Granny Long’s ‘cock whollopers’
Roger Guttridge recalls some seasonal antics in old Poole, and a floating grocer’s shop
Published in December ’18
Ninette Knight and her assistant, Jim, delivering groceries to yachts in Poole Harbour
A Christmas favourite in Poole more than 100 years ago was furmity, a gruel-like food made from flour, water, spice and currants or raisins. Thomas Hardy mentions this tempting Victorian treat in The Mayor of Casterbridge, describing how a bemused Michael Henchard sells his wife for a fiver after consuming furmity laced with rum. Another Dorset writer, Olive Knott, reports that furmity was much in demand in old Poole, especially at Christmas. ‘The raisins, in the process of cooking, “plimmed” to three times their normal size and were known to the locals as “cock whollopers”,’ she wrote.
Furmity was a speciality of Granny Long, who kept a little emporium near Poole Quay. Her other lines included tea and sugar, cooked peas, pigs’ trotters and baked potatoes sold by the halfpenny-worth. ‘On Christmas Eve, she ladled out steaming hot furmity and sold it to anyone so minded for a halfpenny or penny,’ wrote Miss Knott. ‘Many were glad to get out of the cold into a warm room, where they could sit and consume on the premises this yuletide gruel and at the same time torment Granny Long as opportunity occurred.’ One favourite trick was to throw a well-chewed pig’s foot at the empty tins that lined Granny Long’s shelves. This usually happened when she was preoccupied and sure to jump round in alarm. Another was to drop a piece of candle into her cooking pot when her back
was turned.
‘Wise to her tormentors,’ Miss Knott continued, ‘she would sometimes try to shut the door on them as they came for their furmity, but clogging the door with an intruding foot, they foiled her attempts. On rare occasions when her patience had reached its limit, she would brandish a knife about the shop, driving the interlopers out, then lock the door upon them and do herself out of the evening’s custom.’
Old Poole could be a lively place on Christmas Eve, according to Olive Knott, who came from Sturminster Newton but worked as a schoolteacher in Poole and wrote eight or nine books and numerous articles on Dorset. ‘Poole was entirely given up to merry-making of an innocent though somewhat boisterous nature, for the lads of the locality paraded the streets at intervals the whole night through, singing songs and carols undeterred by the police,’ she wrote in Down Dorset Way (1954). ‘Some carried their enthusiasm as far as Bournemouth and sang in the bandstand of the arcade.’
Mummers’ plays were another Christmas tradition in old Poole and children would wait around to catch a glimpse of these pub-crawling thespians as they moved from inn to inn. The mummers were gaily clad in coloured cambric and top hats, carried tambourines, trumpets and other instruments and sang, recited and acted at each hostelry in turn. ‘Some featured notable figures in history, such as Lord Nelson or the Duke of Wellington, and were dressed accordingly,’ wrote Miss Knott. ‘Father Christmas, of course, was also included.’ Mummers’ plays had their roots in medieval times. They began as religious rituals performed by monks and nuns before spreading to the wider community.
A week or so before Christmas, Poole had a butchers’ show day, when prize-winning cattle were paraded around the town for public viewing before being slaughtered and displayed as complete carcasses.
Black Tulip
A letter sent to me almost 25 years ago described a floating grocery store that serviced yachts in Poole Harbour in the 1930s. Pensioner Pauline Haley, from Norwich, told me she was 21 when she first boarded Black Tulip in 1933. The yacht had been converted into a house-boat and the engine room into a grocery store. The vessel belonged to Robert Knight, who ran Knight’s Boatyard at Lilliput, and his French wife, Ninette.
‘In 1933, they were about to start Knight’s Yacht Service in the harbour,’ Miss Haley told me. ‘Each morning the bum-boat would set off from Sandbanks Pier to collect milk, eggs and papers to deliver to yachts in the harbour. The store was open during the day to sell goods or take orders.’ Miss Haley was there to look after the Knight children, Derrick and Jacqueline. ‘There was no ship’s cat then but the family had a Pekinese named Wu-Song, who used to cry like a child to be carried up the galley stairs,’ she recalled. ‘It was fascinating to go on deck in the early morning, when everything was calm and peaceful, and to find that yet another yacht had quietly slipped in during the night. I particularly remember the lovely white yacht, Marion, which was anchored near us.’
One day, Miss Haley took the children to Sandbanks for a picnic and spotted pioneer pilots Jim Mollison and Amy Johnson on the beach. The husband-and-wife aviators were staying nearby. ‘We saw them on the beach, which was quite a thrill for me, as they were both so much in the news at the time,’ Miss Haley added.
Black Tulip was broken up more than 60 years ago and some of her timber carved into mementoes. Miss Haley told me she had a pair of book-ends shaped as tulip heads, one with a brass plate engraved with the words ‘S. Y. Black Tulip 1900-55’.
