On this website, Tom-anna already features in ‘Belper’s Mr Bean’. Tom is part of our heritage. Belper cannot claim sole ownership, however. Tom-anna comes from the oral tradition of the Notts/Derby coalfield, and you will find him in or near the old mining settlements. These jokes were collected from the Heanor area: thanks to Mrs C for writing them up and passing them on.
A Moving Story
Tom was known for his friendliness and willingness to lend a hand. He agreed to help his three friends to move a pigeon loft from one allotment to another, with promise of a pint when the job was done.
On the day, which was sunny and very hot, the friends waited for Tom to arrive. When he failed to show up, they had no choice but to ty to do it without him. It was a real struggle and would have been much easier with someone to take the fourth corner. Hot, sweaty, and bad-tempered, the friends finally got to the pub and ordered three pints. Tom suddenly appeared from nowhere and demanded his pint.
‘No pint for you, Tom – you weren’t even there!’ said the owner of the loft.
‘’Course I was,’ cried an indignant Tom. ‘I was inside, carrying the perches!’
Break Time Down the Pit
Says Tom: ‘If you can guess how many buns I’ve got in my snap-tin, you can have both of them.’
Footie Match
Tom played in goal for his local football team. On match day, he was surprised to find the local lads laughing at him, claiming he was wearing odd socks because one was red, and one was green.
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Tom. ‘How can they be odd when I’ve got another pair at home just the same.’
A night out
Tom was arranging to meet his friends so that they could go to the pub together. Not wanting to miss them, Tom suggested ‘If you’re there first, chalk a cross on the wall, and if I’m there first, I’ll rub it out.’
Thinking about Tom...
These jokes feel familiar, possibly suggesting some crossover with stand-up comedy. Other Tom stories have an older feel to them. Folk stories are not set in jelly; they are told by real people, so they are subtly changed all the time. People inventing and sharing these jokes would have been influenced by other jokes they heard. If we still had mines, and new Tom jokes were still being generated, no doubt we would be hearing how Tom had done crazy things to his laptop. Would he have poured beer into it to ‘refresh’? The core idea would not have changed, but the fixtures and fittings would reflect today’s preoccupations. The next story illustrates how our changing perceptions change our reactions:
Fire!
Tom, being community minded, volunteered to join the auxiliary fire service, although he would possibly always be the last man to be called. However, one night, a terrible fire broke out. It was so severe that all the fire fighting teams from the surrounding area were called. Everyone was needed.
Tom, manning a hose, looked at the fireman next to him in astonishment. He had never seen a Black person before.
‘Where are you from?’ Tom asked him.
‘Jamaica,’ the man replied.
‘By gum, lad’ exclaimed Tom, ‘You’ve made good time – you’ve beaten them from Ripley!’
This is worth some thought. Is it racist or not? Some would say not, because Tom is always the butt of these jokes. Nothing bad is said about the Jamaican man; the story is about Tom’s topsy-turvy thinking.
However, if we look a little closer, there is a sub-text to many folk tales which tells us something about what people expect of each other. It might be, for example, that friends usually reward help with beer, as in the first of these stories.
In this last story, the sub-text implies that it is okay to suddenly question a Black person about their origins, even when they are just getting on with whatever they are doing. As if they have to explain their presence. The joke is on Tom, not because he asked a rude question, but because he misunderstood the answer. Describing this story in today’s world, we would say that it comes from a perspective affected by racism. We will never know what the first person to tell it thought about these issues, but today we are different and it has lost its shine. Will the same thing happen one day to the first story, when nobody knows what a pigeon loft is?
What we can get from this story, though, is interesting from the collector’s point of view. It suggests some dates for Tom-anna stories. The Auxiliary Fire Service was formed in 1938 and disbanded in 1968. The Empire Windrush brought settlers from Jamaica to UK between 1948 and 1962. The collieries in the Heanor area were slowly dying during the 60s, the last one to fold being Ormonde, near Codnor in 1970.
