Lace tells

Lace tells are the songs, or chants, that children in the lace schools would sing as they made their lace. They were designed to keep the children focused on their work and to keep up the pace of lacemaking. Many of them were linked to the number of pins, and therefore the amount of lace, each child had worked. An example is the Buckinghamshire tell which begins ‘Knock, knock at your door. Who’s there? It’s me. Come in. Does your little dog bite? Yes. How many teeth has it? Six, seven next time, eight when I call again’. The children then had to remain silent while they worked eight pins of their pattern. This quiet period was known as a ‘glum’ and the children competed with each other to be the first to call out ‘My glum’s done’. Some other counting tells included a forfeit for any child who broke the silence of the glum. Another Buckinghamshire method of counting called ‘All round the town’ required each child to call out the name of a householder in the village every time they put up a pin. Other tells recount quite lurid tales of murder and mayhem, one of which ends ‘Shall I be so when I am dead?’ to which the answer is ‘Yes, you’ll be so when you are dead’ after which all the children pretend to be frightened and cry ‘Oh!’. I’m sure that singing the lace tells made the day pass more quickly for the children and encouraged them to work more efficiently. They remind me of the rhymes and games we now play with children on a long car journey to help pass the time.