Out of the Woods But Not Over the Hill (25 page)

In a Manner of Speaking

A study commissioned by the Paramount Comedy Channel claims that the funniest accents in the UK, in rank order, are:

 

Birmingham 20.8%

Liverpudlian 15.8%

Geordie 14.5%

Welsh 10%

Yorkshire 9.3%

Cockney 8.4%

Belfast 8%

South West 6.6%

Glaswegian 3.4%

Mancunian 2.1%

Received Pronunciation 1.1%

 

Researchers led by Dr Lesley Harbridge, of the University of Aberdeen, asked 4,000 people to listen to the same joke in eleven regions, and found that those with a pronounced northern accent got the greatest laughs. Here is the joke:

 

Workmen are eating sandwiches, balancing on a girder miles above the ground.

‘You ever get that urge, Frank? It begins with looking down from forty storeys up, thinking something about the meaninglessness of life, listening to dark voices deep inside you and you think, should I? Should I? Should I push someone off?'

 

Dr Harbridge also found that those with the ‘funniest' accents were also deemed to be the least intelligent. In my own career, I have found a correlation between accent and people's perception of who is, or who is not, intelligent.

Despite the fact that, at university and in later life as a teacher and inspector, some of my colleagues found my way of speaking and turn of phrase amusing, I am proud of my Yorkshire accent and do not intend to change it.

‘Could I ask you to speak a little more slowly when you speak to the students, Mr Phinn?' asked the headmistress of the girls' grammar school. I was there in the south of the country with two inspector colleagues. ‘It's just that some of the gels,' she continued, ‘might hev a little difficulty with your Yorkshire accent.'

I have to admit that I do pronounce the word ‘bath' and not ‘barth', ‘buck' and not ‘boook' and ‘house' rather than ‘hice', but I assumed that my accent was comprehensible.

‘Actually,' continued the headmistress, ‘I do so like to hear that wonderful Barnsley burr. You remind me so much of the character in the television programme
Heartbeat
.'

‘Lord Ashfordly?' I ventured.

‘No no, the amusing character who squints.'

‘Claude Greengrass?' I suggested, thinking of the tramp-like figure played by Bill Maynard.

‘That's the one,' she said.

With my two colleagues, I joined the headmistress on the school stage at the assembly, to be introduced to the staff and pupils. The three of us stood to the side, like the Beverley Sisters waiting to break into song.

‘It will not have escaped your notice, gels,' started the headmistress, ‘that we hev with us this morning three distinguished visitors.' She waved a hand in our direction. ‘These gentlemen are school inspectors.'

All eyes focused on the three of us.

‘They are here to spend a few days with us and should they ask you a question, answer them in your usual clear, cogent and enthusiastic way.' She looked in our direction. ‘And should they look lost, I am sure you will be able to tell them where to go.' She gave a small self-satisfied smile. ‘You may sit.'

Everyone in the hall sat down, but we three remained standing. I managed to catch the headmistress's eye.

‘Oh, I'm sorry,' she said. ‘Could we have three chairs for the school inspectors?'

Her request was followed immediately by three hearty cheers of ‘Hip, hip, hooray!'

A Yorkshire 'Amlet  

When I visited Grassington Primary School some years ago, I was told by the head teacher about a unique theatrical enterprise which took place in the town in the early nineteenth century. The village postmaster, Tom Airey, born in Grassington in 1771, having seen a performance in Skipton by the celebrated Shakespearean actor, Edmund Kean, founded his own theatre company, using a spacious barn on Garrs Lane. Most of the leading performers of the day, including Miss Harriet Mellon (later the Duchess of St Albans) and Edmund Kean himself, took to the stage in this unlikely venue. Tom's own performances of the Bard in a rich Yorkshire dialect were much appreciated in the locality, although often derided by purists and off-comed-uns. The theatre ran for many years before closing in the 1830s. Tom's granddaughter recalled that: ‘He was himself a grand actor and stirred others with his enthusiasm.' One Edmond Bogg captured his verse speaking for posterity:

‘A hoss, a hoss, wh'ull hev me kindum fur a hoss?'

‘Ye damons o'deeth, cum sattle mi swured.'

‘Wat pump, wat paggyantry is thare heer?'

My thoughts were of Tom Airey when, some months later, I witnessed a wonderful Yorkshire version of Hamlet performed in a school in Sheffield, by the senior students. As an introduction to the play, the teacher had transposed the original into Yorkshire dialect.

Two boys ambled towards each other at the front of the room, hands thrust deep in their pockets.

‘Hey up, 'Amlet.'

‘Hey up, 'Oratio, what's tha doin' 'ere?'

‘Nowt much. 'Ow abaat thee then, 'Amlet? I ant seen thee for a bit.'

‘Nay, I'm not that champion, 'Oratio, if t'truth be towld.'

‘Whay, 'Amlet, what's oop?'

‘Mi dad's deead, mi mam's married mi uncle and mi girl friend does nowt but nag, nag, nag. I tell thee 'Oratio, I'm weary wi' it. '

‘Aye, tha's not far wrong theer, 'Amlet, She's gor a reight gob on 'er, that Hophilia. Teks after 'er owld man.'

The highlight of the performance was following the most famous of Shakespeare's soliloquies:

‘To be or not to be, that's t'question.

