Thursday 25 February 2021

Through A Hedge Backwards

 "Comb your hair, Angela, you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards" my long-suffering mother would say. I remember how frustrated she was that the teacher made no attempt to tidy up my locks before the annual school photo. If I hadn't already packed it, I'd share that picture here. You think the PM looks scruffy - I'm told he ruffles his hair before the No 10 briefings - but scruffiness came naturally to me.

The first use of the expression in print is in the Hereford Journal, February 1857, in a report of a poultry show: “In the class for any distinct breed came a pen of those curious birds 'the silk fowls', shown by Mr. Churchill, and a pen of those not less curious 'the frizzled fowls', sent by the same gentleman, 

looking as if they had been drawn through a hedge backwards.”

I was reminded of this phrase on Saturday- there was a great photograph in the Eastern Daily Press. 

A 'concerned dog-walker' [let's face it, it is almost always a dog-walker or jogger who discovers such things] rang the police. They had seen somebody apparently motionless, stuck in the hedge.

But fear not - it was not an entrapped bird-watcher, nor yet a grisly murder incident [I admit, I have been binge-watching Criminal Minds recently, I do think Mandy Patinkin is a good actor] 

It was just the bottom half of a shop-mannequin, dressed and posed to cause consternation among the Norfolk locals. 

But you do have to ask yourself -what happened to the mannequin's top half? Will it be spotted climbing out of a chimney, or stuck in a pavement inspection cover?

9 comments:

  1. My mother's favourite school photo of me was when I was looking totally disheveled, The following year the teacher checked us before the photographer did his stuff but mother thought the scruffy picture caught the real me.

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  2. Can't say I've heard that expression, before! Too funny about the bottom half of the mannequin!

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  3. A very common expression in our house when I was younger too.

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  4. My mother used the same expression when I was growing up, so I, too, used it with my children. Many of their school photos would tell the same tale.

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  5. My Mum used a similar expression - 'dragged through a whin bush backwards'. I often think of it when I look at my hair first thing in the morning. Can't wait for hairdressers to reopen!

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    1. Me too... My hair is really in need of a trim. It's almost a year since my last haircut

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  6. Hee hee! My teachers used to say that to me too - I had really long hair and lots of bits escaped around my face... Cheers

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  7. Yes, I am very familiar with this phrase- my Mum used it a lot to me too and I use it myself too...usually to describe myself!
    I see that you say your hair needs a trim- mine needed a big cut last January- it's been about 2 years since my last trim/cut- I was growing my hair, hopefully for a wig for a cancer-sufferer (though where to send it, I don't know yet) but still not had it done!

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    1. You need the Little Princess Trust - https://www.littleprincesses.org.uk/ one of our young girls at church had hers cut for them last year, during that brief spell between lockdowns when hairdressers were open again

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