On a recent road trip around Ireland, we were kept amused by the names of some of the villages we went through. Two of our favourites (both in Tipperary) were Two Mile Borris (Buiríos Léith) and Horse and Jockey (An Marcach). Both have derivations somewhat less exciting than their names. In medieval Ireland, a buiríos denoted a small settlement e.g. burgage, and the Horse and Jockey is, as expected, probably named after a pub.
I’m sure our Creative Writing group could come up with more imaginative derivations. In an article in the paper recently, Adrian Chiles described that when stuck on a recent long journey, he passed the time by making imaginary characters out of place names he was passing through. For example, Leigh Delamere – “the glamorous heiress of an American biscuit-making fortune, now fallen on hard times”. This led others to remember a Douglas Adams book, The Meaning of Liff where the Lincolnshire village Mavis Enderby is defined as "The almost-completely-forgotten girlfriend from your distant past for whom your wife has a completely irrational jealousy and hatred”.
This reminded me of other car-games we used to play to while away long journeys. A family favourite of ours (when journeys weren’t on motorways) was to play pub cricket. You scored runs depending upon how many legs the pub name had (e.g. Dog and Duck = 6 runs) and were given “out” if it had none. My dad was a great master at this. On journeys through Hampshire and Wiltshire to see my gran, when it was his turn to “bat” he’d suddenly take a strange detour which would, inevitably, take him though villages where there would be a “Fox and Hounds”, “George and Dragon” and “Coach and Horses”, giving him an unbeatable 26 runs!
I’m sure many of you can remember similar, creative ways, that were used to pass the time on long journeys. Those of us privileged to have grandchildren can now enjoy passing such games onto them.
Mike Freemantle Chair