Glossary of Terms
Aberdeen: Scotland’s third most populous city, approximately 530 miles north of London.
Alfa: Alfa Romeo, an Italian sports car company. Manufactures expensive sports cars and racing cars. (See Fig. 1)
Bob: A shilling. There were 20 shillings to a pound, before they were retired from use in 1971. A shilling in 1965 would be worth about £0.64 today in purchasing power, or about $1.03.
Cheese Roll: A snack food made by coating a slice of bread with a prepared filling made of cheese, then rolling it into a tube shape and toasting it. (See Fig. 2)
“Chuffed to his bollocks”: To be very pleased with oneself, a situation.
Chuffed: Pleased, satisfied, or displeased, disgruntled.
Bollocks: (here) Testicles.
Cloche: Here, a bell-shaped covering on a hat. Usually, a woman’s close-fitting hat of a bell shape, popular in the 1920s.
Clump: To strike, punch, or beat.
Dandle: To move (a child, etc.) lightly up and down in the arms or on the knee; fig., to make much of, pet, fondle, pamper.
Dipped: Of the beams of the headlights of a vehicle: lowered.
Dust Cart: A garbage truck.
Epsom: Epsom Downs Racecourse, location of the Epsom Derby, second leg of the English Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, run each June.
Flying Fortress: The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC), employed primarily by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in WWII. (See Fig. 3)
Git: A worthless person.
Humber Super Snipe: A British car produced from 1938-1967, marketed to the upper-middle class, professional class, and government officials. (See Fig. 4 for example)
Jamroll: A snack food made by coating a piece of bread in jelly, then rolling it into a tube shape. (See Fig. 5)
“Jibbing the boom,”: nautical.
Jib: to pull (a sail or yard) round from one side of the vessel to the other, as in tacking, etc.
Boom: a spar (pole) along the foot (bottom) of a fore and aft rigged sail. (See Fig. 6 for ship diagram)
Kerb: Curb
Kitty: A pool into which each player in a card-game puts a certain amount of his winnings, to be used in meeting expenses, as for room-rent, refreshments, etc. Also, the money (freq. placed in the center of the table) taken by the winner of a game or round. Earnings, liquid capital, a reserve fund; a sum of money made up of contributions by people involved in a common activity.
Knock About: To move about, wander, or roam, in an irregular way; also to lead an irregular life (colloquial)
Layby: Designated paved area beside a main road where cars can stop temporarily (pull-off, rest area, rest stop).
Lorry: A truck, a long flat wagon without sides running on four low wheels, for carrying goods.
Mangle: A machine for squeezing water from and pressing linen, clothing, etc., after washing. (See Fig. 7 and 8)
“On my own bat”: Variation of “off [his] own bat,” meaning solely by one’s own exertions.
Paddock: In horse racing, a turf enclosure near a racecourse where horses and jockeys assemble before a race.
Pan-American: Pan American World Airways, or Pan Am; principal United States international carrier that peaked in the 1960s, collapsing in 1991.
Peckish: Somewhat hungry; in N. America, irritable, peevish; touchy.
“Pop off”: “Get lost,” or die suddenly/unexpectedly.
Prat: Brittish slang, An idiot, fool.
Quid: Colloquial term for a pound sterling (£). £1 in 1965 would be worth approximately £12.86 today in purchasing power, or $20.16.
Reef: (Coarse slang) To feel the genitals of (a person), cop a feel.
Slag: A worthless person; a coward, a rough or brutal person, a vagrant or petty criminal; a prostitute or promiscuous woman (most usual sense)
Sod: One who practices or commits sodomy (coarse slang); used as a vulgar term of abuse for (usu.) a male person. Also with weakened force, as the equivalent of ‘fellow’ or ‘chap,’ freq. affectionately or in commiseration.
Tailboard: Tailgate.
Tearaway: An unruly young person, a hooligan, ruffian, or petty criminal. Formerly applied specifically to a type of thief who used to wait outside theatres after a show and snatch costly brooches from women’s dress fronts.
The Three-Thirty: Three hundred and thirty-yard dash.
Yardarm: nautical, one of the outermost tips of the yard, a spar on a mast from which sails are set. (See Fig. 6 for ship diagram)
Yob: Backslang for ‘boy,’ a boy, a youth; in modern usage, a lout, a hooligan.