The 2 O'clock Horses

[Smiffy49 590]

When I was a lot younger than I am now visiting relatives would often come up to say goodnight after bedtime and upon leaving to go downstairs they used to say "go to sleep quickly before the 2 O'clock horses get you" or similar words to that effect.

 

Anyone know the origins of this or what it actually means?

[catfan 14,793]

Yep, we were threatened with that also !

Don't forget "The Bogeyman" either, another threat !

[plantfit 7,580]

night soil collectors,theres a thread somewhere on here,I think it's called 10 oclock horses,Cliff ton will know

 

Rog

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

Yes, my grandfather, born 1883, used to say the 10 o'clock horses would come and get me if I didn't go to bed! He well remembered the night soil men. I wasn't scared of them but I was petrified of Wee Willie Winkie!

[Smiffy49 590]

Thanks for those replies. I suppose 10 o'clock sounds more like what they said as 2 o'clock is a bit late for bed.

Not heard of the night soil men!! Sounds even scarier!!

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

#5

 

Around 10 years ago, I spent some weeks recording the childhood memories of two elderly friends who lived in a small village here in Derbyshire, now both passed on. In their young days, the toilet was an earth closet which, among the occupants of cottages, was often shared.  The night soil men would come to empty them and one friend recalled how they would often stop for a break and eat their sandwiches! Without washing their hands first! Where was elf and safety back then, eh.

 

My great aunt Emily who lived in Garden Street had a favourite saying: "You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die!"  If you actually look into it, a peck is an awful lot!  

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

I've just remembered that my mother, who was born in 1926, often went to stay with her great aunt Annie who lived in a tiny cottage on Chapel Lane in Lambley. Great aunt Annie was the mother of Emily who lived in Garden Street.

 

Annie's cottage had no bathroom or indoor toilet and no gas or electricity. The loo was an earth closet right down at the bottom of the garden. Mum hated it! At night, they used a chamber pot which was emptied into the earth closet the next day. Brave souls went down the garden after dark with a lantern.

 

Mum remembered the cart, drawn by a horse, and the men who came to empty the buckets under the wooden seat!  Last time I went to Lambley, the little building at the bottom of the garden was still there but the cottage had been ruined!

[NewBasfordlad 3,599]

I can quite clearly going to visit some of dads relatives in Hucknall so it would be about 1956.

 

They lived in a line of cottages set at right angles to the road opposite the pit as you enter Hucknall. Gas lighting, battery radio and a earth toilet at the bottom of the garden. Strange thing was it was a double seater, never did work out what that was for.

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

#8

 

Some of the seats had different sized holes..ie, one for adults, one for children!  

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

#6

 

The elderly female friend who allowed me to record her childhood memories told me that, as one of 10 children, she and her parents lived in a 2 bedroomed cottage next to the village pub. The family and the pub shared the same earth closet. Once the pub was open at night, the female children were not permitted to use the earth closet and had to go in a tin bucket in the house instead. She was so embarrassed about this, she didn't want to tell me! Her mother was concerned about the possibility of the pub's inebriated customers assaulting her daughters.  Apparently, the back door was locked to stop the drunks blundering into their home!

 

The cottage was demolished many years ago and the site now forms part of the pub car park. Toilets are now inside!

[Smiffy49 590]

On this subject of past times and a long gone world that we all accepted as commonplace. I've just read a lovely book called "Great Meadow"(An Evocation) by Dirk Bogarde (yes, the film star) Although not set in a city like Nottingham the pages describe some of those everyday saying and things from a different era that no history book could ever bring to life. It's about his early memories of living in a remote cottage in the Sussex Downs. A quote from a review of the books states:- "Bogarde writes with a love for his vanished world that is undisguised and unmistakable. He has brought back a land of lost content, and its lamps still shine"

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

#11

 

Yes, there are some very evocative memories in such books. A favourite of mine is The Country Child by Alison Uttley who was born and grew up on an isolated farm near Cromford in Derbyshire. Long before I went to school, I learned to read through Uttley's stories and love them still.

 

Despite her talent as a writer, she was from all accounts, a very difficult, controlling and opinionated person who made a lot of enemies. In later life, she lived in Beaconsfield and her grave is in Penn churchyard, not far away from our new member, Hubris.

[Cliff Ton 10,458]

Alison Uttley - that brings back memories.

 

The 'Little Grey Rabbit' stories are the first books I can remember being aware of at infant school. At the Greencroft Infants' School Library I worked my way through all of them, and I haven't seen any of these images for probably 50+ years.  

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=little+grey+rabbit&espv=2&biw=1564&bih=873&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj114bu-ZPQAhXiKMAKHZNFD2EQ_AUIBygC&dpr=1

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

#13

 

I have copies of all the Little Grey Rabbit books and vividly remember my visits to Hyson Green library as a toddler. If I walked in there now, I could go straight to the shelves where they were kept! First of all, they were read to me and I continued to borrow them until I could read them myself. That is how I learned to read.

 

[MargieH 7,599]

I can remember my Mum reading several Little Grey Rabbit  books to me but I never read them myself - I much preferred Winnie the Pooh.....

[Ten o'clock horses 0]

When I asked my grandad what would happen if I was still awake at ten,when the horses came, he said they will blow sand into my eyes

so I would not be able to open them!! It worked!haha