Papering a ceiling

W

wstol

Dedicated Member
Inspired by the topic of Norman Clegg's love life, papering a ceiling is something frequently mentioned in the show - usually as something the women would rather do than bond with their husbands.

Anyone know why Roy Clarke liked this 'gag' so much?

And can anyone name some or all of the episodes this 'comparison' was used?
 
The Mysterious CW Northropp

Ivy "What do I need with tall.....unless he can paper a ceiling."
 
I´ve been wondering about that for a long time. What´s with the papering all the time? As long as I can remember we have had the same wallpaper, just painted it occasionally, lol! It wouldn´t be so strange if they changed a patterned wallpaper every now and again, but on a ceiling?? I thought this was one of my "I´m-not-English-and-this-is-another-thing-I-don´t-get"-things.
 
Ceilings would often have cracks in them so they would paper over the cracks and paint the paper.
 
Ah! Thank you George, you can tell I live in a relatively new building that my parents built when I was little :D.
 
Here's an extract from Getting Sam Home;

Clegg; Maybe she's doing something special for him on his first night home.

Compo; Like what?

Clegg; Papering a ceiling?!
 
I got the impression that Cleggy was telling us that she could be a boring,unadventurous type of woman.Someone who was more content with the mundane domestic way of life as opposed to the romantic and adventurous side of things.It appeared that drinking a scalding hot cup of tea and papering a ceiling was her back into her comfort zone after the traumatic experience of sleeping in a tent.
I seem to remember he said something like,"God rest the silly bitch" in a later episode so it seems there was no love lost between them. ;D

I remember when i was young that papering a ceiling could be used to cover any unsightly cracks and then painted over.It was also the latest craze,so to speak,at that time.A paper with a good pattern was painted over and it broke the monotonous plain coloured ceiling.

Hector.
 
Also some people regularly changed their decorations and re-papering the ceiling was often the start.

I once had very dark ceilingss - navy blue in one room, deep purple in another and vivid green in another. Not one of them was white (which seems to be the standard colour although I have never used white paint at all inside the house)) and the next tenants said "we really would prefer white ceilings - so presumably they would have had to paper over them as the darker shades would take several coats of paint to adequately cover up, especially in 1975.
 
I recall one show when Sid told Compo that Ivy was never fond of a good grapple but papering a ceiling was something she liked.
 
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