« Reply #79 on: Saturday 16 May 09 05:49 BST (UK) »
Hi Les
I was wondering if I could take you up on the offer from last Sept in doing a write up for me on Rab Channing - I think I now know where he fits in.
Thanks very much - I hope Im not being too cheeky
thanks again
Maz
Hi
Maz - not a problem.
Rab CHANNING gets a brief mention in a section concerning wrestling. No doubt it paints a picture of what he did during the early days of Taunton. "
Wrestling was another amusement. The Devonshire wrestlers frequently came to Taunton to contend with men of the town and neighbourhood. Rab Channing and Tom Grainer were our local champions. Wrestling is a very healthy and useful exercise, but when the contest is carried on by kicking shins with hobnailed and toe-tipt boots it becomes a very painful and dangerous amusement. I have seen men kicking away at each other's shins until they were scarecly able to stand from pain and loss of blood; when they could not get at each other's shins, each would try to lift his opponent bodily off his legs and dash him with great force to the ground. Boys of course imitated the men. You may ask the cause of people's minds being in such a low and brutal condition as to be pleased with such degrading passtimes as I have endeavoured to describe. One of the causes may be attributed to the long war which had just ended; it had brutalized men's feelings, and made them coarse minded and indifferent to blood and danger."
I hope that gives a little "blood & bone" (no pun intended) to your ancestor.
Les
de Belin, Swindail, Willcock, Williams, Moore, Watts, Searjeant, Watson, McCready, Reid, Spink, de Lancey, Van Cortland, and of course, Smith!
