Uncle Tom Cobley

I had a childhood fear of Uncle Tom Cobley and Widecombe Fair, stemming from a tea towel in a gift shop that showed the ghost horse, with passengers as skeletons. A wider anxiety was produced when confronted by the toby jug and any illustrations with people in cocked hats.

We're off to stay in Widecombe at Easter so the demons are to be faced. Interestingly (for me anyway) quite a few branches of my ancestry come from the West Country. Coincidentally, Yeovil, Wiltshire and the North Somerset coalfields were where separate parts of my family lived in the 18th and 19th centuries (on different sides). Glove makers in Yeovil, bakers in Sutton Veney, miners in Paulton and Norton Radstock. I'm sure many of them had cocked hats and resembled toby jugs!
I want to see whether I feel my roots in those areas so plan to get the family to agree to some brief visits... the other one is the west of Scotland so will do that at some point.
Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare.
All along, down along, out along lee.
For I want for to go to Widecombe Fair,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

And when shall I see again my grey mare?
All along, down along, out along lee.
By Friday soon, or Saturday noon,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

So they harnessed and bridled the old grey mare.
All along, down along, out along lee.
And off they drove to Widecombe fair,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Then Friday came, and Saturday noon.
All along, down along, out along lee.
But Tom Pearce's old mare hath not trotted home,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

So Tom Pearce he got up to the top o' the hill.
All along, down along, out along lee.
And he seed his old mare down a-making her will,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

So Tom Pearce's old mare, her took sick and died.
All along, down along, out along lee.
And Tom he sat down on a stone, and he cried
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

But this isn't the end o' this shocking affair.
All along, down along, out along lee.
Nor, though they be dead, of the horrid career
Of Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

When the wind whistles cold on the moor of the night.
All along, down along, out along lee.
Tom Pearce's old mare doth appear ghastly white,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

And all the long night be heard skirling and groans.
All along, down along, out along lee.
From Tom Pearce's old mare in her rattling bones,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Digging

I have just begun to train as a psychotherapist. The biggest and most satisfying revelation so far is that this is a logical progression for me.
My background and passion is history. I trained and worked as an archivist, the best job in the world. I have since moved up the pole into cultural services management, earning more money but losing the ability to combine work and pleasure.
This course is my escape route to freedom and fulfilment but it seemed, at first, a bit left field. Last week, however, I had a revelatory moment when my tutor described psychotherapy as 'like archaeology'. All of a sudden it all came together: digging around on the banks of the Thames (an obsessive ambition of mine), delving into local and family history and uncovering one's own and other people's hidden thoughts and past influences are one and the same thing.

 Jung was convinced from childhood that he had two personalities — a modern Swiss citizen and a personality more at home in the eighteenth century "Personality Number 1," as he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time, while "Personality Number 2" was a dignified, authoritative and influential man from the past.

Cognitive archaeology is a sub-discipline of archaeology which focuses (from Wikipedia) on the ways that ancient societies thought and the symbolic structures that can be perceived in past material culture.

Cognitive archaeologists often study the role that ideology and differing organizational approaches would have had on ancient peoples. The way that these abstract ideas are manifested through the remains that these peoples have left can be investigated and debated often by drawing inferences and using approaches developed in fields such as semiotics, psychology and the wider sciences