There are times when I am preparing to clean a chimney I find myself humming the tune “Chim Chim Cher-Ee” from the ever so popular classic movie Marry Poppins. It is a very catchy song I just wish that I could sing and dance like Dick Van Dyke and all his chimney sweep friends. Who knows maybe someday I will be able to master the art of dancing like I have the art of cleaning chimneys. The movie Mary Poppins shows what chimney sweeps looked like and what they did during that era. Thanks to advanced
technology and improved chimney tools we no longer have to physically crawl up chimneys to clean them. Such improvements have allowed chimney sweeps to complete each job easier and safer today. After watching a movie like Mary Poppins you cannot help but have respect for the chimney sweeps back then. The conditions they had to work in were worse off than they are now. The modern day chimney sweep does not have to physically clean the whole chimney by hand we have special tools that allow us to reach all of the hard to get places. I never really understood the chorus of the song. After some research I found that in some parts of the world Chimney sweeps are considered good luck if you meet them on New Year’s Day. If you met a chimney sweep it was expected that you would have good luck for the whole year. As chimney sweep numbers dwindled it became widely known that you would have good luck if you met a chimney sweep at any time during the year. After hearing about lucky chimney sweeps it made the chorus of “Chim Chim Cher-Ee” make a lot more sense. If you don’t know it or don’t remember the chorus goes like this, “Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey, chim chim cher-ee a sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be.”