Topic: Strange...

[lilyjean]

Two nights ago I was thrilled to see my blackcurrant bushes loaded with fruit. Unfortunately I'd ran out of netting and couldn't cover up the bushes. But I went immediately on the following day only to find that they had all gone  :( is it possible the pigeons had a feast on them in such a short time? Strangely, the same thing happened to some other tenants not far from me. But, they covered their bushes with netting......the plot thickens!

[lincsyokel2]

birds strip my cherry tree long before the fruits are ready to pick, i've never had  a single cherry off the tree, and its huge.

[plainleaf]

sounds like squirrels

[manicscousers]

two legged thieves?  :)

[Digeroo]

Blackbirds or starlings?

[Jeannine]

We and several other plot holders  had gooseberries that  vanished like  that 4 years on the trot, I was told it was the birds..rubbish.If it was the birds they waited till they were ready to harvest, did it either in the dark or before 6am, they didn't drop one, they didn't miss one off my 10 bushes, they left footprints and  they stripped every gooseberry on all the lotties wether covered or not, they even put netting in a pile, so unless birds have started wearing boots and started tidying up after themselves...... nuff said

XX Jeannine

[lilyjean]

two legged thieves?  :)

It did cross our minds....but didn't want to think of anything sinister or ill thoughts of our parish. But it is strange.....how the bushes are wiped clean in such a short time   :-\

[lilyjean]

We and several other plot holders  had gooseberries that  vanished like  that 4 years on the trot, I was told it was the birds..rubbish.If it was the birds they waited till they were ready to harvest, did it either in the dark or before 6am, they didn't drop one, they didn't miss one off my 10 bushes, they left footprints and  they stripped every gooseberry on all the lotties wether covered or not, they even put netting in a pile, so unless birds have started wearing boots and started tidying up after themselves...... nuff said

XX Jeannine

My total sentiments! It doesn't help when literally only a night or two before the currants disappeared so did two chickens get stolen. The chicken owners + friends are a little further up opposite to my other friends whose currants also strangely disappeared. And, for the first time in 4 years they had no strawberries......

The disappearance of the chickens hit our local rag. If nothing else our allotment became famous for a short spell!!

[plainleaf]

do you all have hobo's in area?
I not sure if hobo still exist but there where common human garden pest in my grand fathers time.

[shirlton]

Oh yes theere are plenty of them there hobo's still around ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

Hobos? You mean the unemployed?

[Jeannine]

Hobo  is an American word for tramp.. a gentleman of the road.

Folks living UK side of the pond say tramp... US side of the pond say hobo.

Mmm nuff said.

XX Jeannine

[lilyjean]

Hobo  is an American word for tramp.. a gentleman of the road.

Folks living UK side of the pond say tramp... US side of the pond say hobo.

Mmm nuff said.

XX Jeannine

Well well..I didn't know that! I've learnt so much from this awesome site...Brilliant!  :)

[GrannieAnnie]

Hobo  is an American word for tramp.. a gentleman of the road.

Folks living UK side of the pond say tramp... US side of the pond say hobo.

Mmm nuff said.

XX Jeannine

Well well..I didn't know that! I've learnt so much from this awesome site...Brilliant!  :)

actually in the US tramp can mean a hobo ( hobo I think is a bit less negative) but more frequently tramp means prostitute.

[Jeannine]

Yes Gran, I agree.

UK tramp if female would be a lady of low morals, if male would be a what you call a hobo.

My point is that for someone to use the word hobo in the context of the post ,that poster would be almost surely from the US.

Just geographically working somethng out LOL

XX Jeannine

[Chrispy]

Folks living UK side of the pond say tramp... US side of the pond say hobo.

Have not heard the word 'tramp' for a very long time, we are all PC, and just call them homeless.

[GrannieAnnie]

Folks living UK side of the pond say tramp... US side of the pond say hobo.

Have not heard the word 'tramp' for a very long time, we are all PC, and just call them homeless.

Yes you're correct- today one would say "homeless".

[Jeannine]

My definition of a tramp(male) was like the chap who used to come to my Dad's place once or twice a year when I was young.He used to move around the country earning his living doing farmwork etc,He would help with sheep shearing, crop picking,etc and had a regular route, at my Dads's place he had a sleeping place in a loft, stayed about a week,in the Spring he used to all kinds of jobs, mending fences, planting stuff,digging, in the Autumn he used to come back quite late in the year and do year end clean up etc .Mum gave him his meals etc.He would not sleep in the house. He had no regular home to my knowledge,but he worked hard to support himself and would not take anything he didn't work for.

I remember one year my Mum gave him some clothes that Dad didn't want, he accepted them but next morning  before he left he trimmed  all the  hedging which surrounded the orchard.
XX Jeannine

[lincsyokel2]

The word 'tramp' as in homeless derives from england.

On the passing of the Poor Laws of 1832, it became a criminal offence to be vagrant and homeless. The penalty was you could be locked up in the Poor house for a month, doing mailbag sewing to earn your keep.

This was superseded by the invention of The Poor Law Unions, or the 'Spike'. The Spike offered you a place to sleep and a meal, and then the obligatory sermon and prayers. You were then locked in for the night and ejected at 6 AM next morning. Now the way he law worked, was you couldnt stay in the same Spike  more than once every month, so you were forced to walk to the next spike, and they were all placed about ones days walk apart. So for more than 100 years, this bizzare ritual of vagrant people (usually men) 'tramping' from one spike to the next, round and round the country, constantly kept on the move, took place. The Poor Law system was not formally abolished until the 1948 National Assistance Act.

George Orwell wrote a brilliant account of it in' Down and Out in Paris and London'.


Tramp in reference to woman of low morals is an American word. In england  she would have been referred to as a 'hussy' or 'Scarlett woman'. "The Lady Is a Tramp" is a show tune from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart musical Babes In Arms':

She gets too hungry, for dinner at eight
She loves the theater, but doesn't come late
She'd never bother, with people she'd hate
That's why the lady is a tramp

So in 1937 a 'tramp' when used to describe a female actually was nearer to what we might call a 'free spirit'.

[Jeannine]

I agree about the ladt definaition  but not  that way now..XX