Ryde Social Heritage Group research the social history of the citizens of Ryde, Isle of Wight. Documenting their lives, businesses and burial transcriptions.

Based at Ryde Cemetery Heritage & Learning Centre. Preserving, documenting and promoting the social history of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.

The Cook and the Adder

adder

The following laughable circumstances occurred a short time ago in the neighbourhood of Ryde – The gardener in a gentlemen’s establishment having killed an adder, exhibited it to his fellow servants, and dwelt so much on its venomous properties that the females became cautious in their whereabouts, and looked before they stepped. A few days after, on the cook going into the cellar, she suddenly found her leg entwined by a something which every step she took pressed tighter and tighter, and could be nothing less than an adder. Cook squalled and halloed with all her might, and away ran maids and men to her assistance, when lo! On her fellow servants ascertaining the cause of the uproar, what think ye, she found. Not an adder, but the string of cookey’s bustle, which, having worked loose, had dropped and circled the leg of the affrighted girl, who vows she will never wear a bustle again as long as she lives.

Source: Hampshire Telegraph 1 Aug 1842