Laughing Coyote’s Blog

It’s funny how words change over the years to mean something completely different.

I had been talking to a magician friend a while back who is from Bushy, Hertfordshire, England who related a story of his childhood and a cigarette.

Around the 1940’s cigarettes were referred to as fags and he had been caught by his father hiding behind the bicycle shed puffing on a fag and received a lashing for his efforts. I laughed as I told him he wouldn’t want to get caught today puffing on a fag.

This conversation brought to mind of MY childhood. 

My family had emigrated from Britain and brought a delicacy with them to the New World it was called a faggot. It was a kind of meat ball consisting of minced pig’s liver and offal and spices. They were delicious  with mashed potato and mushy peas.

Let’s move ahead a few years around the mid 1950’s.

We were a teenage gang that weren’t much different than those of today except back then we settled our differences with our fists.

One of the guys who’ll remain nameless, for some reason decided to rob a bank. To make a long story short, he got caught. In those days there was no such thing as young offenders and he did hard time. A few years later when he was released I asked him what it was like being in prison. He said it wasn’t to bad except for the faggots.

He slowly backed away from me when I told him I loved faggots and ate them every chance I could.

He then explained to me what he had meant. This was a new one on me. Back then the words we used for a gay person was usually a gearbox, fruit, pansy, fairy, etc.

Moving ahead now to the mid 90’s I’m a city boy sitting around a bonfire with new-found country folk when someone yells out, throw a faggot on the fire.

First thing that comes to my mind is my new found friends are a bunch of homophobes but it wasn’t long before I found this was not the case.

I learnt a new definition for the word faggot that night, a bundle of twigs or branches. We never had a use for those in the big city.

I’ve since googled faggot and have discovered there is a West Midlands family that is playing a central role in the quest to raise the profile of a forgotten British dish - faggots.

If you should ever get a chance to eat a faggot, go for it and stay off the smokes.