This story must have first popped up somewhere between 1948 and 1970. Since the first settlers from Jamaica tended to remain near the major cities, miners from Heanor might not have thought to make a joke like this one early on in that time frame. Nobody can be certain, but this joke might have been made up during the 1960s.
Wanted: more Tom-anna jokes! Send them to [email protected]
Also wanted: Tom-anna jokes are best told using broad Derbyshire dialect. Can anyone make a recording for this site?
‘No pint for you, Tom – you weren’t even there!’ said the owner of the loft.
‘’Course I was,’ cried an indignant Tom. ‘I was inside, carrying the perches!’
Break Time Down the Pit
Says Tom: ‘If you can guess how many buns I’ve got in my snap-tin, you can have both of them.’
Footie Match
Tom played in goal for his local football team. On match day, he was surprised to find the local lads laughing at him, claiming he was wearing odd socks because one was red, and one was green.
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Tom. ‘How can they be odd when I’ve got another pair at home just the same.’
A night out
Tom was arranging to meet his friends so that they could go to the pub together. Not wanting to miss them, Tom suggested ‘If you’re there first, chalk a cross on the wall, and if I’m there first, I’ll rub it out.’
Thinking about Tom...
These jokes feel familiar, possibly suggesting some crossover with stand-up comedy. Other Tom stories have an older feel to them. Folk stories are not set in jelly; they are told by real people, so they are subtly changed all the time. People inventing and sharing these jokes would have been influenced by other jokes they heard. If we still had mines, and new Tom jokes were still being generated, no doubt we would be hearing how Tom had done crazy things to his laptop. Would he have poured beer into it to ‘refresh’? The core idea would not have changed, but the fixtures and fittings would reflect today’s preoccupations. The next story illustrates how our changing perceptions change our reactions:
Fire!
Tom, being community minded, volunteered to join the auxiliary fire service, although he would possibly always be the last man to be called. However, one night, a terrible fire broke out. It was so severe that all the fire fighting teams from the surrounding area were called. Everyone was needed.
Tom, manning a hose, looked at the fireman next to him in astonishment. He had never seen a Black person before.
‘Where are you from?’ Tom asked him.
‘Jamaica,’ the man replied.
‘By gum, lad’ exclaimed Tom, ‘You’ve made good time – you’ve beaten them from Ripley!’
This is worth some thought. Is it racist or not? Some would say not, because Tom is always the butt of these jokes. Nothing bad is said about the Jamaican man; the story is about Tom’s topsy-turvy thinking.
However, if we look a little closer, there is a sub-text to many folk tales which tells us something about what people expect of each other. It might be, for example, that friends usually reward help with beer, as in the first of these stories.
In this last story, the sub-text implies that it is okay to suddenly question a Black person about their origins, even when they are just getting on with whatever they are doing. As if they have to explain their presence. The joke is on Tom, not because he asked a rude question, but because he misunderstood the answer. Describing this story in today’s world, we would say that it comes from a perspective affected by racism. We will never know what the first person to tell it thought about these issues, but today we are different and it has lost its shine. Will the same thing happen one day to the first story, when nobody knows what a pigeon loft is?
What we can get from this story, though, is interesting from the collector’s point of view. It suggests some dates for Tom-anna stories. The Auxiliary Fire Service was formed in 1938 and disbanded in 1968. The Empire Windrush brought settlers from Jamaica to UK between 1948 and 1962. The collieries in the Heanor area were slowly dying during the 60s, the last one to fold being Ormonde, near Codnor in 1970.
This story must have first popped up somewhere between 1948 and 1970. Since the first settlers from Jamaica tended to remain near the major cities, miners from Heanor might not have thought to make a joke like this one early on in that time frame. Nobody can be certain, but this joke might have been made up during the 1960s.
Wanted: more Tom-anna jokes! Send them to [email protected]
Also wanted: Tom-anna jokes are best told using broad Derbyshire dialect. Can anyone make a recording for this site?
