I don't suppose many of you will remember the '60s comedy The Navy Lark ... though it still gets regular airings on Radio 4 Extra. The night that Kennedy was assassinated, I was very annoyed because that night's edition of the Navy Lark was replaced by constant News Bulletins. Bah.
Anyhow, there was a Welsh character called " Taffy" Goldstein, played by Tenniel Evans,
from Cardiff or Swansea maybe, and he sometimes talked about two medical conditions ... one was the " Twin'jin Screws" which I assumed was a type of arthritis ( Twin-Engine Screws?) but the other, far more mysterious one was the dreaded "Umgrummits." The exact nature of the "umgrummits" was never explained. It does get a mention on the official website, spelled slightly differently ...
" Other recurring verbal features were the invented words "humgrummit" and "floggle-toggle."
[ at this point, some of you brainy people out there might like to work out where this is going and what the "umgrummits" might have been. It can't be too difficult, because I did it. I'll put a picture here as a spacer so you don't get to see the next bit until you want to.... ]
Could it be that the "umgrummits" was in fact a "stoop" caused by whatever makes people stoop or get bent over? And could it be that some Welsh speaker, maybe Tenniel Evans himself, associated with the programme told them about it .... who knows. But I think it is highly likely that something along those lines actually happened all those years ago. And now, you will always remember the verb ymgrymu and what it means. Result !
Having sorted that out, we can move on to the music .... I think we might have another look at the mysterious Rheinallt H Rowlands .... " Simone"