Having lived and worked in quite a number of different locations around the country, I have always been fascinated by coloquialisms especially the names people have for their packed lunch ( I call mine Eric) no, seriously; In Liverpool it was generally known as your 'Carry out'. In Wigan it was 'Jack Bit' In parts of the midlands it's 'Snap' . In Cornwall it's, 'Croust' and sometimes 'Crib'.
I think AN needs a glossary of terms for this essential part of the miners toolkit,....His everyday lunch.
What do they call it in your neck of the woods....?

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"Hoggan for croust" was a phrase I remember vividly form a book I read in my childhood. But I never did find out what hoggan was.

Whatever it is, croust, I find (and Barney would concur!) is best blagged off other people on a day's underground exploring!

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A Hoggan is a Cornish Pasty, generally referred to as an 'Oggy' or a 'Teddy (Taty) Oggy'.
Munched a few o' them looking back. All genuine though, :thumbsup:
No Ginsters! :thumbdown: :thumbdown: :thumbdown:

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Hey Roy, I could write you a whole dictionary of Northumbrian dialect but me old dad speaks a whole different language even to normal Geordie, most of which comes from working down the pit. A lot of the pit terms are in general usage by non-miners too up here.
We call lunch "bait" up here by the way. :thumbup:

I've always felt very suspicious about people eating 'bait' - in my experience, bait is something you dig up on the beach and put on a hook to catch fish... 😮

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I've always felt very suspicious about people eating 'bait' - in my experience, bait is something you dig up on the beach and put on a hook to catch fish... 😮

I must say I get some strange looks off the guys at work who weren't brought up in mining villages and wonder what on earth I am on about...Bait being just one example 😉

Your dad was right to call his lunch "Bait”, it is an old roman word meaning food, incidentally a lot of our Geordie words
are Norse and Old roman, my bank manager told me he didn’t get a wage like common people he was paid a salary
which is an old roman word for salt.
:smartass:

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As a Dunelmian born and bred (that's someone from Durham) the most common word was, of course, "bait" in that area but I seem to recall that when I worked on pipelines up there in the 70's the word "scran" was coming into usage. I often wonder where that one originated and what it was derived from bearing in mind that a lot of the workforce were ex-miners or from the Durham/Northumberland mining villages. 😞

"Scran" I don’t know where it came from but I would have starved to death without it ,and what about Grub. :tongue:

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its crib down here in new south wales.

Whatever it is, croust, I find (and Barney would concur!) is best blagged off other people on a day's underground exploring!

Yeah, my lunch box is generally refered too as 'Simons grub' :lol:

The Scots call their lunchbox a 'piece' Not sure if thats the correct spelling though!

The word at Geevor was 'mossel' - morsel

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Wrexham area it's 'snapin'

Not sure about the spelling but that was the pronunciation

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In central Scotland it would presumably be "piece", because that is what they call it in other industries, with no exceptions that I know of.

Musn't forget the water Roy. Did you have a small barrel called an Anker to carry it? Of course I'm just assuming it might have been filled with water.........................

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Well! Thanks to all that have replied to my post.
I think that the more people that have knowledge of these now 'old' names and phrases, the richer will be our understanding.The information on this site alone is testament to the physical endeavours of men past and present, their methods, ways and customs, and AditNow provides a wonderful, and in my humble opinion, unrivalled archive of mining in the British Isles and beyond. I think that the social side of life should also be reflected whenever possible, (without getting too dry), such as tales you can remember your father telling you ( perhaps Simon can provide a wee space for this??), or people you might have met in the pub or whatever; the old guys that can tell you what it was like in 'their day', a large part of this being their everyday working language. Britains ancient metalliferous mining resources were enough to warrant invasions and occupations by all and sundry over the centuries, and probably explains the continuity of old Roman words in an industry where information and working practices were passed down father to son for generations. It's interesting to note that 'crib' is used in Wales as well as Cornwall given the similarities (Celtic) in the two languages.
I'm sure I have come accross 'scran' somewhere before but darned if I can think where.
A glossary of terms for each region would be very interesting for comparison with other parts of the country, and a collection of miners tales or social tales based around the industry would widen our knowledge and understanding of how they managed to get through with little or no machinery, and a non existent welfare state.
It often makes me wonder how we got to where we are today given the austerity of those times long ago.
I tip my hat to each and every one.
:thumbsup: :flowers:

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Hey Roy, I could write you a whole dictionary of Northumbrian dialect but me old dad speaks a whole different language even to normal Geordie, most of which comes from working down the pit. A lot of the pit terms are in general usage by non-miners too up here.
We call lunch "bait" up here by the way. :thumbup:

Yeah! just what we need!!! Power to you elbow! I wait with baited breath. (I think it was the pickles and gorgonzola) 😉

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This thread has answered a question I'd never thought to ask - I came across the word "crib" years ago in East Durham and it would appear to have arrived there from Cornwall as at some time in the 19th century when times were hard in the South West quite a number of Cornish men and their families moved to East Durham to work in the new mines which were opening up along the coast. Mostly settling around the area now called Peterlee they brought their traditions with them and even built their own chapel (Cornish style) somewhere around a place called Wingate. It would be nice to know if this survives and if there are still typical Cornish family names in that area.

its crib in new south wales Austraila, don't know about south wales back home. i think the word would have been brought out here by the cornish as quite a few moved to broken hill for the same reason i'm here, the mine!

Not a clue, in the Surrey quarries and mines! But I can tell you some of the odd food related finds we have found - large cut bones, presumably cooked beef joints of some kind, and oddest of them all, a collection of marine mussel shells buried in quarry waste, deep underground, possibly medieval and certainly no later than Tudor. My guess is we don't find much more because despite the size of the workings, most working faces were never more than 10 minutes walk to daylight. Nowadays, it can take more than 2 hours to get to the furthest points as most entrances are blocked or collapsed.