As we get on in life it's mair aboot Crow's feet, but back in day it was all aboot these wee beauties.
Up Causewayside near Braid Place there was a poultry butcher, which was more of a "making stuff for other butchers" butcher, than yer "go in and buy mince" type butcher. No awfy sure what the boy got up tae in there but he used to have binloads of sawdust covered animal bits ootside.
On the way to school we would often have a quick rummage through his buckets to see if there was any good stuff.
The jewel in the crown were chicken's feet. I think some of them might even have been turkey feet cos they were a fair size. They were yellow gnarly things wi nails and wrinkles. Best bit though was the tendons.
You could get a grip of the tendons where the foot had been chopped and pull them to work the toes. If you had a full set of intact tendons, you had hit paydirt and had a proper working alien hand that would move at your command.
What use is a fully functioning chicken hand? To a '70's bairn the list was endless. Everything from grabbing folks necks in assembly to giving the finger to passing car drivers. A personal favourite was bringing yer money out yer pocket to pay for stuff in shops with a hideous claw. How we laughed..
One drawback is that they went off pretty quick when stored in yer pocket on a summers day. But that was awright cos you just went back the next day and raked aboot for a fresh one.
The marketing tagline could have been...
Chicken's feet ©. The more portable "Armatron" alternative for the less well off "High Wall" bairn who's always on the move.
(click to enlarge)
2 comments:
Christ, ah hud forgetten oh aboot them chicken feet! They were truly the boys, and you could fair scare the auld wifies. Talkin aboot chickens, ah mind telling ma mother to gie me the blood fae a chickin we were huvin fir wir tea. Buggir knows what ah wiz wantin wi it but a got it anyway. Ah put it in a wee bottle thit a kept in ma room. Everything wiz hunky dory till a decided two days later tae have a whiff o it!
Efter ah hud finished boakin, the chickens blood wiz aff doon the lavie nivvir tae be seen again. Nuthin like learnin the lesson the hard way. You could call it the High Wall biology lesson, we learnt mair than fae Rumbold!
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