Tag Archives: Grunty Fen

News

Fencast Number Ten! A Talk by Mr South

Throw your caps in the air for it’s our tenth podcast!

And it’s a very special Fencast – a recording of an actual talk given by Mr South in person to Warboys Local History Society and members of the public. 

We’d like to thank WLHS and Warboys Methodist Church for organising and facilitating Mr South’s visit, which was well received by everyone.

If you’d like Mr South to do a talk in your area, please email Miss Edwards on info@dennisofgruntyfen.co.uk and she’ll see if it’s feasible.

Mr South’s talk was about Dennis of Grunty Fen, and you can find out whether he stuck to his topic or not by going to our Podcasts page by clicking Fencast for me, please!

News

New Easter Fencast!

Dear Friends of the Fen,

My nervous sister Miss Edna and I would like to wish you a very happy Easter and let you know we won’t be doing any egg-related puns as we bring you a free episode from Easter 1994.

Dennis has an Easter present for Mr South, and we don’t think it’ll spoil your enjoyment by telling you that it’s not an egg of any kind.

And we know that Dennis can talk, but in this episode he seems particularly loquacious, as Mr South would no doubt say.

We hope you enjoy this new Fencast, and forgive us if we quickly remind you that if you haven’t yet got your copies of any of the three latest compilations (Archives 12, 13 and 14), they’re still available in the shop. Thank you.

So without further ado, you can now click Fencast for me, please which will take you to the Podcasts page.

TAIYL

Miss Edwards

News

Easter Fencast and New Collections!

Dear Friends of the Fen,

My nervous sister Miss Edna and I are delighted to announce not one, not two, but THREE new things for your listening pleasure.

First up is a new Fencast for Easter, in which Mr South explains more about Easter in Grunty Fen followed by an episode from 1991 all about Easter Traditions in our favourite bleak, damp and flat location.

Click Fencast, please to go to our Podcasts page.

Next, we have Archive Editions 10 – Slapp, which poses such questions as why is there a moose in the Miscellaneous Shed?
Where does Dennis take the Christmas fender?
Why doesn’t he want his gusset scrutinised?
What new enterprise is he considering?

Archive Editions 10 features – amongst other things – the chewing-gum valve, chamois leather, a full chamber pot, the Enclosure Acts, rubbers, an Elastoplast, Queen Salote of Tonga, pipecleaners, ullage, Weasenham St Peter, knolls and gorges, mudmogs, sink tidies, chicken muck, waterboatmen, cowlicks, a Stygian morass of miasmic effluvia and a moose’s nostrils.

Click Slapp for me, please to take you to the right place in the shop to find out more.

And finally, we present Archive Editions 11 – Windy Huts, which raises various subjects including Dennis finding a key in a very unusual place, an easy-going young man called Ziggy, the etiquette of bus stops and mystical forces from beyond this realm.

Archive Editions 11 features – amongst other things – Gran’s drawer, mauve fried bread, gentleman’s fragrance, flooding, an ambulance, pot plants, Ambrose, quiffs, apologies, an angel with the monk on, lady wrestlers and Cyril’s trilby.

Click Windy Huts for me, please to take you to the Archives 11 page in the shop.

Thak you once again for supporting us here at Grunty Fen. We wouldn’t be here without you. Happy Easter!

Uncategorized

Who’s who? ARNOLD BAZELEY

Hello there. I’ve heard it said that Grunty Fen folk never stray over the A10 but that is a gross exaggeration. For example, take the case of Arnold Bazeley the famous explorer. This is an extract from the Who’s Who of Grunty Fen.

ARNOLD BAZELEY (1919-2001)

Explorer

While the majority of people born in the Grunty Fen area are content to spend their entire lives travelling no further than Stuntney or in the more restless cases, Ely, there is a wanderlust gene in their blood which manifests itself in a rare line who are born with their eyes on far horizons.

So it was with Arnold Bazeley, one of the greatest in a long line of Fen explorers going back to the legendary Wanda Aetheling who discovered Dire Pits in c.900 AD.  Bazeley followed his father in the pitch-tosser’s trade but from an early age became restless in the spring. Each April he bade his family farewell and with a small sack of liquorice allsorts flung over his shoulder and his trusty bagging hook through his belt set out on foot he knew not whither.

