Rat up a drainpipe

[fredpuli47]

How long have rats been running up drainpipes,so to speak ? 'He was off like a rat up a drainpipe' (he got away very fast ). I only noticed the expression when a Welsh friend used it, but it sounds more London than Swansea.Is it a widely-used expression ?

[Quizmonster]

In Monty Python's 'Life of Brian', someone is referred to as moving "like a rat out of an aqueduct", which is, I suspect, just a variant of the probably earlier 'drainpipe' phrase. The film appeared 30 years ago, so your version may have preceded that, in answer to your 'How long...?' query.

[craft1948]

In the 50's when I was little we used to have rats in the rear walled garden. If you chased them they did indeed run up the drainpipes to get away from you. I can remember my dad packing the top of a drainpipe and setting a fire at the bottom to kill one.....

[Quizmonster]

I should have added, in possible support of your London provenance, that the words actually sounded like "la' a ra' ah' an aqueduct"...with glottal stops galore. Mind you, that may just have been a script requirement rather than an indication of source!

[scotman]

Cassell's Slang Dict. gives this

[1960s] originally Australian, very quickly, usually in a sexual context

[heathfield]

Earliest (variant) form of the expression, (from the Australian National Dictionary)...

1945 R.S. Close ''Love Me Sailor'' 209 [H]e soared up the steps like a rat up a shoreline.