Social Intercourse

'Do you like wanking?' my mother asks the bishop. I am startled. I have much to learn about ecclesiastical etiquette, but this does not seem a proper way to address a visiting prelate.

The bishop, however, is unperturbed. He tells my mother that he likes wanking very much and they embrace jovially by the chapel door.

I am relieved when I discover that he was reared in war-time Bristol. 'Wank', my mother has often explained to me, was a blameless word for a walk in the West Country dialect of her childhood. She only learned that this was a localised definition on her first day as a London career girl, when she told her new colleagues of the lengthy one that she'd enjoyed before work that morning.

My mother and the bishop are thrilled to share a lost verbal heritage and wank side by side all the way across the churchyard. And I follow at a safe distance and reflect on the unpredictable social adhesives that can bind strangers.

Comments

  1. Older Mum14 November 2011 at 14:51

    Brilliant !!!!! I have wanked a number of times.

    ReplyDelete
  2. mother on the edge!!14 November 2011 at 17:14

    love it!!!

    Wonder if we have time for a wank after lunch on Wednesday?????

    ReplyDelete
  3. Midlife Singlemum14 November 2011 at 19:52

    A wonderful picture painted with words - love it. And the commenting works fine now, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rhiannon (@The_Last_Slayer)14 November 2011 at 20:45

    Have to admit, I was afraid to read this post but was so glad I did! I wonder what other words are out there that have a different meaning in different dialects. If anyone knows of any, I'd love to hear.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous14 November 2011 at 21:10

    I'm disappointed. I was born and brought up in Bristol - yet I've managed to get through the last 28 years without hearing this phrase. I may go back to my home city this weekend and try it out on a few people. If I get a slap in the face I'll know who to blame...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mammasaurus14 November 2011 at 21:25

    You can't beat a good wank on a Sunday morning :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous14 November 2011 at 21:33

    I come from Bristol and I've NEVER heard that expression used that way before!! Are you sure your mother wasn't having you on...? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron14 November 2011 at 21:36

    Apparently, it faded out of use in the 50s and 60s (unsurprisingly). My grandmother still used it and the bishop was definitely familiar with it. You should have seen his face light up!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Him Up North14 November 2011 at 23:35

    Your mother better be careful not to abash the bishop...

    Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week...

    ReplyDelete
  10. A Little Light Work15 November 2011 at 19:54

    Tell them what your grandmother's house was called. Go on!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous15 November 2011 at 20:36

    Oh this is so funny! My husband love wanking.

    CJ xx

    ReplyDelete
  12. Kate17 November 2011 at 12:12

    Hilarious. My mother told all her friends that my sister was a slut. Apparently it means messy...

    ReplyDelete
  13. @SAHDandproud18 November 2011 at 23:05

    Isn't there an area in Germany too where the people who live near the Wankdorf are called Wankers? But I believe this is prounounced with a V. So it only looks funny when written down.
    I once met a man called Erich Wanker, he's a scientist. His PA, and this is the funny bit, was called Ms Pisch.
    I've learned now that when meeting West Country folk of a certain age I can suggest we all go for a wank. Watch their smiling faces turn to frowns as I get the old chap out... :-)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Menai19 November 2011 at 10:45

    My darling daughter is wondering why I am giggling helplessly with laughter. I'll explain in about 14 years...

    ReplyDelete
  15. SkatingAmsterdaMummy20 November 2011 at 00:02

    A wank a day keeps the doctor away...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Iota 7 August 2013 at 16:19

    Do you promise you didn't make this up?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Somewhere about here26 July 2018 at 12:19

    Cool! Laugh is the best in our life.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Mail Columnists Should Wear Burkas

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has provoked the ire of Twitter with by declaring that mummy bloggers are blinkered dimwits whose lives are spiced by Napisan. I'm afraid I have to sympathise with her, for all of her prejudices echo my own: Writing about my life has pretty much ruined it. Supper last night was an elderly carrot glued to the fridge shelf by a pool of brown mucus and the floor was flooded when I left the bath taps running because Blogger has diverted me from domestic essentials. I've had to shut the children in front of the television when a new post has assailed me and some family members no longer speak to me because Twitter interactions leave me no time to reach the telephone. But there is a big part of me that thinks writing should be hard: you should cringe whenever you press that 'publish' button. Artists – and I'm sorry, I do consider myself an artist – have to wrench the dirtiest, most disgusting part of their inner soul and show it t...
Read more

The Various Uses of Rubber

I have ordered a new pair of wellies from Amazon for the daily walk to school. My current hardly-at-all-old pair has developed a fissure along one toe. I only noticed this when I was wading along the stream that flows brownly past bobbing Argos bags en route to the afternoon pick up, and I was not pleased. They are a glamorous pair with pink spots and white swirls, bought to ease my daughter's pain in ackowledging a wellie-wearing, stream-paddling mother in public. I now distrust wellies with spots and swirls, so order a safe-looking green pair. Better to be waterproof than glamorous. Royal Mail gets them as far as my door, thrusts through a 'Sorry you were out' card, and promptly loses them. Amazon is sympathetic and dispatches a replacement pair. This also makes it to my door and again a card is left. This time I decide to pick them up in person from the Royal Mail depot. The man behind the glass screen makes off with my delivery card and probably has a cup of tea and...
Read more

A DIY Guide to the Middle-Classes

I wonder sometimes what I am. I have lived the last decade on an inner city council estate, amid Oxford academia, in a remote country town and in London suburbia. In the first we were, with our relentless consonants and sagging bookshelves, regarded as aristocrats. In the second, as the 'squeezed middle'. In the third, as city sophisticates and now, sometimes, isolated in my tweed amid the Ralph Lauren and the hoodies, I feel myself a bumpkin. Class should no longer matter. Nowadays, for most of us, it's more a question of perception than birth. But the perception matters. My daughter battles to adjust speech, habits and dress to blend in with each new environment; the political parties compete to woo the amorphous throng they deem Middle England and Melvyn Bragg has started a television series on class and culture. The British, he decides, no longer define themselves by class, but by the music they listen to, the books they read. I listen to Dolly Parton and Beethoven....
Read more