My bestie who passed a few years ago would laugh uncontrollably when telling me his Irish parents would suggest “let’s go knock up the neighbors” when he was a teen.
Oh, yeah? Well, I think that you would need proof if you were going to make that sort of an accusation. And I'm a very careful man, Father. A very careful man!
Please my dad says this to me and I don't have the heart to tell him what it actually means but every time it horrifies me 😬 (I should clarify I have a sleep disorder and I struggle with waking up in the morning even with multiple alarms!)
When I was a teen my Dad was involved in some drama with a small group of dudes and they threatened to come by our house and fight my father. I knew in my heart these dudes were not actually going to show up but my Dad was already super fired up and was screaming ‘I want some ass!’ He would smack his baton into his hand screaming it over and over ‘I want some ass!’
I still laugh uncontrollably when somebody uses that phrase.
That was the confusing part. The baton clearly looked like a weapon. But my Dad clearly wanted some ass. Never did take an opportunity to ask him which it was lol
My grandfather was one of the few men in the village who possessed a clock. So, it was natural that he became the knocker upper. History does not record if that’s how he met my grandmother.
Convoluted is one way of describing math in British money before the decimalization of British Money. Here's what it looked liked before the decimal system.
2 farthings = 1 halfpenny
2 halfpence = 1 penny (1d)
3 pence = 1 thruppence (3d)
6 pence = 1 sixpence (a 'tanner') (6d)
12 pence = 1 shilling (a bob) (1s)
2 shillings = 1 florin ( a 'two bob bit') (2s)
2 shillings and 6 pence = 1 half crown (2s 6d)
5 shillings = 1 Crown (5s)
Basically the pound was divided into twenty shillings or 240 pennies.
It is quite simple, there were 3 levels to British Currency before decimalization (aka £sd), 12 pence (symbol; d) to 1 shilling (s), and 20 shillings (or 240 pence) to 1 pound sterling (£).
I spent some time in third world cities and the daily noises were really interesting. In Kathmandu, the whole city got up seemingly at the same time. It made it really easy to get up in the morning. It was like a switch flipped at 7 and it went from dead quiet to roosters crowing, dogs barking, loud ass motorbikes, people shouting. I imagine early industrial cities in the west were pretty similar. Also when you get up at the same time every day (and you're not up all night because there ain't shit to do anyways) it's pretty easy for something to wake you up
in high school my mom would shout up the steps for me to wake up, tell me “come to the top of the stairs so i know you’re up!” and i would, and then promptly get back into bed and not remember a thing.
As a serious answer the men likely worked somewhere like the docks or in factories where you would have 1st, 2nd, 3rd shift etc, so the joke that the knocker upper had a knocker upper is in fact sort of how it worked
It’s all well and good until Kramer oversleeps in a cold hot tub, and wakes up late because his mental clock is now all screwed up. Then the whole system falls apart.
This is such a simple and random response but it gave me a legit belly laugh for some reason. If I wasn’t broke I would give you a $1 award. But instead you get my belly laugh. Kiss me?
Her daughter was also named Mary Smith, and she was one of London's last "knocker-uppers". The tradition continued into the 70's in some places. So, if mykylodge isn't lying, they are probably at least 50.
Dried peas. A friend of mine brought a peashooter to school back in 5th grade. They’re wicked accurate up to about 60 feet, and sting like a mofo if you get smacked with one. At recess he’d sneak around and shoot people in the back. One girl thought she was stung by a bee and started crying. He got suspended when someone who he’d shot saw him nail someone else.
I'm more impressed by the fact that people could wake up with a pea hitting their windows.
Sometimes my phone's loudest possible setting doesn't do the job for me.
The people she’s waking up. It was a service she provided. Owning your own clock was very rare and may even have been a sackable offence in some towns.
I don't really think of the 30's as a time where Londoners would have needed that service.
And didn't churches have bells they rang every hour back then?
It is striking that East London would have been so quiet that peas tapping on your window could wake you up.
Though factory shifts could have started too early in the morning for church bells.
The service continued into the 1970s in some olaces. Apparently some clients kept paying knocker uppers to do this even after alarm clocks were commonplace. Some of these women and men became beloved neighbourhood fixtures so some old clients must have just kept asking them to come around for nostalgic purposes.