In old age he published an evocative memoir, Far Afield Afoot in the Fens, telling how he stumbled across many hitherto unheard of villages and recorded their local customs.  There is a sense of wonder in his words as he describes, for example, Great Sorely where the people washed every day and bathed at least once a fortnight or Bastardy where women with large feet were thought especially desirable and baby girls’ feet were cruelly clamped between boards from birth to flatten and expand them.

If you would like to know more about Arnold and other characters of Grunty Fen please see Who’s Who of Grunty Fen by Christopher South.

Best regards

Miss Edwards
Grunty Fen Post Office and General Stores

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Who’s Who? BARRY “BARMY” BARNARD, The Rev.

I forget my own name sometimes but I never could forget Reverend Barnard. He was quite a character in his day. Here is a brief extract from Who’s Who of Grunty Fen.

According to Barnard’s new calendar, by which many Fen folk now live, the standard week runs Sunday, Unday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Picture of BARRY “BARMY” BARNARD, The Rev.
Who’s Who? BARRY “BARMY” BARNARD, The Rev.

By some force of nature, we are unable to remember the events of an Unday.  Mankind lives and goes about its business on Undays but is forbidden forever from remembering what it did on that day.  That slice of cold pie missing from the larder sometime between Sunday and Monday was eaten on Unday. That otherwise inexplicable graze on one’s skin was suffered on an Unday.  That stranger towards whom one feels an unjustified antipathy is because of something he or she said on an Unday. That strange sense of sadness or gladness we sometimes feel for no good reason springs in fact from the events of Unday.  All strangenesses, all mysteries, all odd dreams and curious happenings, and, above all, that impression one has of having “been here before” are down to Unday.

It goes without saying that you can read more about the thoughts of the Reverend Barnard in the book written by Christopher South called Who’s Who of Grunty Fen.

Best regards

Miss Edwards, Grunty Fen PO and General Store

 

Uncategorized

Meet the Author of the Who’s Who of Grunty Fen

Image

Dear Reader,

That lovely gentleman from the BBC, Mr Christopher South, will be in Ely on Saturday 24th March at Burrows Bookshop. This will be an ideal time for you to get your books signed. Including, of course, The Who’s Who in Grunty Fen and extract of which is attached.

Mr South will be discussing Who’s Who  and his other books with anybody who would care to attend his event at Burrows Bookshop, Ely on March 24th. The Burrows Face Book is here

 

 

 

 

The particular “Who” this sample page refers to is MOTHER MARJORY (fl. 1490)
Founder of the Theory of Duality of Purpose
and originator of the edible poultice.

 

Best regards

Miss Edwards
Grunty Fen Post Office and General Stores

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Meet the Author of our Grunty Fen books 24th March 2018

Dear reader,

It is with great excitement I have to announce that Mr Christopher South will be having an Event! If you would like to meet Mr South and put a face to the senior voice of Radio Cambridgeshire please do go along to Burrow’s Bookshop in Ely on 24th March between half-past ten and twelve o’clock. That’s a Saturday.

All of Christopher’s book will be available to purchase and to get autographed including the latest Customs and Folklore of Grunty Fen. I am sure the author will be very pleased to meet you – he does like to know who reads his books and what their gardens are like.

Burrows bookshop has a facebook page here :

https://www.facebook.com/events/953608204789617/

Best wishes

Miss Edwards

Uncategorized

The original travelling salesmen

Hello there. Many people think that the Grunty Fen General Stores have been here for ever! But before my sister and I took over the little post office Grunty Fen was visited by characters such as this gentleman who would deliver and sell all matters of comestibles.  Everything from cement to elastic for under-clothing. Just you read the chapter on Old Rep in Christopher South’s latest book.

I learn something new every time I pick it up!

 

Uncategorized

Best of Dennis Volume 5 is reissued

Hello,

The cassette version of volume 5 featured Dennis with one of his rude root pictures.

We are all very pleased at Grunty Fen to hear that Dennis’s shop is now able to supply the Best Of Dennis Vol 5 on CD or a digital download. This is a collection of Dennis episodes originally released on cassette tapes.

To quote Mr South “This compilation features a wide variety of subjects involving mince, custard and gravy, army life, tortoises, the mysterious spirituality of the hadnabinfers, strange offerings in supermarkets, Gran’s bloomers, budgie cages and the light harvest festival. ”

Dennis spoke  on several occasions about the hadnabinfer problem but I’m no closer to an understanding. Listen to Volume 5 yourself and then perhaps you can explain it to me.

Volume 5 is only available from Dennis’s shop in this location.

Fond regards

Miss Edwards