Toffee Flea

[Paulsquared]

Can anyone tell me origin of "Can't catch me for a toffee flea"? What was/is a toffee flea?

[fiction-factory]

Is that the same as "can't catch me for a penny cup of tea" which we used to sing in the playground

[Paulsquared]

Thanks but where does the term 'toffee flea' originate from?

[smoneybags]

We just used to say (for example) you can't catch me for toffee.

[Tilly2]

Ours was, 'You can't catch me for a monkey up a tree!'

[Calibax]

I've never heard toffee flea. I have heard can't xxx for toffee nuts but usually it's just can't xxx for toffee.

[DaisyNonna]

I only know 'You can't catch for toffee'

[tonyav]

Never heard of that one, ours was the same as ff's.

[Tilly2]

'You can't catch for toffee!' was a familiar call in our games of cricket and rounders.

[Paulsquared]

Thanks everyone.

[EDDIE51]

Are you sure it was not a 'toffee tree' not flea? May you have misheard?
As the others have said 'can't catch me for toffee' was common.

[pusskin]

In my days it used to be called ...You can't catch me for toffee nuts !

[Paulsquared]

Thanks eddie. My wife remembers it too. Maybe it was local to us as we both grew up in the same town.

[Ratty2E]

We used to say toffee flea too, Paul. No idea what it means though,sorry.

[ukbod2015]

perhaps a deeper meaning - which came first
From another source
I was reading the note to the tune Harvey Duff in Zinnermann's book of Irish rebel broadside songs a couple of days ago . It sounded like the same tune - if I read the music correctly . According to Zinnermann ,Brendan Behan remembered when he was a kid singing the words "Harvey Duff you can't catch me , catch that little boy under the tree" to the tune whwenever there was a policeman around . Apparantly the song ,or the tune whistled ,used to drive the police to the point of fury in the nineteenth century .
Harvey Duff was the name of the police informer who came to an untimely end in Dion Bioucalt's comedy , The Shaughrin .Zinnermann speculated that the tune may have come from the play and that it was perhaps used whenever the Harvey Duff character appeared or was about to appear on stage.

[juandmike]

While we were playing chase, my 3yo grandson was singing "can't catch me for a penny cup of tea". He'd learnt this little rhyme from his other grandad. I was suddenly reminded of a rhyme I hadn't heard/sung for probably over 60 years - "You can't catch me for a toffee flea". Didn't strike me as a tot that it made no sense. Have googled to find the soiurce - but no-one seems to have any idea. Interestingly these two rhymes ("penny cup of tea" and "toffee flea") both come up regularly and I wonder if they are regional - tea in the north and toffee flea further south.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Toffee flea is a saying from the High Wycombe area it originates from a local sweetshop that was closed down after a flea infestation in the mid 60's. The story was reported in the letter cal press so local people would offer you a toffee and say would you like a flea with that!

[Trustmeimadoctor]

For letter cal read local in post above

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Are you from High Wycombe. I spent the age of 5-17 there and they used to sing that when I was a kid. I found your post cos I was googling it.

[copperpostie]

I recall taunting, and being taunted by, other kids in the school playground (Enfield) when I was growing up in the early 1960's and it was definitely "You can't catch me for a toffee flea". I've always wondered if it started out as "toffee fee" (i.e. that's what you'll have to pay if you don't catch me!) but I'm not sure that any of us really understood the meaning. I certainly didn't!