“Emma Ollerhead avoids you still”
– Harsh Times in Umberstone Covert
So… what do we know about Emma Ollerhead?
The A to Z of HMHB
The A to Z of HMHB
“Emma Ollerhead avoids you still”
– Harsh Times in Umberstone Covert
So… what do we know about Emma Ollerhead?
Chris The Siteowner
A bit of an educated guess that the person referred to in the song is indeed ‘Emma Ollerhead’. But that’s what we went with.
29 November 2018
GOK WAN ACOLYTE
Google “Emma Ollerhead” and – apart from this site – there seem to be a few on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram etc. None appear to be gazing across the Dee as in the picture (unless it is meant to be symbolically representing Emma turning her back on Geraldine)
29 November 2018
Charles Exford
Interesting that by association your mind Dee-ifies her, but that ain’t no Dee-ity. That’s my wi-fi, but I’ve no idea which bay/estuary/lake/coast/city it is.
29 November 2018
dr Desperate
Not a human, if we’re to believe Nigel’s comment on Friday that there’s only one mentioned in the song. (In fact, if we are to assume that the first-person protagonist is human, then neither are Jean Greenhowe or Dorothy Perkins. Or Christ.)
2 December 2018
EXXO
When I asked Mr. B a few months ago about a few disputed lyrics off the new album, I was trying not to ask for enlightenment about this song because I have always suspected it to be a delicious hotch-potch of lovely assonant nonsense – even more so when I saw the woolly doll on the album cover which exactly conformed to my notions of what Geraldine would look like (the first google on hearing the song was Jean Greenhowe, so I saw her creations weeks before I saw the cover).
However being almost as mad on local Wirral geographical nonsense as Mr. B, I couldn’t resist checking my theory that Mr B had never been into Umberstone Covert … which he confirmed. This, however, left me unintentionally vulnerable to the Bard volunteering further info about the song, and sure enough he then told me he had been asked by others who Geraldine was, including someone who had never ever asked him about any of his lyrics before, and that all he had said was “there’s only one human in that song”.
I did not ask who the “one human” was, because I did not want at that time to be tempted to discuss it on here, and because it seemed to me logical that it must be Jean Greenhowe, who we know to be a real actual human based in the Aberdeen area.
Presumably all the other characters are woolly creatures created from patterns by Jean Greenhowe by a (more than probably) female member of the Blackwell clan, and given a wider imaginary life by Mr. B himself.
I like that this thread enables me to say this tentatively without me being responsible for a major kick-off in the actual song thread.
2 December 2018
transit full of keith
Dog-care entrepreneur. Birkenhead park runner. Leading authority on the New World peanut. (According to Google).
I’m not getting into the etymology of Ollerhead. Learnt my lesson on the Caldy thread.
6 December 2018