Adjusting to the local accent

From our Cotswolds columnist, Catherine Moore, who said goodbye to inner-city London and upped sticks for Gloucestershire, for the sake of family life and more space...

'Shame on me, but I still haven't got myself used to the Gloucestershire accent yet. If you can't quite place it, it's pure son-of-the-soil Archers or if you're not being so kind, it's a bit yokel.

 

'I should of course point out that I haven't got a leg to stand on when throwing stones at the way other people speak. I'm originally from the Midlands and still have a soupçon of Brummie whenever I open my mouth which always sounds odd I think when I'm trying to make a heartfelt political point about the state of the nation but sounds quite at home when I'm telling a joke.

 

 

'But despite my own foolish accent, I still had to struggle to stifle the giggles last week when Father Christmas was asking my daughter what she wanted for Christmas in full Farmer Giles mode. Not that you even get a real beard or a real fat belly with school-fête Santas (and I'm sure the real thing would favour a sturdy woollen red suit over a creation in nylon), so a Lapp accent was always going to be a long shot. But it was comical to hear him ask Caitlin, ‘How's you been, my lovely? Has you been a good girl for Santa?' The elves were likewise rustic, but somehow they seemed to fit the bill a bit more. I could easily picture them as artisans fashioning wooden toys on pole lathes in a workshop deep in the heart of the Forest of Dean.

 

My children running around sounding like the Wurzels had my friends from London in stitches'When we first moved here, our neighbours at the time, with three kids who played with ours, had very broad Gloucestershire accents which I thought were wonderful and really made me feel that we had moved into a different, more gentle, world. That is, until I realised that my children were picking up the accents too. And then - though I am a tad embarrassed to confess this - their manner of expression didn't seem quite so charming after all. 

 

'Is it a sad fact about me, or a sad fact about our culture, that I really felt my kids would be disadvantaged in life if they sounded, well, that rural? When was the last time you heard anyone with a West Country accent doing anything on TV or film that didn't involve them being a) a servant in a period drama or b) a token regional comedian.

 

'Consider the fate of poor Dave Prowse who supplied the huge musclebound frame filling the suit of Darth Vader in the original 'Star Wars' movies. Bristolian Dave was desperate to deliver the whole evil package, but his West Country tones just made people laugh and the master of the Dark Side was dubbed over by an actor altogether more butch and menacing.

 

'The fact of my children running around sounding like the Wurzels had my friends from London in stitches and my family was always chuckling away at their ‘Ooh aaar' relatives. And I have to confess to feeling relieved that as the children have got older the way they speak does not leave them open to being victims of other people's preconceptions though I haven't gone as far as sending them to elocution lessons - which my stepmother was sent to as a trainee teacher, her tutors feeling that professionals needed to speak ‘proper'  to be taken seriously.

 

'Having said all of that, I can't help but feel a certain wistfulness for the raft of regional accents that are slowly and surely being replaced by a standard issue, London suburban way of expression. You'd be hard pushed now to tell where in the south of England my children and almost all of their classmates were brought up. Even since we've been here its noticeable that pure Gloucestershire accents are thinner on the ground, and it's no doubt down to people like us that the dilution is taking place.

 

'But until the day when it is commonplace for politicians, consultant surgeons and evil geniuses to be taken seriously with a Gloucestershire accent, I'm quite glad my kids sound like they're from Surbiton.'

 

Click here to read more from our Cotswolds columnist