Tilly's name is Matilda. It was typical of Mum and Dad that they wouldn't let her be called Tilly when she came to them because that was the unusual shortening of Matilda, the unconventional one, and you never did unconventional things, you never did things to draw attention to yourself. So they called her Matty.

Myles: "Indeed your Honour may safely say so : Iwas ploughing away […] when I bethought how I forgot to tell little Jem, when he'd be buying my pen'orth of snuff, to be sure to get it in two separate ha'porths, the way he'd have the two tillies. So what could Ido but run home, to […] go myself for the snuff, and be sure to get my tillies.

At each door he poured from the can into a pint measure and into the house-wife's jug, always with a tilly for the cat, whether there was a cat or not, sometimes splashing the step with milk to the annoyance of the housewife.

After a fortnight's careful nursing my leg healed and I was packed off in a tilly (utility truck) with my kit-bag to join my comrades at Fairmilehead.

One night soon after our arrival in Belgium, four of us set off to a dance in a rest centre, behind the lines, for the forces. We drove across a snowy waste in a tilly truck, singing "Lilly Marlene".

By the time he stooped to lift him up, we were all in the Tilly that Fiver had brought out to meet us.

Tilly

Meaning

Noun

Adj

Name

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