Throw your caps in the air for it’s our tenth podcast!
And it’s a very special Fencast – a recording of an actual talk given by Mr South in person to Warboys Local History Society and members of the public.
We’d like to thank WLHS and Warboys Methodist Church for organising and facilitating Mr South’s visit, which was well received by everyone.
If you’d like Mr South to do a talk in your area, please email Miss Edwards on info@dennisofgruntyfen.co.uk and she’ll see if it’s feasible.
Mr South’s talk was about Dennis of Grunty Fen, and you can find out whether he stuck to his topic or not by going to our Podcasts page by clicking Fencast for me, please!
My nervous sister Miss Edna and I would like to wish you a very happy Easter and let you know we won’t be doing any egg-related puns as we bring you a free episode from Easter 1994.
Dennis has an Easter present for Mr South, and we don’t think it’ll spoil your enjoyment by telling you that it’s not an egg of any kind.
And we know that Dennis can talk, but in this episode he seems particularly loquacious, as Mr South would no doubt say.
We hope you enjoy this new Fencast, and forgive us if we quickly remind you that if you haven’t yet got your copies of any of the three latest compilations (Archives 12, 13 and 14), they’re still available in the shop. Thank you.
So without further ado, you can now click Fencast for me, pleasewhich will take you to the Podcasts page.
We hope you’ve all got your extra thermal layers on as the weather turns nippier because suddenly it’s that time of year again when we bring you something new for your listening pleasure.
Our new Fencast is full of delights for you. Mr South quizzes our new archivist, Ian (see picture), about his knowledge of Grunty Fen, there’s a free episode from Christmas 1993 and you’ll also hear a bit more about the three new collections of episodes we’ve put together and which are available from Dennis’s shop.
Archive Editions 12 – Scab sees Mr South asking such questions as: What’s the secret of Esme Gartside’s hen house? What’s a standard lamp doing in the Great Puddle? What does Dennis think of the new President? What’s the importance of a Yarmouth dartboard?
Archive Editions 12 features – among other things – African violets, a slither, a balaclava, dandelion and burdock, The Gibbet, Clara Butt, brake blocks, the string on a yo-yo, a tie press, pong, writhing, oo, Grandad’s uniform, the Duchess of Albermarle, illicit liquor, Hopalong Cassidy, Tizer, Shippam’s, nostrils, slot machines, spasms, caustic soda, halo glimmers, divine beds, knitted bathing drawers and Mrs Sharman’s corsets.
Archive Editions 13 – Gt. Harm finds Dennis enlightening Mr South on subjects such as: What doesn’t Mrs Sharp stick out for Tarzan? What’s rife up Pious End? What Dennis has never joined? Why was it a ‘two-pylon’ day?
Archive Editions 13 features – among other things – snuffing and pricking, snogging, an electrified doll, toffee apples, the Peek Frean, the War Office, an emergency po, a faintly glowing beak, fug and shag, Hudson’s soap, carbolic, icebreakers, frittering, Sagger’s Sheds, Mounties, Father Christmas, chafing, Nuaru, guano, boomerangs, beekeepers, a ghillie’s bothy, a final thrust, tight suits, conversions, banging, two long one short and a scrape, natural gas, fundamentalists, blandishments, Shippea Hill, knolls, cowlicks, linseed oil putty and amps and amps and amps.
Archive Editions 14 – Lt. Harm once again finds Mr South having his outlook broadened as Dennis educates him in such aspects of life as: Why is Gran having a heavy wash? What can’t the cat stand? Why didn’t Beryl Burgess want to get her mouse damp? What wasn’t Dennis’s mum very good at?
Archive Editions 14 features – among other things – a Fox’s glacier mint, a gas cape, breaking wind, Mrs Price’s narrow entry, holding two cherries, Digger Shag dottle banging, silverfish, a bobble hat, pig muck, a walrus, a horse-shoe, a concrete mixer, spring fashions, coley, singing, Old Mother Riley, nymphing experience, Bannockburn, Christmas cake 1974, the raising of Lazarus, sowbugs, I-spy books and Deanna Durbin’s hat.
Thank you for your support once again both here and on Dennis’s facebook page. We couldn’t do this without you. My nervous sister, Miss Edna and I, on behalf of all at Grunty Fen, would like to wish you the very best of the festive season, and we hope the New Year is good to you.
My nervous sister Miss Edna and I are delighted to announce not one, not two, but THREE new things for your listening pleasure.
First up is a new Fencast for Easter, in which Mr South explains more about Easter in Grunty Fen followed by an episode from 1991 all about Easter Traditions in our favourite bleak, damp and flat location.
