I am finding these messages fascinating. My husband's paternal family is all from Wiltshire as is my paternal great, great grandmother's. I have been able to trace her lines back to the mid 1700s, my husbands back, in some instances that far, but I have no knowledge of life in those days, except for a picture of my great grandmother sitting by her fireplace and a picture of the cottage that they "supposedly" lived in Dorset. So the messages you have been posting have gone a long ways in understanding life there. Thanks so very much. Lenore ----- Original Message ----- From: "Josephine Jeremiah" <jojeremiah@dsl.pipex.com> To: <eng-wiltshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 8:05 AM Subject: [ENG-WILTSHIRE] Gooding Day in Wiltshire, St. Thomas's Day,21st. December In past times, 21st. December was celebrated as St. Thomas's Day. It was the day when poor women and children went 'a-Thomasing' or 'gooding'. This was the old custom of begging for gifts of food or money from better-off neighbours on St. Thomas's Day. At Southwick Church School, children were sometimes given a day's holiday for 'Gooding Day', but at other times they absented themselselves from their lessons so that they could go round the houses collecting. http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getschool.php?id=900 Gooding Day is noted on the following web page about Wiltshire Words http://www.wiltshirefhs.co.uk/databases-wiltshirewords.html At Lydiard Tregoze the custom on 21st. December was called Thomasing: history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getfolkcal.php?id=93 -- Josephine Jeremiah www.ianandjo.dsl.pipex.com ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ENG-WILTSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message