Kilmersdon

Simple. I registered as a publisher in 1977 under the name Chris Howell and used that for my first four local history books but this time I was advised to think of a more dignified(!) name for my one-author 'publishing house' and eventually came up with Fickle Hill. The real Fickle Hill is a quiet lane that meanders up into the forest above Arcata, a small university town in Northern California. My cousins the Greens and the Howells live on that hill and I wanted them, somehow, to be represented in the book. And now they are.

Then it occurred to me that there is another very fickle hill close to my home; Jack and Jill Hill in Kilmersdon. I had written a short piece about Jack and Jill in one of my other books and in 1991 I was invited to talk about them to the children whose primary school is perched right at the top of the hill. I prepared copies of the following article for each of them.

Jack and Jill
(and Kilmersdon)

For the children of Kilmersdon and for Gilsons all over the world

A lot has been written about the Jack and Jill story - but no-one seems to think they really came from Kilmersdon. Well, I do.

To begin, I'm sure that the nursery rhyme is very old - perhaps 400 years , possibly much older.

Even before the rhyme was made up, the names 'Jack and Jill' were used by people to mean 'a man and wife', just as we now say 'John Bull' to mean a typical Englishman or 'Tom, Dick and Harry' when we mean anyone and everyone.

But all that doesn't matter. The point is that I believe that our Jack and Jill really did exist and that they lived in Kilmersdon. But I don't believe that they were small children.

Why do I think they lived here? Let's think about it

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water

Water runs downhill, doesn't it? And it's pretty unusual to go up a hill to fetch water - so the rhyme begins with something rather strange. Yet there was once a well in the grounds of this school at the top of Batson Hill (the one that we now call Jack and Jill Hill) but it was sealed off about 30 years ago because the headteacher felt that it had become too dangerous.

The old school was built in 1855 using stones from local quarries but long before that was built there was a quarry at the top of Batson Hill - quite close to the well. This quarry caused a lot of problems because sometimes big boulders that had been put at the side of the workings would break away and tumble at great speed down Batson Hill and into the village at the bottom.

For that reason, the real name of the hill is Badstone Hill. I have a book that says that in 1717 'a dangerous quarr or hole' had to be filled in in Kilmersdon. I think it was the one at the top of Badstone Hill)

Let's go on.

Jack fell down
And broke his crown

Now, as I've already said, I don't believe that Jack and Jill were children - which is how we usually think of them - they were actually a married couple who lived in a cottage in Kilmersdon and Jill was expecting a baby. One day, just before it was due, Jack went to fetch water from the well on Badstone Hill.

As Jack climbed the hill one of the great rocks broke away from the edge of the quarry. It may be that a frost had loosened it but whatever caused it to happen the boulder came away and bounced down the hill, crashing into Jack's head. He died almost at once.

Jill was heart-broken and died soon afterwards, quite possibly as she was giving birth to her baby - as was quite common in those days. The people in the village then took care of the orphaned baby boy and, as it had no given name, took to calling it Jill's son.

And Jill came tumbling after

I've heard two possible meanings of this line. One is that it is an old way of saying that Jill gave birth to a baby and the other suggests it means that she died. Either way, she was not on the hill when Jack died.

The name Jill is often spelt Gill and over the years 'Gill's Son' gradually became Gilson - just as Badstone Hill slowly changed to Batson Hill. Now, a person's last name that is made from a lady's name is called a matronym. Patronyms are much more common ­ names like Johnson and Peterson and Jackson. How many matronyms, can you think of? I can only think of one: GILSON.

I'm imagining that what happened next was that a travelling pedlar came to Kilmersdon to sell his pots and pans and to sharpen knives. When these pedlars had done their day's work they would find an inn where they would pass on news, tell stories and sing songs in return for food and drink, and if they were lucky, a bed for the night.

Our pedlar was fascinated by the story of Jack and Jill and on his way to the next village - perhaps Chilcompton, where I live - he began to make up a song about Jack and Jill that he would sing that evening for his supper. As time went on other pedlars probably heard this song and began to add new verses of their own, putting a new slant on it to make it their own - just like newspaper reporters do today! Here's one:

Up Jack got
And home did trot

(With a broken head? ­ I bet!)

As fast as he could caper
He went to bed
To mend his head
With vinegar and brown paper

Over the years other verses had been added and various versions have since been printed in books all over the world - but none of them had anything to do with what really happened in Kilmersdon.

The bit about vinegar and brown paper may seem odd but in the old days, before there were 'proper' medicines, there were a lot of natural or homemade remedies, and paper or cloth were used as poultices, to 'keep the goodness in'. The vinegar they used was probably cider vinegar. Goose-grease (that was left after the goose had been cooked) was also used with brown paper to treat sores and bruises.

When I first became interested in the story of Jill's son I realised that although the people in Kilmersdon liked to claim the nursery rhyme as their own very few of them actually believed that Jack and Jill really existed. I wanted to prove that they had, so I set about finding out how many Gilsons are now living in Manchester and Birmingham and Liverpool.

In those three cities, which have a combined population of well over three million, there are only 19 families called Gilson. But twice that many Gilsons live in the rural area within a four mile radius of Kilmersdon! (I wonder why there are so many so close to this village?)

One other thing: in the first verse - the only one that really matters - the words 'water' and 'after' don't really rhyme - but if you say them with a strong Somerset dialect they sound more like 'wadder' and 'adder'. (Another reason for believing my story?)

Well, that's what I think. I may be wrong, but the rhyme had to come from somewhere and I've not heard a better explanation. If the people in Mells, just down the road, can have Little Jack Horner as their nursery rhyme, then I think that Kilmersdon should be proud to claim Jack and Jill. And as nursery rhymes are meant for children Jack and Jill must belong to the children of Kilmersdon and to all of Jill's son's descendents, wherever they may be around the world.

CHRIS HOWELL
Chilcompton
[January 1991]

Eventually a group of people who live in Kilmersdon asked if they could make use of my pamphlet - of course they could, I wrote it for them. Well, one thing then led to another and in the summer of 1998 the American magazine People Weekly was one of many journals, newspapers and broadcasting stations to run a feature on Kilmersdon and Jack and Jill. I took this photograph the day that People Weekly came.

Anyway, now there are three Fickle Hills: Arcata's, Kilmersdon's and mine.

Chris Howell, August 2002

Reproduced with the kind permission of the author.