Next, we have Archive Editions 10 – Slapp, which poses such questions as why is there a moose in the Miscellaneous Shed? Where does Dennis take the Christmas fender? Why doesn’t he want his gusset scrutinised? What new enterprise is he considering?
Archive Editions 10 features – amongst other things – the chewing-gum valve, chamois leather, a full chamber pot, the Enclosure Acts, rubbers, an Elastoplast, Queen Salote of Tonga, pipecleaners, ullage, Weasenham St Peter, knolls and gorges, mudmogs, sink tidies, chicken muck, waterboatmen, cowlicks, a Stygian morass of miasmic effluvia and a moose’s nostrils.
Click Slapp for me, please to take you to the right place in the shop to find out more.
And finally, we present Archive Editions 11 – Windy Huts, which raises various subjects including Dennis finding a key in a very unusual place, an easy-going young man called Ziggy, the etiquette of bus stops and mystical forces from beyond this realm.
Archive Editions 11 features – amongst other things – Gran’s drawer, mauve fried bread, gentleman’s fragrance, flooding, an ambulance, pot plants, Ambrose, quiffs, apologies, an angel with the monk on, lady wrestlers and Cyril’s trilby.
Hello there. I’ve heard it said that Grunty Fen folk never stray over the A10 but that is a gross exaggeration. For example, take the case of Arnold Bazeley the famous explorer. This is an extract from the Who’s Who of Grunty Fen.
ARNOLD BAZELEY (1919-2001)
Explorer
While the majority of people born in the Grunty Fen area are content to spend their entire lives travelling no further than Stuntney or in the more restless cases, Ely, there is a wanderlust gene in their blood which manifests itself in a rare line who are born with their eyes on far horizons.
So it was with Arnold Bazeley, one of the greatest in a long line of Fen explorers going back to the legendary Wanda Aetheling who discovered Dire Pits in c.900 AD. Bazeley followed his father in the pitch-tosser’s trade but from an early age became restless in the spring. Each April he bade his family farewell and with a small sack of liquorice allsorts flung over his shoulder and his trusty bagging hook through his belt set out on foot he knew not whither.
In old age he published an evocative memoir, Far Afield Afoot in the Fens, telling how he stumbled across many hitherto unheard of villages and recorded their local customs. There is a sense of wonder in his words as he describes, for example, Great Sorely where the people washed every day and bathed at least once a fortnight or Bastardy where women with large feet were thought especially desirable and baby girls’ feet were cruelly clamped between boards from birth to flatten and expand them.
That lovely gentleman from the BBC, Mr Christopher South, will be in Ely on Saturday 24th March at Burrows Bookshop. This will be an ideal time for you to get your books signed. Including, of course, The Who’s Who in Grunty Fen and extract of which is attached.
Mr South will be discussing Who’s Who and his other books with anybody who would care to attend his event at Burrows Bookshop, Ely on March 24th. The Burrows Face Book is here
The particular “Who” this sample page refers to isMOTHER MARJORY (fl. 1490) Founder of the Theory of Duality of Purpose and originator of the edible poultice.
Best regards
Miss Edwards
Grunty Fen Post Office and General Stores
That lovely gentleman from the BBC, Mr Christopher South, will be in Ely on Saturday 24th March at Burrows Bookshop. This will be an ideal time for you to get your books signed.
It is with great excitement I have to announce that Mr Christopher South will be having an Event! If you would like to meet Mr South and put a face to the senior voice of Radio Cambridgeshire please do go along to Burrow’s Bookshop in Ely on 24th March between half-past ten and twelve o’clock. That’s a Saturday.
All of Christopher’s book will be available to purchase and to get autographed including the latest Customs and Folklore of Grunty Fen. I am sure the author will be very pleased to meet you – he does like to know who reads his books and what their gardens are like.
Hello there. Many people think that the Grunty Fen General Stores have been here for ever! But before my sister and I took over the little post office Grunty Fen was visited by characters such as this gentleman who would deliver and sell all matters of comestibles. Everything from cement to elastic for under-clothing. Just you read the chapter on Old Rep in Christopher South’s latest book.
Just to let you know that if you are in Soham you can now purchase Chris South’s book Customs and Folklore of Grunty Fen from Soham Books. Two of the nicest people you can meet work in that shop; Richard and Joy. Such a lovely little town too.
Hello there. Many people think that the Grunty Fen General Stores have been here for ever! But before my sister and I took over the little post office Grunty Fen was visited by characters such as this gentleman who would deliver and sell all matters of comestibles. Everything from cement to elastic for under-clothing. Just you read the chapter on Old Rep in 