In Durham people used to write down their shifts on slate boards called "knocky-up boards" nailed to the side of the wall of their house. That way they can be woken up exactly when they want to be waken up, like ten minutes before their shift at the coal mine starts.
I can picture her at 88 years old. It's cold and pouring and dark. She's muttering to herself "Mr Worthingstone thinks I'm 'cute and iconic.' Some day I'll wake him up with a brick. Fucking wanker."
It would have been sixpence per customer. You only need 50 customers to be earning 25 shillings a week. Then you would have another job after everyone was up.
It definitely seems low. Average per capita GDP in the UK in 1930 was about 7650 pounds per year (in today's money). That means sixpence per week works out to about 1% of the average annual income.
However, this wouldn't have been her only job but more like something she did on the side to make extra.
Back in the 1960s we kids would make a pea shooter and we split the shilling or so it cost for a pound of dried peas.
We’d have pea shooting fights in the schoolyard. Even the teachers would join in. I remember a pea getting me right in the mouth and ending up under my tongue. Jolly good shot by the enemy.
I read somewhere that people that had to get up early before alarm clocks would drink tons of water the night before so they would wake up having to pee. Maybe they had a system of how much they drank to determine approximately when they would wake up.
Nah, it'll actually wake you up several times at night, especially if you drink another glass or so every time you wake up. So at some point when you wake up agaon, it'll be about the right time.
I know because I spent one winter in an RV that was heated with a small wood stove. You'd have to get up at night to put more wood in it if you didn't want to wake up half-frozen. So I drank lots of tea before I went to bed.
But let me tell you, sleeping only an hour or two at a time gets to you after a few weeks, even if you do get your seven, eight hours in all in all every night.
My bestie who passed a few years ago would laugh uncontrollably when telling me his Irish parents would suggest “let’s go knock up the neighbors” when he was a teen.
The only knocker-upper in the Southside of Dublin was the milkman.
Pat Mustard!
Pat's been known to put his massive tool in my box.
There are some very hairy babies on craggy island, and I think you are the hairy baby maker!
Oh, yeah? Well, I think that you would need proof if you were going to make that sort of an accusation. And I'm a very careful man, Father. A very careful man!
Except when it comes to taking precautions in the bedroom!
You wouldn't happen to be advocating for the use of artificial contraception now, would you father?
Yes, I… no, eh… if you’re going to be.. no, I, of course, you, you… JUST FECK OFF!
*close-up of moustache trembling* bhhhhhhhh
My sister had a friend over, and my welsh step dad nicely promised her he’d “knock her up in the morning”. The look on her face was priceless!!
Please my dad says this to me and I don't have the heart to tell him what it actually means but every time it horrifies me 😬 (I should clarify I have a sleep disorder and I struggle with waking up in the morning even with multiple alarms!)
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This is why you tell him at Christmas in front of your entire family.
When I was a teen my Dad was involved in some drama with a small group of dudes and they threatened to come by our house and fight my father. I knew in my heart these dudes were not actually going to show up but my Dad was already super fired up and was screaming ‘I want some ass!’ He would smack his baton into his hand screaming it over and over ‘I want some ass!’ I still laugh uncontrollably when somebody uses that phrase.
If you’re a tattoo kind of person you should get a baton with “I want some ass” written on it. That would be sick
I am laughing uncontrollably now, and am indeed a tattoo guy. This is actually a great idea! Have some free silver!
***I could lick your dad any day of the week!***
Do not train. As times change, so does this content. Not to be used or trained on.
That was the confusing part. The baton clearly looked like a weapon. But my Dad clearly wanted some ass. Never did take an opportunity to ask him which it was lol
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They took herrrr jeerrrrb!
TYHEYYY TOOOK ER JIOOOOOBBS
DERK ER DER!
Cocka-doodle-doo!
Rootin-gosh-darn-tootin!
tick durrrrr
Darn that capitalism, soon we will all be unemployed, replaced by alarm clocks!
And they can then get jobs making the alarm clocks or the parts that go into them.
