Over the years we have occasionally printed jokes written anonymously for a publication long out of print. Rich in local dialect, they originally appeared as ‘Judisms’. Remarkably, we were able to identify ‘Jud’ as Raymond Jones who died in 1955 aged 57.
Raymond was born around 1898, destined to earn a living on the land until the outbreak of the Great War. Called up to serve in the Royal Artillery, he became one of the thousands of teenaged soldiers sent to fight in northern Europe. Seriously wounded and incapacitated by mustard gas, Raymond returned home in broken health. He was once seen to reach behind his shoulder blade and pull out a piece of shrapnel which had worked its way out through the skin.
Raymond became tenant of Middle Farm at Brushfield near Taddington and raised six children. He worked hard to build up a small herd of pedigree Shorthorn cattle but the Wall Street Crash of 1929 saw their value plummet overnight.
Luck was on his side though when his service record helped to get him a full-time job as an RAC patrolman. He is shown on our photograph with his trusty Norton motorbike beside an emergency call box on the A6, opposite the turn to Miller’s Dale.
In 1930/31, the Jones family moved with their three youngest children into Hassop tollbar cottage, where Raymond bought himself a small desk and an old typewriter, re-inventing himself as old ‘Jud’, author of mischievous fun. His legacy of laughter is shared below in a few choice jokes banged out on that trusty old typewriter.
Fifty-fifty
Jud reckoned that a Peakland church once displayed this notice: ‘Will brethren intending to place buttons in the collection plate please use their own and refrain from pulling them off the hassocks.’
There was once a mayor of Longnor who liked to boast of his swimming prowess from his younger days. He suffered only one disadvantage, in that he was very, very thin. He told how one day, as he was floating on his back in the sea at Blackpool, someone in a passing boat looked over the side and said, ‘Look, somebody has lost his braces.’
A story from Chelmorton tells of two neighbours who were always falling out. Owing to poor boundary fences, their cattle and sheep often went ‘a-neebourin’. On one occasion, four of Bill’s sheep had been in Tom’s pasture all day, so when darkness fell Tom put his old red cow into Bill’s pasture for the night. Getting up nice and early, Tom fetched back his old cow and laughed all the way home. But when he came to milk her, he stopped laughing. Bill had got up before him.
Then there was the old colonel and his wife who had come to Baslow for the spa treatment. Feeling somewhat better, the colonel was pleased to explain how the couple went 50-50 in their domestic happiness. When asked to explain how, he said, ‘Well, when she throws a flat-iron or saucepan at me, she’s full of joy if she hits me – that’s ‘er turn. If she misses me, ah’m full o’ joy – that’s my turn.’
Finally, heard in the old pub at Bakewell – Ted: ‘It ses ‘ere as how motorists are getting fined a good few quid for doing over 30 miles an hour.’ Fred: ‘Ah, that just gus to show as ‘ow the law is elastic.’ Ted: ‘Then darn here, it ses as ‘ow a bloke got six months for being drunk in charge of a car.’ Fred: ‘There y’are agen, tha sees, the law is still elastic, e’s doin’ a stretch!’
Julie Bunting