THE Trotters saga continues

As you no doubt remember, I have had several items recently about the origin of the name for Boltonians.

Local writer Ernest Ford draws my attention to a book of Lancashire Nicknames and Sayings by Bob Dobson which mentions the name "the trotters."

One refers to the story of the smart local who conned a visitor into a bet and kept his leg in hot water for longer -- because it was a false one.

In this account the leg is cork and not wood, as suggested previously.

Mr Ford tells me: "Another one mentions when work was scarce and many mouths to feed, the hopeful worker of the house had to move fast (trot) to Manchester which was a long way to go!

"It mentions the Heywood 'Monkey Towners' which legend goes that a circus in town allowed its monkeys to escape and they thus interbred with the locals.

"It was said that the hard wooden stools found in the pubs had a hole in the centre of each one for the monkeys to put their tails through."

Mr Ford says he feels sure that this "very interesting book" can be borrowed from most public libraries.

On the same theme, Andy Dunning of Bowen Street, Bolton writes to me with an 1803 poem -- The Bolton Trotters by Neddy Nibble esq -- which is in a book called "Simply Bolton Wanderers."

This work, which went out of print in 1961, is by Percy M. Young.

The poem goes as follows:

"In the merry month of May, as I've heard the people say,

Some youths for wit renown'd;

To avoid all silent sotting, have a trick they say of TROTTING,

Whilst they pass the glass around.

At the sign of the Swan, where the joke is begun,

And liquors free abound;

But the wager being won, comes the best part of the fun

which is "Waiter, glasses round."

......So here's to those jolly Trotters,

Who despise all silent sotters,

then push the joke around."