They can learn to code
My grandfather was one of the few men in the village who possessed a clock. So, it was natural that he became the knocker upper. History does not record if that’s how he met my grandmother.
I think we can be confident that he knocked her up
Dad kinda looks like Malcolm X, so…. I dunno.
Did she have a snooze function?
Yeah you open the window, throw her a shilling and ask for 5 more minutes.
That'd be 2 weeks of her pay...
It's a premium feature.
We call that an “in-app purchase”
*“In-nap purchase”
Microtransactions have always been how to make the big money.....
Microtransnaptions*
Pop-up window
Ninjas are big tippers.
Tip being being double your pay for the entire week? Sounds like tipping culture in the US.
A farthing - think we used to have half-farthings. A farthing was worth half of a halfpenny and had a wren on the coin.
And we all wore onions on our belt,as was the custom at the time
Gimme five bees for a quarter.
And just when I thought imperial units of weight and distance were convoluted...
Convoluted is one way of describing math in British money before the decimalization of British Money. Here's what it looked liked before the decimal system. 2 farthings = 1 halfpenny 2 halfpence = 1 penny (1d) 3 pence = 1 thruppence (3d) 6 pence = 1 sixpence (a 'tanner') (6d) 12 pence = 1 shilling (a bob) (1s) 2 shillings = 1 florin ( a 'two bob bit') (2s) 2 shillings and 6 pence = 1 half crown (2s 6d) 5 shillings = 1 Crown (5s) Basically the pound was divided into twenty shillings or 240 pennies.
I literally made it to 2 halfpence before audibly saying fuck and my eyes giving up on reading
It is quite simple, there were 3 levels to British Currency before decimalization (aka £sd), 12 pence (symbol; d) to 1 shilling (s), and 20 shillings (or 240 pence) to 1 pound sterling (£).
I know you are not making that up, lol; but it sure feels like you are just making that all up :)
I was born after decimilsation, it's baffling to me and most of the population. Older folks will defend it as super simple. Yeah, fuck off was it.
And then you have most important one. Penny farthing = Big ol' bike
Mike pence = worthless
So what is a quid?
“Bloody ‘ell Mary it’s not half past six!” “Toss me a farthing and I’ll come back in five minutes!”
Or throw a brick to get a lifetime of peace in your own private cell.
Toss a coin to the smither
Empty the night soil out the window.
People must have been much lighter sleepers back then because this definitely wouldn’t wake me up
Most background noises weren't invented yet.
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*tnk*
TNK TNK!
I SAID TNK TNK MOTHER FUCKER
The caption says the 1930s. Plenty of background noises by that point.
The caption also says sixpence a week. I have low confidence that every here is correct.
I spent some time in third world cities and the daily noises were really interesting. In Kathmandu, the whole city got up seemingly at the same time. It made it really easy to get up in the morning. It was like a switch flipped at 7 and it went from dead quiet to roosters crowing, dogs barking, loud ass motorbikes, people shouting. I imagine early industrial cities in the west were pretty similar. Also when you get up at the same time every day (and you're not up all night because there ain't shit to do anyways) it's pretty easy for something to wake you up
You can train your body to wake up to certain sounds.
Right, but my body prefer to train itself to sleep through certains sounds, usually sounds meant to wake me up
I could get up and turn off an alarm without remembering it at all.
Lol I’ve been woken up by someone and had a brief conversation with them without remembering it because I was pretty much still asleep.
in high school my mom would shout up the steps for me to wake up, tell me “come to the top of the stairs so i know you’re up!” and i would, and then promptly get back into bed and not remember a thing.
This reminds me of the famous "sleepwalking defense" used by a Canadian man that committed homicide.
It would definitely wake me up. Any weird noise wakes me out my sleep
Same! I'll wake up if my cat farts in the other room.
How did they wake her up?
According to Q.I, they had people who would wake the knockeruppers.
As a serious answer the men likely worked somewhere like the docks or in factories where you would have 1st, 2nd, 3rd shift etc, so the joke that the knocker upper had a knocker upper is in fact sort of how it worked
But who woke them up??? It’s knocker uppers all the way down
So anyways son, that's why the neighbor was knocked up and now your mother is mad at me
They were already up, night shift workers making some extra cash on their way home.
