PENNY GEGGIE
A PENNY geggie or just a geggie was a travelling show usually held in a tent and is rather sniffily defined in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) as "a travelling theatrical show of a rather crude type, generally held in a tent; any portable theatre thrown up on a waste piece of ground”.
An early mention in the DSL refers to 1835 and it’s in the Story of the Scots Stage by R Lawson (1917): “That historical institution, ebeloved of our Grandsires, Mumford’s Geggie”. Which illustrates that by this time the geggies were being viewed in an historical context.
The following example, from A J Cronin’s Hatter’s Castle (1931), is not clear whether the content is bad, or the environment is melly: “This is the first night of Levenford Fair. I saw the start o’ the stinking geggies on my way home.”
Does the term still survive even as a collective memory? Only just. In the Scotsman of October 2010 an article discussing the origins of Will Fyffe, a comedian of the early 20th century, whose signature song was “I belong to Glasgow”, notes: “…He Belonged to Glasgow, the celebrated musical hall comedian and film actor was born in the city of jam, jute and journalism in 1885 and was steeped in theatre from his earliest days, as his father ran a penny geggie or cheap touring theatre”.
Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel, Dictionaries of the Scots Language https://dsl.ac.uk.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel