It was the punters money I was after but, (apologies for the tease) it was all perfectly legitimate & licensed by the town council, though I am ashamed to say that I cannot now remember the cause.
What we used to call a flag day, ‘a day on which money is raised for a cause by the sale of small paper flags or other tokens which are worn as evidence that the wearer has contributed.’ George Bernard Shaw noted in Heartbreak Hotel that ‘The passionate penny collecting of the Flag Days’ had needed to be brought under some sort of regulation – my recollection tells me that in the 1950s I needed a hawkers & pedlars licence, but that may be over-romanticising.
My instructions were strict: I should smile; I could shake my tin, a little, from time to time, but never right under the nose of a passer-by; & I must not – repeat not - ask anybody directly for money.
It has always puzzled me how chuggers get away with it, so I was pleased to hear on this week’s Word of Mouth that the regulations apply only to cash, have never been updated to cover those who stand on the street asking you to sign a direct debit.
And that we have Greenpeace to thank for inventing this marmite of a modern fund raising strategy.
Since Word of Mouth is a programme about words, Michael Rosen’s main focus was on the fundraisers reaction to the chugging label – thought to be a journalistic coinage, a combination of ‘charity’ & ‘mugging’.
They would prefer it to be called Face-to Face Fund Raising – or a snappy F2F for short.
The OED already knows about another kind of chugger, a sort of lure used by fishermen, & has a very apt quote from The Washington Post of July 1940: The longer a chugger is in the water, the more apt it is to catch a fish.
Things got even more interesting when I looked up mugger in the OED.
In the C19th 'mugger’ was a comprehensive term understood to include all persons with an ambition for University distinction.
Some charities already embrace the word chugger, since so many people use the word anyway; others wish to object, feel hurt, insulted & offended even.
They should cheer up & claim a revised etymology – they are eye-catchers with ambition for academic distinction.
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