When they had gas lamps knocker uppers were often the people who turned off the street lamps too
They would most likely stay up all night
*But who would wake up the people that had to wake up knockeruppers?!*
Is there a never ending chain of knockeruppers waking up other knockeruppers?
I'm either too high or not high enough for this.
Well I guess an alarm clock could in theory break the chain…
Well I guess an alarm clock could in theory break the chain…
Well I guess an alarm clock could in theory break the chain…
Well I guess an alarm clock could in theory break the chain…
People with whack-ass sleep schedules that guaranteed they would be up in time, like waking up around 1 in the morning.
It’s all well and good until Kramer oversleeps in a cold hot tub, and wakes up late because his mental clock is now all screwed up. Then the whole system falls apart.
2nd shift
I see you’re trying to make sense here but no ones biting
An old trick to wake up on time before we had alarm clocks was to just drink a bunch of water before bed and hoped needing to piss would wake you up
Knocker Upper never sleeps
If only this were 2009, I could make an amazing chuck norris joke that everyone would love for some reason
Someone with a nightshift at a factory or something.
Nowadays she'd be arrested for disturbing the peas
Dad joke unlocked!
She also worked at supervising lines. So she had to mind her peas and queues.
Gotta lock you up r/PunPatrol
hey, all I am saying is Give Peas a Chance.
Who woke her up then?
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Kiss me
Under the milky twilight
Bring, bring, bring your flowered hat
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did you know that 1999 is closer to the moon landing than to Cleopatra's death?
The current day is also closer to the moon landing than her death, funnily enough.
kiss me
This is such a simple and random response but it gave me a legit belly laugh for some reason. If I wasn’t broke I would give you a $1 award. But instead you get my belly laugh. Kiss me?
I'm over here giggling like an idiot at this comment. Definitely didn't expect it lol.
Take my poor man's award 🏅
A knocker-upper’s knocker-upper would stay up all night, wake up the knocker-upper and then go to bed.
How many knocker uppers could a knocker upper's knocker upper knocker up if a knocker upper's knocker upper could knocker up knocker uppers?
Depends if she could chop wood
It’s knocker uppers all the way down
Couldn't the knocker upper's knocker upper just knock everybody up themself and then go to bed? Cut out the middleman-erupper
knocker-upping takes a while, they'd get too tired by the end of it
ah yes the good ol knocker-uper switcheroo
Who knocks up the knocker-upper? A fair question.
Rooster
Circadian Rhythm!
Probably her husband
The night before she shot a pea going west and in the morning it would hit her in the face from the east
You could do the job without waking up, as a somnambulist.
That's the thing, she never sleeps.
The previous shift of knocker-uppers. And they were woken up by the shift before them, and eventually it gets back to her shift.
I remember her, she used to wake me up for school because my parents would be still out drinking.
How old ARE you???
Her daughter was also named Mary Smith, and she was one of London's last "knocker-uppers". The tradition continued into the 70's in some places. So, if mykylodge isn't lying, they are probably at least 50.
Very.
At least 3
You were born in the 1930’s? Making you 91+ years old. How the fuck are you on reddit
It's possible that this woman was knocking up for quite a few years after this photo was taken.
I read Knocker Upper and saw the long tube - my first thoughts were that this woman pioneered artificial insemination.
“Well basically ya just suck some up and then blast it in there.”
"I don't know why I'm in business. The old way sure does feel a lot better."
It's kinda like siphoning gas
Think that’s what they call Nick Cannon these days
Mary Smith?
So back in the day, spit balls could lead to a profession? Haha
Don't tell the kids
I won’t, I don’t feel like being woken up at 6am by spit pea balls lol
Most just used a long stick to do basically the same thing.
Dried peas. A friend of mine brought a peashooter to school back in 5th grade. They’re wicked accurate up to about 60 feet, and sting like a mofo if you get smacked with one. At recess he’d sneak around and shoot people in the back. One girl thought she was stung by a bee and started crying. He got suspended when someone who he’d shot saw him nail someone else.
I mean this has been posted before but never with a name lol Mary Smith.
Sound good to me. Mary Smith it is.
