The Lenches

If you were creating four teams to play a game I wonder what you would be likely to call them. Maybe 1,2,3 and 4 or A,B,C and D.

Where I now live, the village of Harvington in Worcestershire, the church benefice consists of St James, Harvington and three others. It is called 'The Lenches Benefice'; because two of the other parishes have the word 'Lench' in their name and there are five Lench villages altogether. The fourth parish is Abbots Norton

Now you might expect that these Lench villages communities would consist of North, South, East and West Lench, or Upper and Lower Lench. Hold those expectations lightly. This part of the world thinks nothing of calling a village Slaughter or Piddle. So what are the Lenches called?

In no particular order they are Church Lench, Ab Lench, Rous Lench, Atch Lench and Sherrif's Lench. Let us visit this nomenclature and try to find sense.

Firstly the word lench itself. It is mainly agreed by historians that the word derives from an old English word (linch) for a ridge of high ground. We do indeed live in the Vale of Evesham where even relatively modest high ground appears prominent.

Church Lench was named because it was the first of the small settlements to have a church. Except there was a church at Rous Lench dating from roughly the same time. During some of the 13th century it was known as Lench Roculf after the manorial family (there is still a Manor House but it isn't that old). It is in the Domesday Book as Circelenz.

Ab Lench (for a while called Hob's Lench) was probably named after an individual, maybe an Aebba. In an effort to take the village upmarket it was renamed Abbots Lench in the 19th century and was thus named in the 1911 census. This didn't catch on with anyone except the Post Office who insist on its continued use even though they have changed their own name since and expect us to comply.

Atch Lench could refer to an individual called Aecci, or it might just mean 'east'. It is the most easterly of the settlements.

Rous Lench is named after a family who were Lords of that manor for 500 years. It had been called both Lench Randolph and Bishop's Lench. You will see other spellings such as Rouse and Rowse.

Sherrif's Lench was held by the Sherrif of Worcestershire.

So, if your four teams are called 1, B, East and Green the people of the Lenches will like your style and welcome you.

Now as to Harvington. I think we know that a ton is a farm or small settlement. The suggestion most commentators agree upon is that the Har bit is from 'here', an old word for army. And the Ving is a bastardised form of 'Ford'. So Herefordton became Harvington - a place where the army could cross the Avon (a word which means river so the river Avon is the river River). The Avon is not far from the south part of the village although walkers will need to find a safe place to cross the A46. Apparently the ford is still there but the river is now deeper, faster-flowing and has no road leading to or from. Not advised.

This has been fun so I'll do more as and when.

Mustard Seed Shavings

When Bible Reading Fellowship (BRF) published my book for new Christians and seekers in 2012 they liked the title of the blog at that time and asked if we could use it as the book title. I agreed.

Now, after an unspectacular sales history, the book has been remaindered. They are gentler than that on the BRF web-site and describe it as 'currently out of print', although when I first attempted that sentence it came out as 'currently out of pint' which is more regularly true. I guess if you loved the book enough to cough up for a further print-run they would see you. The follow-up volume is still available. Click on the side-bar image to buy.

And if you want a copy of Mustard Seed Shavings I have bought a few which can be yours for £5 plus postage

Anyway, enough of this nonsense. I'm having my blog title back. It feels good to have it home after a disappointing journey.

Tilley

So it seems like the family story I was told about it being a variant of Tillé and of French descent is probably wrong:

Tilley Name Meaning
variant spelling of Tilly.habitational name from Tilley in Shropshire, named from Old English telga ‘branch’, ‘bough’ + leah ‘wood’, ‘clearing’.occupational name for a husbandman, Middle English tilie (Old English tilia, a primary derivative of tilian ‘to till or cultivate’).from the medieval female personal name Tilly, a pet form of Till.

Having the Obituary Ready

One of the things radio stations and the print media have is an obituary file. It seems a little morbid, but if you are famous for anything chances are that someone's written you up for when you go. The broadsheets keep theirs up to date and have one or two 'professional' obituary writers. An amazing amount of political ones for instance seem to have been written by Tam Dalyell who was a  member of parliament for over forty years. From time to time you read the footnote that the obituarist has pre-deceased the subject.

And so, for the last two weeks or so, all of us who from time to time pop into radio studios to do thoughts for the day, even those of us who work at the bottom of that food chain, have had alternative thoughts in our bags in case ours is the over-night when the death of Nelson Mandela is announced.

