Posh? Not we?
In our house (a modest, terraced abode in semi-rural West Yorkshire) our family lived an almost monastic existence. We wore simple clothes, made simple entertainment for ourselves, and Mother cooked simple food and raised simple children. Father had a good job that he took pride in, working as a toad fettler (known as a toad husher in parts of Lancashire) for the local council (although later they moved him on to the considerably less rewarding job of salamander jostling, which, I believe, is ultimately what brought about his premature end - his constant wailing troubled us all a little during his last days).

Father used half of his wage to pay the bills and buy the essentials our family needed; half was saved to spend on religious festivals (Eid was his personal favourite, although he always became excited when approaching Passover); the other half was donated to charities for children, animals and the bald.

Although we had very little, we were always willing to share that which we had. Quite often we would be visited upon by foreigners passing through from places such as Derbyshire and Lincolnshire and we would always invite them in for a bowl of Mother's famous broth.

One evening, father answered a knock at the door to find a little darkie standing there. He was a hungry-looking thing with a youthful face, but his greying wrist hair betrayed his maturity. He began speaking to us, but he was clearly foreign.
"Me is needin food in mi belli," was the first noise he made. "Me is heerin dat ya gat di soop. Pleez mista can ya spare mi di soop. Me is hongri an week."
Father, a perplexed expression on his face, closed the door a moment and turned to face us all sitting in the living room, from where we had been listening intently. We all stared at him blankly. None of us could understand this stranger's primitive language. Father appeared crestfallen, but, being the great and patient man that he was, opened the door once more and persevered with our strange visitor.
"Alas, my friend, black as soot and wiry of hair though thou art in mine eyes, and in mine eyes a curious creature indeed, I am at a loss as to what thine gruntings imply."
The caller did not answer.
"What is this?" bellowed Father. "What kind of heresy doth thou ply that it shalt darken this here door and cast a shadow upon the lives of the collective fruits of my most prolific of loins? Canst thou speaketh no English?"
Still, our visitor did not reply. Father despised ignorance as much as he valued dignity and, in a fit of untold rage he dealt our new acquaintance a shattering blow with his toading candle. The base of the candle struck sweetly upon the black forehead, knocking unconscious he who would mock and goad Father with his silence. Swiftly, Father scooped him up in his bulging arms and carried him indoors.

Upon awakening, our new guest was trained to perform basic household chores such as waxing Mother's spine and acting as a kind of makeshift door to the bathroom whenever one of us received the call of nature. We seemed to get along very well with him, and dubbed him Herman Goatman, on account of him being unable to speak English, rather like a goat. We used the money we had saved for Lent to buy food for him, and we used to howl with laughter when, during the night, he would awake from his slumber in the coal cellar, screeching like a big black man-crow. On stormy nights we would make him dance in the street with a rod of copper between his teeth, and we would chant, "Go, Goatman, Go!" and laugh uncontrollably whenever the sound of approaching thunder rumbled ominously in the near distance. This sound, followed by the desperate, copper-muffled shriek of the dancing Goatman, is something I shall remember with fondness for the rest of my life.

The fun was not to last, however. Some of our neighbours became jealous and began to call us "posh" and started to say that we were getting too big for our boots. Not one to let the good family name be dragged through the mud, Father bound Herman Goatman's hands and feet together and cast him into the river. Our dignity remained intact.
(stusut79, Thu 15 Sep 2005, 14:09, Reply)