CHAPTER 1.
1.
In March of 1742, Evangeline Yallop – daughter of the
Reverend Stanley Barsham, vicar of Darsham, wrote in her diary of her father
and her husband George:
“ They were full of ale and fick as dogs.
No-one more merrier than the fool who haf flonked and loft, on thif beautiful fpring day of Lent, purple-tinged with funshine and merriment….”[1]
“ They were full of ale and fick as dogs.
No-one more merrier than the fool who haf flonked and loft, on thif beautiful fpring day of Lent, purple-tinged with funshine and merriment….”[1]
Was the word ‘flonked’ intended to be the linguistically more appropriate
‘slonked’
(meaning partaking in the act of slonking, a commonplace activity during times
of rural penitence)?Was it the earliest reference to dwile flonking, the Dutch having taken up residency in England’s flat-lands for some 200 years or more.
Or was Evangeline’s saccharine quill nib just broken and on the way out?
We
shall never know.
Photo of a woman writing. (Source unknown).
What we do know however, is that Evangeline goes on to say that George ‘flept
with the dogs, his breath fo bitter and noxious. And he did clutch in his hand
a fugarbeet from laft years harveft’[2]It’s this tiny bit of information regarding the sugarbeet, that leads us to make a massive assumption.
George had been dwile flonking.
(And George was quite probably drunk!)
2.
In his seminal masterpiece Sporting, Gaming & Idling Miscellany, Benjamin Schott tells us
that the noble art of dwile flonking probably had its roots in the 9th
century sport of ‘Spile Troshing’.[1]
Although there is no substantial evidence to corroborate his findings, we like to think that he is correct.
If indeed dwile flonking had been played in rural parts for nearly a millennium, then it’s fair to say that the immigrant Dutch bastardisation of the sport (see Soccer or Cycling) was highly likely, and not really worth going into.
‘Dwile’ has long been associated with the
Walloons (and latterly the Phlegms) and literally means ‘dishcloth’.Although there is no substantial evidence to corroborate his findings, we like to think that he is correct.
If indeed dwile flonking had been played in rural parts for nearly a millennium, then it’s fair to say that the immigrant Dutch bastardisation of the sport (see Soccer or Cycling) was highly likely, and not really worth going into.
George II’s rural England had embraced ‘the Strangers’ wholeheartedly, very much like the people of the Lincolnshire Fens embrace Romanians today, and most took to working in the fields if their mums wouldn’t let them spin wool.
Most of East Anglia had already embraced Charles ‘Turnip’ Townshend’s new fangled crop rotation methods, unlike the rather backwards people of the West, and despite the humble turnip being the favoured root crop of the great man, the people of the Waveney & Blyth Valleys would focus their attentions on sugarbeet come harvest time.
The middling classes such as George & Evangeline Yallop would drink copious amounts of tea & coffee, but their sugar still came from the West Indies.
It would be another five years before the Germans showed us how to refine sugar from beet.
This leads us to conclude that just as Townshend grew turnips for his livestock, the folk of Beccles, Bungay and Halesworth probably grew beet as a food supplement for their cattle & horses. [2]
3.
The book we mentioned earlier.
So why was George Yallop clutching a sugarbeet in his ale-soaked hands?
A scroll detaling the rules of dwile flonking were found by one of the 1960s Revivalists that dated to some 400 years earlier.
Although the sugarbeet is mentioned as a way of determining who ‘girts’ first, there is no mention as to what happens to the beet after the flonking has ceased.
Was it a trophy?
Was the game played at harvest-time, and George was retaining it for pig feed?
Or was the game played in Spring, and this was just the last of the produce laid-down in storage?
Sadly we will never know, and if we’re honest, we don’t really care.
Blyth Valley still flonk at harvest-time.[1]
Waveney folk always celebrate at May Fayre.[2]
When you flonk is not all that important.
It’s how you flonk, and how long you flonk for that really matters.
(But Yallop does say ‘laft year’s harveft’, so I think we can assume that the Blyth lot are idiots).
[1]
Folk East Festival – Glemham Hall.
[2]
WVDFT – Geldeston. Locks Inn.
4.
(In the next chapter we’ll discover what happened when the brewing industry fell foul of licensing laws, and how J.D.Wetherspoon annihilated the independent pub trade).
(In the next chapter we’ll discover what happened when the brewing industry fell foul of licensing laws, and how J.D.Wetherspoon annihilated the independent pub trade).
Flonking was often cited as the final insult to Cromwell’s puritanical rule.[1]
