General Chat

In June 1990 I drove to Manchester in a clapped out Viva. I'd never been there before

and frankly didn't if the car could make it. Got there booked into a hotel.

Got a phone call from my wife informing me my Father had died.

Got back much quicker.

Several who live locally to me for years fret frightfully when they are asked to travel further afield. Lack of 'local knowledge'.

They generally ask to borrow my SatNav. :-S

Thank you for correcting me, my interpretation of the term was in error.

I am regarded as some kind of oracle in the village because I was born here, in the same room as was my grandfather some eighty years before me and have only ever moved house once in my life.

What I am fairly useful for is leading people away from asking the wrong thing. I know whose child belongs to the postman and whose father is not who they think he is and which dear old upright ladies were very kind to the troops in the war.

A newcomer to the village is doing some research into something fairly recent in the village and has, in the past, been telling me about somebody he has been talking to about his interest and also about a man he had seen in the village, not knowing that was the father-in-law of the man he had been talking to and that the sister of the man lives three doors away from him.

As a village, we generally always know a woman by her single name and that always confuses incomers as well.

I agree -

local knowledge is understanding a place and it's people

local gossip or rumour is local gossip or rumour

David, I have never come across anyone who thinks local knowledge means gossip and rumour.

Local knowledge is just that - knowledge of the locality one lives in.

Did I post an error ? forgive me.

Local knowledge around hear is synonymous with hearsay, rumour gossip.

I'd no intention to mislead, consciously or otherwise.

David posted ........

"Sad it's always bad or sad news, twice around the block and it's fact"

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NO, David you have it wrong if you are referring to your opening question ........

what you posted is NOT local knowledge

It IS gossip or rumour.


Local knowledge is as maggie and I posted ............... knowing the area where you live, the sights, the sounds, the people.

Pat ...............

the house we lived in when I was born was bought by my parents before they married in 1928. We sold it and moved to another house in early 1951.

That house is still standing ............. a typical Victorian row house in a cotton town

A bomb fell less than half a mile away on Christmas Eve 1944, it demolished several houses and killed about 20+ people. The blast waves also blew out windows for about a mile around.

Our house was the only one that I know of that did not lose its windows .......... the only sign of damage was a small crack across one corner of the front room window.

I remember the bombing, hiding on the basement stairs, I remember seeing the crack, and seeing all the glass in the street the following morning, and I remember that Dad decided not to have the window replaced, so I grew up knowing how that crack got there.

I took a photo of that house back in 2001, but I didn't have the nerve to go up close and peer at the window to see if the crack was still there!


That was my local knowledge, and the local knowledge of most of the neighbours who all wondered how we had managed not to get more damage ........... Dad told them that he had been in London at the start of the war and his landlady had told him to open the catch on all windows a soon as the sirens went. That allowed the windows to move in the frames and absorb some at least of that blast wave.

That became THEIR local knowledge.

Sad it's always bad or sad news, twice around the block and it's fact :-0

Local Knowledge when I was a child - the crack in the lintel above my parents bedroom window was caused by a WW1 bomb.

Taken with a pinch of salt, we were in Walsall not far from Birmingham - who'd come that far in a zeppelin and bomb a nondescript town?

My sister seeing the local paper had bought out a special issue commemorating 100 years since WW1 decided to buy it and had a shock.

A zeppelin dropped bombs in Walsall, one hitting a bus/tram and killed people including the mayoress who was travelling on the bus/tram. Another bomb was dropped in the garden of St Andrews vicarage causing local damage.

Our street was a small cul de sac with 9 houses. Opposite the corner of the street were a set of steps - they led to the garden of St Andrew's vicarage. :-S :-S :-0

My poor Mum was coming home/going to school one day when one of her class mates joyfully informed her......."That's where your uncle caught your aunty with another man and raised a shotgun at them both" :-0

The aunty was actually the daughter of my mum's grandfather and his second wife.

Obviously the close family had shielded the youngsters from this but it was 'Local Knowledge' or 'Gossip' that led to my mum learning all about it :-D

I need to add at this point that no shots were actually fired!

Chris

Maybe we just don't involve ourselves in malicious gossip where we live :-D

I do know, many years ago, that a local Chinese Takeaway suggested my daughter and her friend could have 'fun' upstairs.
Daughter and friend declined the invitation, but told me, who told others.
Strangely, that Chinese takeaway closed down.
Not so much a case of 'Chinese whispers', more a case of child protection - and dirty bar stewards getting their just desserts!
Not really a 'local knowledge' situation - just someone taking on 'dodgy' employees.

That's exactly it!!

or knowing there used to be a stream flowing "over there" and we could catch fish in it :-D

We've lived in this house for about 46 years, and I know a lot about the neighbourhood ......... but there others who know much more than I do.

They keep telling me there was a bowling alley "there" until several years after we moved here ........... I have no memory of it!

Or of the great place to eat on "that corner" until well into the 70s, although I do remember the fire (arson) that burnt down a large part of the 3 storey apartment building that replaced it just before the apartments were ready for occupancy.

I wish we had known about the place to eat ........... it sounds as though it served just the kind of food that I for one love .............. southern bbq ribs style and some New Orleans dishes.

Yes! Sylvia.
When I stand at the bus stop, Bert informs me he was brought up 2 doors away from where I now live.
When he married, he and his wife moved into number 5, then when they had a major re-furb in the '70's, they moved into number 60 :-D
He's moved 3 times in his life, and can tell me how often Ann, Mavis and John have moved around the estate.

When I moved here 28 years ago, aged 34, I'd moved 28 times, but Bert has more 'Local knowledge' than I'll never have :-D :-D :-D

Snap Maggie and Sue :-D

It is truly local knowledge, nothing at all to do with rumours, Chinese whispers.

In addition to knowing how to get from A to B to C, it's things like knowing that Mrs James lived 2 streets over 30 years ago when the visitor from overseas asks, or that there used to be a hospital in that big old house down the street and that it was the first hospital here 100 years ago (the latter is literally true in my case!)

Snap Maggie :-D

To me, it's knowing how to get from A to B, in the shortest time possible! :-D

Is that another term for rumour ? gossip ? chinese whispers ?