No.3

I expect it will be only older people who recognise the above. This product, no longer available, used to be a popular remedy for indigestion and heartburn. We have often wondered if there is any family connection with the proprietors, but a search on the internet could find nothing at all about the firm.

I remember that many years ago John Jaap Chemists had a shop in Buchanan Street, Glasgow, but again we don't know anything about their family. The last record of the shop's existence is 1963.  

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Jaap is the Dutch equivalent of James or Jacob, but we were a bit peeved to learn that in South Africa the word is an offensive term for a country bumpkin.  A South African living in Scotland once told Fiona that "jaapie" is an Afrikaans word meaning monkey-like. In old Scots language the word joppe means a fool.

There are many variations of the name - in the past our family has included Japps and Jopes, but Scottish records also show Jape, Jappy, Jopp and Jupp.

Our family tree goes back to Walter Jaap, born in 1698 in the county of Fife in Scotland. Many of our Jaaps emigrated in the second half of the 19th century and others followed later on. Today their descendants can be found in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Cayman Islands.

We always believed that our origins would probably have been in Holland, but some years ago this comment from a German appeared on a Rootsweb Message Board. "It's possible that the German Jaaps have Scots roots, for there was a significant British/Scottish settlement along the Baltic Coast of Germany in the 17th and 18th Centuries."

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SAMUEL JOHNSON

What has the Joshua Reynold painting got to do with this blog? Nothing at all! In 1773 when Dr. Johnson was touring the Hebrides with James Boswell he was presented with the freedom of Aberdeen by Lord Provost James Jopp.

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In the 1930s my sister and I always enjoyed our regular visits to our maternal grandparents’ house. There was always plenty to do there, and very often one or two aunts would be willing to play with us.

Going to the other grandparents’ house was a different matter however. There we sat, unseen and unheard, till, probably at my father’s suggestion (he was very proud of our accomplishments), we were asked to give them a tune on the piano. That done, we would revert to our role as silent guests.

I used to sit there gazing at a strange object on the mantlepiece. I could just make out the words "Ye maunna tramp on the Scotch thistle, laddie" but couldn't figure out what that meant.

This photo which I found on the internet  looks exactly like the statuette that puzzled me.

A family firm of monumental sculptors founded by James Gibson took part in the 1888 Kelvingrove International Exhibition where they showed their large-scale sculpture "Ye Maunna Tramp on the Scotch Thistle, Laddie." Carved in marble, the statue depicted an elderly man removing a thistle thorn from a boy’s foot.

The sculpture was such a great success that replicas in imitation bronze were made and sold in Gibson’s showroom for the princely sum of ten shillings each.

I remember that there were two super things in Grandma Jaap's house which would have kept two children occupied for while, and I’ve no doubt that, if I had had the courage to ask for them, they would have been forthcoming.

The first resembled a pair of binoculars, but, when you inserted one of a series of coloured cards into a slot on the side and looked through the lenses, a wonderful real-life picture could be seen. and the other was a glove puppet with a monkey's head. Great!

What happened to those desirable objects, I don’t know. It’s true that I did acquire one precious item from that house, a book which I cherished for many years. It was the Chatterbox Annual for 1916 which had probably been given to one of my uncles. They would be children then.

Unlike any of the later children’s Annuals, this was a very big book (some years they had more than 400 pages) which attempted to be both educational and entertaining. The illustrations were excellent, and this particular edition had a famous painting which fascinated me - “The Boyhood of Raleigh” by John Everett Millais. I hadn’t heard of Raleigh then, but I used to invent stories to explain all the pictures, and I was sure that this one was about Treasure Island.

The Boyhood of Raleigh

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Finally, still in the 1930s, here a are a few of the rhymes children recited during their street games.

Yokie pokie,

Yankie fun,

How do you like

Your tatties done?

First in brandy,

Then in rum,

That's how I like

My tatties done.

Ma maw’s a millionaire,

Blue eyes and curly hair,

Sittin’ among the eskimos

Playin’ a game o’ dominoes,

Eentie-teentie halliegolum,

Pitchin’ totties up the lum,

Santa Claus got wan on his bum, 
Eentie-teentie halliegolum.

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THE NEXT POST WILL BE ON
SATURDAY 25th MARCH

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