I haven't heard it since my childhood. Today, outside my window, there was a cry of "rag bone - rag bone", the words running together, the 'o' elongated and exaggerated, sounding like another language from another time. At the bottom of the street was a horse and cart. So they still exist.
4 comments:
Regular event up here.
SP
In 1965 after my final exams at Hull University and before I took up a teaching post at the FE College at Worksop, I worked for a ten weeks in the office at Ross Group. When the job was over I handed over the suit I had worn for work to a rag and bone man. When he took it along the street towards his cart he had to hold it at arms length became it smelt of fish. I should have realised that a rag and bone man was as likely as anyone to have a keen sense of smell.
Here (somewhere in Greece) we have the gypsies, who come regularly and collect old fridges and stoves while at the same time selling potatoes and tarpaulins.
Aphroula
Our north London rag and bone man used to come round every Tuesday with a hand-drawn cart, a chirpy jack russel and often a fat cigar. He died about a year ago but I'm glad to hear the species survives elsewhere.
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