandma2213 Thank you for reminding me about 'dim as a TocH lamp' -my Dad used it frequently and I'd forgotten all about it.

My mum wasn't very complimentary about me either. I have thick unruly curly hair and I've been told I look like:
The wild woman from Borneo.
An explosion in a mattress factory, or
you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards.
Didn't do my confidence much good :-(

My mother used to describe stupid people as 'dim as a Toc H lamp'. As a child I used to think it was 'Tockaitch' and had no idea what it meant. Thanks to google I now know it is an Aladdin style lamp which is the symbol of the Toc H charity movement.

She also frequently said I looked like something the cat's dragged in. (I was a scruffy child!) I imagined some sort of bag you would drag a cat around in, but why you would do this I could not imagine! It was years before I realised my grammatical error ie something the cat 'has ' dragged in, not 'is' dragged in!

The other saying which confuses me to this day was 'She's no better than she should be' to describe a woman who was a bit 'loose'. What?

It means it's no use looking good if you don't act right.

What does handsome is as handsome does mean? The message in this saying has always eluded me.

We lived in Hull-Yorkshire as well, So perhaps "Well I'll go to" is of northern origin. Also remember-as a dire warning about not having a Yorkshire accent
"What's the matter?"
Answer- "Pigs in t'watter" (Pigs in the water!)

We used to have 'aughts'. I thought it meant there was nothing else. One of the men working on the farm used to say he was making 'sky 'ooks for teddy bears' if we asked what he was making.

My Gran was from Yorkshire too. She used to say "wait and see" when I asked what was for pudding.
Another one of hers was "I dare say..." when someone expressed an opinion she didn't agree with.

Funny that MamaCaz as I come from a Holmfirth family and your Gran had the same sayings as my Mum. Must have been Yorkshire-isms?

My grandma is another one who regularly said "well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!
I assumed that it was local, as she lived all her life in Holmfirth, Yorkshire. Seems not, from what other posters have said.

She also said "well, I'll go to our (h)ouse" in the same context.

The only one of the above answers that I regularly heard as a child, other than the "as old as my tongue ..." one.

If my mother couldn't remember someone's name it was 'Mrs. Oojamaflipsimebob'

FIL's favourite saying was (and MIl hated it) 'Suckme bob'.......I dread to think what he meant