It might be interesting to collect all the ones that were never delivered, after a respectful gap, and compare notes, although one of my colleagues did hers in all but headline using the idea, 'A Nation Waits'. Cunning.

And so, in passing, may I introduce one fact that I didn't know before I started cluing myself up. His real name isn't Nelson. It's Rolihlahla. It means, colloquially, 'troublemaker'. You may have also heard him called 'Madiba', a clan name, by his contemporaries.

The name Nelson was given to him by a teacher because he attended a primary school where all children had to have 'Christian' names. In fact it is an English name rather than a Christian one, given on his baptism, as it was a school he described in his own writings as having 'a British bias'. Mandela himself had no idea why it was chosen.

Biblical Names

My sons have Hebrew names - Benjamin and Jonathan. I still like the names and I still like the sons. Bit of a result.

Although we chose the names because we liked them, and because they seemed to match the features we looked at some-weird-how, we didn't go too much by the meanings of the names.

Benjamin, for instance, means favourite son. Well I suppose he was for 28 months or so. Jonathan means 'gift of God.' Thanks God. Another favourite son. Now I have two. They have 'favourite son' competitions and make claims to that post when they have done something special. All in fun.

Ben claims he has won every year except 1982 (when Jon was born) and 2005 (when Jon graduated). As wise parents we choose never to comment. If they want to try to outdo each other in being nice to us that's OK.

Thing I just realised. The story of Joseph is the story of Jacob showing favouritism to his favourite son, thus causing jealousy (Genesis 37). But Jacob had eleven other sons. One of whom was called. Yeah, Benjamin.

The meaning of your name? Over-rated. The qualities you inhabit your name with? Priceless.

In Defence of Steves

I have mentioned before that all the work in the world is done by people called Dave, unless they are too busy in which case they have a mate called Steve who can cover it. This is Al Murray's comment to any audience member he speaks to called Dave or Steve. Beautiful British names, as he would put it.

But there is a problem. A hitch has been driven into town and abandoned at MSS's door.

You see David 'Call me Dave' Camera-on has, according to Downing Street as reported in the Guardian (left-wing, liberal bias warning) got two sorts of candidates for the forthcoming General Election. There are the ones we know about, '...privately educated and wealthy, the younger son of a marquis probably called Piers (if a man) or Petronella (on the rare occasions they are not); someone whose engagement with Europe runs no further than Courcheval (a ski resort apparently - ed) and who is happiest on a horse.

'The second is rougher, more brutal, and even richer: a non-dom self-made City millionaire little Englander - possibly called Steve - with unedifying views on the best way to deal with rapists. It sticks in the craw to imagine either Steve or Piers lecture on poverty.' (Julian Glover, The Guardian 7/12/09)

Glover goes on to explain, carefully, that this is a parody; what Downing Street would like people to believe. In fact the future MPs of the right are much changed from this stereotype. I care not. What I do care about is the suggestion that there is something essentially unpalatable about people called Steve. On behalf of Messrs Gerrard, Biko, Hawking, Jobs, Irwin, Gately, Seagall, Davis, Hendry and Fry I challenge. And that's the currently news-worthy, googleable Steves and Stephens, many of whom remain alive. What a complex, weird, wonderful and interesting bunch we are.

Let's leave it to the Steves.

St

A few words about St. Not an alter-ego but a little more complex than a nickname.

When email came out it seemed good to have a signature. Lots of people where I worked then developed really contrived signatures which basically told everyone how much work they did. Or at least told everyone how much time these people spent working on their signatures when they should have been working.

I began signing my emails simply with two letters but, by using St, it could either be read as short for Steve or my initials (not counting my first initial which is J and stands for James).

This presented the sort of people who have problems with things like this with problems. Becky started calling me St (pronouncing it stu like the begining of study or stutter). Liz started calling me Ste (Stee) which I liked but only when she did it. Bob used Sieve but that was a misprint. Occasionally people say 'Saint' which is wrong except when Dave does it because it is full of irony then as it is he who is that.

By the way don't call me Stephen unless you are my Grandma or Aunty Brenda (or anyone from my time in the north-east where abbreviating a name without permission was seen as an insult) or trying to annoy me.

St is a sort of virtual me I think. Me online. Not really capable of being put into spoken words but less poncey than Prince's squiggle.

I think St and Steve coexist in the same spacetime and have a strange symbiotic relationship. Which makes the fact that both of us are a Gemini quite weird don't you think?

What you called?