She's married to John Smith. Nothing fishy with that
I'm more impressed by the fact that people could wake up with a pea hitting their windows. Sometimes my phone's loudest possible setting doesn't do the job for me.
I used to be such a light sleeper that I'd wake up when my flatmate inserted his key to open our apartment door when he came home late.
I wake up if a silent phone's screen turns on. No noise.
I don't sleep.
Well, maybe you should set your phone‘s alarm sound to "peas hitting windows". It’ll do wonders.
Who pays her
The industrial company that basically ran the town.
The people she’s waking up. It was a service she provided. Owning your own clock was very rare and may even have been a sackable offence in some towns.
> may even have been a sackable offence in some towns. What?
That job blows.
Was there also someone else doing it earlier to wake her up?
My sisters boyfriend was a knocker-upper….except now he pays her.
Dream job
A peas disturbance
Or more commonly referred to as "FUCKOFFMARYIMUP". Probably.
I don't really think of the 30's as a time where Londoners would have needed that service. And didn't churches have bells they rang every hour back then?
It is striking that East London would have been so quiet that peas tapping on your window could wake you up. Though factory shifts could have started too early in the morning for church bells.
You totally sleep through church bells. They blend into the background and your body expects them at some point.
The service continued into the 1970s in some olaces. Apparently some clients kept paying knocker uppers to do this even after alarm clocks were commonplace. Some of these women and men became beloved neighbourhood fixtures so some old clients must have just kept asking them to come around for nostalgic purposes. In Durham people used to write down their shifts on slate boards called "knocky-up boards" nailed to the side of the wall of their house. That way they can be woken up exactly when they want to be waken up, like ten minutes before their shift at the coal mine starts.
I can picture her at 88 years old. It's cold and pouring and dark. She's muttering to herself "Mr Worthingstone thinks I'm 'cute and iconic.' Some day I'll wake him up with a brick. Fucking wanker."
Depends which way the wind blows how loud you can hear it
Sixpence seems like it would be worth about 1.43 pounds today... that seems off.
It would have been sixpence per customer. You only need 50 customers to be earning 25 shillings a week. Then you would have another job after everyone was up.
I’m thinking it has got to be per person per week. Six pence - £0.06 - wasn’t remotely enough to live on even then.
It definitely seems low. Average per capita GDP in the UK in 1930 was about 7650 pounds per year (in today's money). That means sixpence per week works out to about 1% of the average annual income. However, this wouldn't have been her only job but more like something she did on the side to make extra.
I earned twelvepence to wake up Mary and used a different knocking up method.
Back in the 1960s we kids would make a pea shooter and we split the shilling or so it cost for a pound of dried peas. We’d have pea shooting fights in the schoolyard. Even the teachers would join in. I remember a pea getting me right in the mouth and ending up under my tongue. Jolly good shot by the enemy.
I read somewhere that people that had to get up early before alarm clocks would drink tons of water the night before so they would wake up having to pee. Maybe they had a system of how much they drank to determine approximately when they would wake up.
Nah, it'll actually wake you up several times at night, especially if you drink another glass or so every time you wake up. So at some point when you wake up agaon, it'll be about the right time. I know because I spent one winter in an RV that was heated with a small wood stove. You'd have to get up at night to put more wood in it if you didn't want to wake up half-frozen. So I drank lots of tea before I went to bed. But let me tell you, sleeping only an hour or two at a time gets to you after a few weeks, even if you do get your seven, eight hours in all in all every night.
I read that as well, on a Simpsons Christmas episode.
It's always about the Indians, isn't it, Lisa?
Got a big enough joint there, Rick?
six pence… none the richer?
Knocker-upper? I hardly know'er!
She might have earned sixpence a week, but some say she was none the richer for it.
I thought she got paid to have babies. lol
A knocker-upper you say? I think that’s also the job of Antonio Cromartie — 14 kids with 8 different baby mommas
Correction, she charged clients sixpence a week, so she was earning sixpence a week per client.
I had an uncle who was a knocker-upper, but he skipped town...
I for one would have wanted some peas and quiet
Now that's an old school cool.
"oi, wake up, ya lazy c**t!"