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THE ROOKERIES HAVE HIT THE ROAD AND WILL BE GIGGING IN A TOWN NEAR YOU SOON!!!
THE ROOKERIES REHEARSAL - 'SUNKEN MOON'
THE ROOKERIES REHEARSAL - 'SINKING SHIP'
A rookery was the colloquial British English name historically given to a city slum or ghetto frequented by poor people, criminals and prostitutes. Such areas were often overcrowded, with poor quality housing and little or no sanitation; poorly constructed dwellings were often crammed into any area of open ground, creating densely-populated areas of gloomy narrow streets and alleyways.
The term may be linked with the slang expression to rook, to cheat or steal, a verb well established in the 16th century and associated with the supposedly thieving nature of the rook bird. The term was first used in print by the poet George Galloway in 1792 to describe "a cluster of mean tenements densely populated by people of the lowest class.
"Wretched houses with broken windows patched with rags and paper: every room let out to a different family, and in many instances to two or even three ... filth everywhere, a gutter before the houses and a drain behind, clothes drying and slops emptying, from the windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen, with matted hair, walking about barefoot, and in white great-coats, almost their only covering; boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes and no coats at all; men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting, and swearing."
(Charles Dickens, 1839)