a "donkey's breakfast"

[flaming]

Does anyone remember what this is please? I understand it is a colloquialism, probably Liverpool in origin.

[graemer]

It's an old maritime term for a sailor's mattress that was a hessian bag filled with straw. They were also seen in opium dens. In Canada the term is also used to describe a straw hat. The straw of course being the donkey's breakfast. Here is a quote from Canadian sailor Joshua Slocum from the 1800's.

" The old man was bare-footed and thinly clad, after the custom in this climate. Still, I recognized the fisherman and sailor in the set and rig of the few duds he had on, and the ample straw hat (donkey's breakfast) that he wore, and doffed in a seaman-like manner"

[graemer]

It is both a hessian mattress filled with straw used by merchant sailors of old and a Canadian term for a straw hat as seen in this quote from the 1800's by renowned sailor Joshua Slocum:

"The old man was bare-footed and thinly clad, after the custom in this climate. Still, I recognized the fisherman and sailor in the set and rig of the few duds he had on, and the ample straw hat (donkey's breakfast) that he wore, and doffed in a seaman-like manner"

[flaming]

Ta very much graemer. My Scouse friend was impressed.