Whether 'tis nobbler in t'mind

To suffer t'slings and 'arras of outrageeous fowtune

Or to tek harms agin a sea of troubles.

And by opposin', end 'em.'

So the tradition of performing Shakespeare in dialect lives on. Tom Airey, resting now in Linton churchyard, would no doubt have been proud of those youngsters, sithee.

The Surprise

John lived on a farm way out across the moors. It was a hard but happy life he led. He was expected, like most children from farming families, to help around the farm – feed the chickens, stack wood, muck out and undertake a host of other necessary jobs, and all that before he started his homework. He was a shrewd, good-natured, blunt-speaking little boy, with a host of stories to tell about farm life. When he was little, his teacher told me, he had been awakened by his father one night and taken into the byre to see the birth of a black Angus calf.

‘Now look, young man,' the vet  said, ‘tonight you are going to see a miracle. You must be very very quiet and watch. Can you do that?'

The child nodded, and his father lifted him onto a bale of hay to watch proceedings.

‘When I was your age,' the vet continued, ‘I saw what you are about to see for the first time, and knew then that I wanted to be a vet. It's very special and you will never forget it.'

The black Angus cow was led onto the byre and, in the half light, she strained to deliver her calf. The small, wet, furry bundle soon arrived and the vet, wet with perspiration and with a triumphant look on his face, had gently wiped the calf's mouth and then held up the new-born creature for the little boy to see. John had stared, wide-eyed.

‘And what do you think of that?' the vet had asked him. ‘Isn't that a wonderful sight?'

John had thought for a moment before replying. ‘How did it swallow the dog in the first place?' he had asked.

Knowing Your Sheep

My first experience of straight-speaking and knowledgeable country children was in a grey stone primary school in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. I was the visiting school inspector, there to test the reading standards, and was asking a number of children in the infant class to read to me. I chose a bright picture book about a brave old ram that went off into the deep, snow-packed valley to look for a lost lamb. I decided that a story about sheep, which were clearly very popular in this part of the world, would be very appropriate. Graham, a six-year-old, began reading the story with great gusto. ‘Ronald was an old, old grey ram who lived in a wide, wide green valley near a big, big farm.' At this point, he promptly stopped reading and stared intently at the picture of the ram for a moment. It had a great smiling mouth, short horns, a fat body and shining eyes like black marbles.

‘What breed is that then?' Graham asked.

‘Breed?' I repeated.

‘Aye,' said the child. ‘What breed is he?'

‘I don't know,' I answered in a rather pathetic tone of voice.

‘Don't you know your sheep then?'

‘No, I don't,' I replied.

‘Miss,' shouted the child, ‘could Tony come over here a minute? I want to know what breed of sheep this is.'

We were joined by Tony, another stocky little six-year-old with red cheeks and a runny nose. ‘Let's have a look at t'picture then,' he said. I turned the picture book to face him. The large white sheep with black patches and a mouth full of shining teeth smiled from the page.

‘Is it a Masham or a Swaledale?' he asked me.

‘I don't know,' I answered, in the same pathetic tone of voice.

Another child joined the discussion. ‘It looks like a blue-faced Leicester to me. What do you reckon?'

‘I have no idea,' I replied.

‘Don't you know your sheep, then?' I was asked again and once more replied that I did not. By this time, a small crowd of interested onlookers had joined me in the reading corner.

‘They're not Leicesters,' ventured Tony.

‘Is it a Texel?' ventured a plump girl, peering at the picture. Then she glanced in the direction of the ignoramus. ‘That's a Dutch breed.'

 

 

‘Texels have white faces, not black,' Graham commented.

Very soon, the whole class was concentrating on the breed of the picture-book sheep.

‘Well,' smiled the teacher, ‘you are causing quite a stir in the reading corner, Mr Phinn. In order to solve the mystery, will you pop next door, Tony, and ask Mrs Brown if we could borrow Marianne for a moment. Say we have a little problem she can help us solve.' Tony scampered off into the next room. ‘Marianne has eight breeds on her farm,' explained the teacher, ‘and her grandfather's prize ram won a blue ribbon at the Yorkshire Show.'

‘She knows her sheep, does Marianne,' I was told by a serious-looking girl with dark plaits. The children nodded in agreement. Marianne strode confidently into the classroom from the juniors.

‘Is it sheep?' she asked.

‘What breed of sheep are these, do you reckon, Marianne?' asked Tony, stabbing the page on the picture book that I was holding.

Marianne scrutinised the illustrations, shook her head, sucked in her breath. All eyes were on her, everyone was waiting for the definitive answer.

‘I reckon they're Bleu de Main or Rouge de l'Ouest,' she suggested. Then she turned to the dunce holding the book, and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘What do you reckon?'

Before I could answer, Tony, shaking his head like a little old man, remarked, ‘It's no good askin' 'im. He knows nowt abaat owt!'

Hail Caesar!

One of the most unusual venues at which I have appeared on my recent theatre tour was the Skipton Auction Mart. During the day, livestock is auctioned and the place is crammed with would-be buyers and sellers, inspecting, comparing, conversing and bidding. In the evening, the space is converted into a makeshift theatre with tiered seating, and a stage, good acoustics and excellent lighting. It is such a clever, innovative concept and brings comedians, folk groups, pop bands, one-man shows and actors to the market town, and they perform in an intimate atmospheric arena redolent of animals, earth and hay.