The Norman French couldn't pronounce the local name.. Given that Shropshire was known in Norman times as "Scrobsbyrigscire" this is quite understandable. The name meant "shire of the fort in the scrub" and Salop is said to be the Norman attempt to pronounce the "Scrob" part. The government tried to officially change the county's name to Salop in 1974, but as "salope" is indeed now a French word for a woman of ill-repute, the locals objected and the name Shropshire returned in 1980. However, people from Shropshire such as myself, are still called Salopians.
Was Rastafari temporarily a Salopian?
My Old Man the Gasman - Mike Sargent (Rastafari in the Wheatsheaf, in Ludlow.)
"And then they stopped laughing. The door of the private room opened and two great Somalian bodyguards came in. The Emperor Haile Selaisse himself had arrived. He did not come into the private room but remained in the bar. The guards in their colourful red robes and huge swords took their places and as usual Mrs Rogers came and warmed up milk so that they each had a mug of hot cocoa.
"Poor things" she said, "and so far from home, you must be so cold". But the guards said nothing. It was obvious that they were well behaved and natural and I was wondering, and I was wondering, as Mrs Rogers placed a mug of cocoa in front of me, if they had big willies like the black American (soldiers) were supposed to have.
The door between the private room and the bar was left open so that I could hear everything that was going on at the bar. They had started to play dominoes and because he was a king and an emperor and he was the Lion of Judea (that is what my mother said he was when she had pointed him out to me when we were up town last Monday), because he was al those things he made more noise than the others. He would bang his dominoes down on the table and then so as to make him feel at home the others played in the same way, banging the table each time they had to knock. And then they was explaining to him that it was no good putting a half-crown down, that he had to have a penny as it was a penny a knock and so they spent some time explaining how many pennies there were in a half-crown and the the Emperop had a great pile of coins but the pile got smaller the more he played because my Dad was a good domino player and had as many silver cups as the Emperor had silver crowns. But the Emperor, the King held his own."
[Excellent Press, Ludlow, 1998]
Ras Tafari Makonnen was born on the 23rd July, 1892 in Harrar, Ethiopia and was the youngest of ten children. He became the Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 when he became officially known as Emperor Haile Selassie I. Rastafarians believe that Selassie was a black messiah and the name Haile Selassie actually means "power of the Holy Trinity". This photograph of the Emperor was taken at Shrewsbury Castle in January 1938.
I'm sure Rastafari lived at Powis Castle........
