LAST Saturday’s paper told how a sign directing people to the south Durham hamlet of Wham had been seasonalised so that it now celebrates George Michael’s 1984 hit – Last Christmas was kept off the festive No 1 slot by Band Aid’s Do They Know It Is Christmas? and it is now the biggest selling UK single never to have reached No 1.
But why should there be a place in south Durham that shares its name with the chart-topping duo?
Michael and Andrew Ridgeley chose Wham! as a name because it is “snappy, immediate, fun and boisterous”, whereas Wham near Butterknowle get its name from an Old Norse word “hvammr”, which was a short valley with steep sides or a deep depression. Usually there’s a boggy marsh at the bottom of a wham.
There are quite a few whams across the North-East and south Scotland, as the word was brought with the Viking invaders.
In Arkengarthdale, The Wham is a path through a marsh to Arkle Beck, and in Swaledale, there’s Wham Bottom which is a marsh on the top of Gunnerside Moor. There’s also Whamp, which is a field to the west of Keld.
The best wham is probably Ulgham, which is off the A1 in Northumberland. It is the wham where an ul, or owl, once lived.
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