Random thoughts

 

Random thoughts

Random thoughts flit in and out of my brain. It’s not always possible to know what prompts them and sometimes they take me on ‘voyages of discovery and other clichés.’

Recently, I have been thinking about sailors, that is, Royal Navy sailors. Obviously the trigger for that was my recent blog about sailing. I wondered why sailors were referred to as matelots.

Why would a French name be assigned to a naval rating? Maybe it was a hangover from when Calais belonged to England, in the sixteenth century. The English King Edward III captured Calais in 1347. It was returned to France in 1558.

I looked it up. Matelot is a Middle French slang word meaning sailor. Middle French covers the period from the 14^th to 16^th centuries. It came into use in the Royal Navy about 1847, so, nothing to do with the possession of Calais!

Another common term for a naval rating is Tar, or Jack Tar. It seemed logical to suppose that this name was applied because of the necessity of tarring a ship to waterproof it. Anyone involved in this messy task would soon be covered in the sticky, pungent coating.

I looked it up. I was wrong again. Apparently, it is thought to refer to the tarpaulins sailors wore. Tarpaulins were a type of strong canvas containing tar to make them waterproof. ‘Jack Tar’ to describe a sailor was first used in 1781 by George Parker, possibly Admiral Sir George Parker.

People born in Swansea in the UK have often been called Jacks or Swansea Jacks. Swansea people had a reputation for being skilled sailors and were much sought after for recruitment to the navy.

The official march of the Royal Navy, ‘Heart of Oak’, has a line which says, ‘Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men’.

John was the commonest boy’s name in England in the 16^th century.  Jack is a diminutive of John. An interesting article from ‘Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources’describes how the nickname for John developed.

Jack was a common name applied to any man and is still in use in many phrases today, as in Jack of all trades, every man Jack, Jack of both sides, Jack the lad, Before you can say Jack Robinson, All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, I’m all right, Jack (pull up the ladder)

The infamous Whitechapel murders of the 1880s were not committed by a man called Jack the Ripper. In the twenty-first century a more accurate name for him would have been ‘Anyman the Ripper’.

From this point, I started thinking about Jack in children’s literature, in particular nursery rhymes. Jack and Jill, Jack be nimble, Jack Sprat, Little Jack Horner are all rhymes that have been sung and recited to small children, who respond to the rhymes with delight, in the process building a sense of rhythm and rhyming and developing their vocabulary in a most pleasurable way.

Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack Frost are well-loved children’s stories. This is the house that Jack built is a wonderful cumulative story that children love to join in with great enthusiasm.

 

Broadmoor

Image courtesy of Daily Mail and Wikimedia Commons

Many of you will already know that Barry and I live in a village in Berkshire. Crowthorne is not an attractive, chocolate box spot with thatched roofs and roses round the door, but more of a place you travel through to reach somewhere else. Since the bypass was built about twenty years ago most people don't even have to go anywhere near it now. I say that we live in the village but that is rather misleading for although our postal address is Crowthorne, geographically we live in Wokingham Without. (Without what, you may ask.)
Crowthorne is known mainly for two institutions – Wellington College, originally a boys' independent school but now co-educational. Fees are around £30,000 per annum. At the other end of the village, on the edge of the forest, is Broadmoor Hospital, the best-known of England's three high-security psychiatric hospitals. It houses 260 men and costs about £100,000 per patient per annum. During the First World War part of the hospital was used as a prisoner of war camp for German soldiers who were mentally ill. It was known as Crowthorne War Hospital.

Image courtesy of Sun and Wikimedia Commons

In 1952 one of the inmates escaped and murdered a local five-year-old girl. Local residents called for a warning method to alert the community to escapes and a system of warning sirens was established. These are based on the air-raid sirens so familiar during the Second World War and are tested for two minutes every Monday morning at 10:00. The two-note wail is then followed by a single tone 'all clear' for another two minutes. Every school within hearing of the siren has procedures to follow if the alarm warns of an escape. Basically, the schools lock all doors and windows and children are not allowed to leave except into the care of a known adult. It only happened once when I was teaching, in 1991, and it was not a pleasant experience.
Escapes are rare - the last serious one, in 1991, was of a child rapist. Road blocks were set up and vehicles were checked. At the time, Barry was just starting out for a run with the dogs. On the track entering the forest police had strung a tape on the understanding, presumably, that no-one would think to go either side of it. They stopped Barry and showed him a photo of the escapee and said, 'If you see him, run back here and tell us'. They had no intention of going into the trees!
Barry didn't see the escapee but he was recaptured two days later.
Many years ago a patient escaped but was so frightened by the unfamiliarity of the outside world that he gave himself up very soon.
It is thought but not proven that Jack the Ripper, who murdered prostitutes in the London of the 1880s, was Thomas Cutbush. He was a main suspect in the murders, which ceased after his arrest. He was committed to Broadmoor after being declared insane and died there in 1903.
Another murderer who was in Broadmoor for a time was Robert Maudsley. He was the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter. Current patients include the Yorkshire Ripper and the Stockwell Strangler.
One of the most interesting inmates was W C Minor, a retired American army surgeon. He was not considered a danger and so was allowed to buy books from London. Through his association with booksellers he learnt of the call for entries to what would become the Oxford English Dictionary. He sent thousands of contributions to the editor, Dr James Murray, who became very interested in his prolific correspondent and subsequently visited him in Broadmoor.
The hospital provides employment for many local people. It is often said, rather unkindly, that the nurses are more frightening than the patients! | must say that the ones we've met, walking their dogs, are friendly and have a great sense of humour. That must help in a job that could be soul-destroying. It's hard to find humanity in men who have committed such heinous crimes but, as the Quakers say, we must strive to find 'that of God' in every man.