“It’s looking a bit black over Bill’s mother’s” is a long-heard comment in the north of England to forewarn that rain is imminent. Its use in a recent book about Stoke (Letters, 24 August) has merely borrowed a frequently used expression from “sophisticated” northerners.
Bridget Neville
Wokingham, Berkshire
• In darkest Shropshire Bill’s mother is very well known. As a child in the 1940s I asked my father: “Which Bill? Where does his mother live?” Only reply a knowing smirk. I now know that the ancient lady is peripatetic, blown by storm clouds hither and thither; apparently as far as Leeds.
Gillian Browne
Newport, Shropshire
• When my brother was at Edinburgh University he would say “It was looking dark over Wullie’s mither’s”. I suspect local dialect variants might be encountered throughout the land.
Chris Osborne
Nottingham
• “Looking a bit black over Bill’s mother’s” has been used widely across the Midlands and north for generations when it looks like rain. Bill is claimed to be anyone from William Shakespeare to Kaiser Bill.
Helen Norris
Beckenham, Kent
• The correct form of the expression was used by my mother in our Black Country council house. She would opine gloomily: “It’s black over the back of Bill’s mother’s.” Sophisticated, poetic and alliterative.
John Banks
Ledbury, Herefordshire
• In my family we’ve been saying “It’s looking black over Will’s mother’s” for as long as I can remember. I’d assumed it was a Sussex saying, as we knew of it from my Eastbourne gran.
Sue Leckie
Edinburgh
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