YESTERYEAR



How did people wake up in time in the days before alarm clocks? I imagine rich people got their servants to wake them up, but how did THEY get up? Was it just a case of relying on cockerels or the sun? Liz Bland, Reading, UK To answer part of your question, I do know that the factory workers of the day were woken up by a "knocker-upper" who walked the streets and banged on bedroom windows with a large pole. Now as to who "knocked-up" the "knocker-upper" - that I cannot answer. Mel, Sheffield, UK In mining villages (or probably other industrial communities) a "knocker" was paid to walk the streets and tap on a slate attached to the outside of the house. The wake-up time was written on the same slate. On some houses in north-east England the slate is still visible. Boez, Dunedin, New Zealand I strongly recommend all readers with a sense of humour to read the sketch "Nicholas Knox, of Nottingham" by Charles J. Winter. It can be found in "The Book of Comedy Sketches" by Frank Muir and Simon Brett published in 1982 by Elm Tree Books/Hamish Hamilton Ltd. Pelham Barton, Birmingham UK Before the industrial revolution time keeping was less important. You worked on your farm or wove your cloth at home, to your own timetable. There were no trains to catch or business meetings to miss. You had a set amount of work to do in a day or a week and you just got on with it. Only with the introduction of factories and factory-like systems did it become important to work the hours rather than doing the tasks. Susan Deal, Sheffield UK I suppose drinking two long glasses of water before going to bed would be fairly effective. Planxty, Madrid Spain There were those called the night watch. Then there was the church clock. Notice how big those clocks were so those working the feilds had no excuse for being late for this or that. Jim Walsh, New York USA Knocker ups were common in all the mill towns across the north of England at the height of the Industrial Revolution and until the advent of cheap clockwork clocks in the latter half of the 19th Century. They were usually retired workers, or younger men unfit to work in the mills. They were paid to stay up at night and wake up the mill workers in time for work. Incidentally, and this maybe untrue, the expression for a young women becoming pregnant out of wedlock, getting 'knocked up', relates to the opportunity such people had for a bit of nooky after all the men had gone off to work. Mike wood, Leeds Many farm houses were built with the front facing east so that the early morning sun would stream into the front bedrooms, so waking the occupants. Angela, Stockton on Tees uk



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