R's 77 year old cousin came to our Chesterfield hotel to farewell us after our hotel breakfast. I checked at the desk and of course he was welcome to join us for coffee in the breakfast area. It was a longish chat about relatives I did not know and my mind wandered and then a few things were mentioned by him about Trump and Johnston. I was not liking what I was hearing. I am saying nothing. After he departed home, we set off back to Newcastle on the M1. Many signs indicated to us directions to 'The North' and to 'The South'. We're losers. We are heading north.
That was kind of how the signs felt to me. Civilised and comfortable people, go south. You poor lot with strange ways and funny accents, go north. I am sure I am reading too much into this, but it is just how I felt when seeing all the signs, and I might add the signs are simple and useful. Edinburgh or Newcastle could be substituted for north and London for the south.
R's oldest niece had flown off to the metaphorical Costa del Sol for some sambucas and sunburn so for a couple of nights we stayed at her house. We still had our rental car. She has two sons, I think 19 and 21. They are good lads. They would come home and after a quick chat to us, would head for their rooms.
We had been warned about the niece's cat. You can stroke her but don't do it too hard or she will lash out. R was busy talking and absently minded must have done what he was told not to do. There was blood but no medical assistance was required.
The next morning Sister 1 and her partner picked us up and we drove to the suburb of Gosford where her partner had bought an apartment in a building for over 60s. The property had not been settled so he could not access his apartment but it had a really nice garden to wander around. One couple were outside tending to some plants and they said hello to him. I thought, gosh, she has a posh voice. Once they realised they were speaking to a Geordie, her posh accent disappeared. They seemed friendly. Before he moves in, the kitchen and bathroom have to renovated so it we be a while before he moves from Sister 1's one bedroom house.
We had lunch at the local pub, quite nice and then headed home. I am not sure what we did for dinner that night. Local traffic in Gosforth is quite congested with a high rate of car ownership and it being quite a posh area. There were some super looking houses.
I should have taken some photos but I didn't.
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I hope you didn't hurt your tongue while biting it to prevent you from saying anything.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting that the posh accent can come and go...
EC. Such are unwinnable conversations to have because of the very fact that they are inclined to support people like such indicates they lack logic and clear thinking.
DeleteHa, yes. When working full time I had a "posh" accent that I wheeled out whenever I had to deal with a particular kind of customer/client. Now, I just speak with my standard grammar school accent day to day, but have been known to lapse unto cockney when I go to visit my family.
ReplyDeleteJayCee, so you would start off with posh accent until you knew who you were dealing with, which is what the woman I mentioned did. I see it as a kind of self protection.
DeleteThe Stalker
ReplyDeleteThe posh accent…. I have the Sydney accent … born there …can do the Melbourne slightly posh but the posh Adelaide accent….. Queen Adelaide one….never…that is in a class of its own I reckon they brought it over with the first boat carrying them and their furniture when they sailed into Glenelg . Smatterings of it are rushed out for fun, and but it’s not sustainable , particularly if you hate the crows football team and are a Port Adelaide kind of girl at heart !
Stalker, I can't say I've ever noticed a posh Adelaide accent. I know they say some words differently to us. Nor do I really know a Sydney accent. A broad Queensland accent is very distinctive. Yes, I get the football reference.
DeleteI have lived in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and now Adelaide. You all sound the same to me!
DeleteThe strangest Australian accent I have ever heard sounded more like South African! The strangest Scottish accent I have ever heard sounded like East Anglian.
DeleteI enjoy the shares of your travels and relatives. Always fun and full of tidbits.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sandra. Some would say I shouldn't be encouraged.
DeleteUpdates on relatives often can take hours. Yet, it often hit one with so many shocks. Traffic seems congested everywhere in the major cities of the world
ReplyDeleteRoentare, we were fortunate to not really get stuck in traffic anywhere. We are talking a regional area. Newcastle is only the seventh largest city in England.
DeleteYou could have found images of Gosforth on the Internet to illustrate this blogpost Andrew. Most disappointing.
ReplyDeleteI could have YP. Have you broken your google?
DeleteNope! My google is in perfect working order thank you very much!
DeleteMy daughter had the worst time trying to understand a Geordie accent. Her husband was no help, laughing hysterically like he was.
ReplyDeleteIt is challenging at times Debby. Generally I was ok because people generally didn't speak broadly in front of me. But it is something I will post about in the future. I found the Lancashire accent the worst. I had to call R to a bar when I was ordering food and even he could not understand the lad.
DeleteI get very Oirish when I'm back on the oul sod. We talk at each other in tremendous bursts of speed which is unintelligible to an outsider.
ReplyDeleteInterspersed with words in the Irish language. I slow down again when I come back to Canada. So I totally get the woman you met.
XO
WWW
WWW, I think that is quite typical. I liken it to how comfortable you are in Ireland, like when you arrive home and can take your bra off.
DeleteI am not sure how many counties there are in the UK these days. One of our favourite activities back in the old days was to listen to Brits speaking and to guess where their accents came from. I could identify the regions (eg South West, Home Counties, the Midlands, Aberdeenshire) but I could never be any more specific than that.
ReplyDeleteAnd anyhow, American tv has since infiltrated British English :(
Hels, even that is a good effort. Aberdeenshire would have been quite easy, I would have thought. Yes, American English is omnipresent.
DeleteI'm curious about those snobby signs you mentioned. Did you take pictures?
ReplyDeleteI didn't Kirk as I was driving. At the beginning of this quite interesting article is a classic example. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2015/sep/18/way-to-go-the-woman-who-invented-britains-road-signs
DeleteNice the boys stopped and had a chat before retiring to their rooms, nice manners. The girl, well some girls are like that unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteThe posh accent, really letting it drop, wow - not good at all putting the 'dog' on as they saying goes...must be a false person, perhaps...sorry I'm harsh but that's the way I see it Andrew.
Margaret, I must all the English greats are credits to their parents. I think the posh accent is just a way of dealing with not knowing the social status or origins of who you are speaking to. The class distinction is much more than it is here and they seem to have their own ways of dealing with it. If someone here tried to 'lord it over' us, we would tell them to get stuffed.
DeleteAll the weird accented people go north? It must be getting pretty crowded up there by now.
ReplyDeleteYou could say that River. Accents in England are softening and some seem to be disappearing.
DeleteUK seems to be rapidly changing faster than the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteI quite agree with you Roentare. It is a quite a progressive country.
DeleteI love hearing regional accents but so many are disappearing - sad, really.
ReplyDeleteAs they are in Newcastle JB, but still there are young hold outs against it.
DeleteI had a friend from Kentucky who, when I first met her, had no perceptible accent. But as she became more familiar with us over time, her accent got stronger and stronger. Basically, as she relaxed, she slipped into her old "hillbilly" speech patterns! And more power to her. I love regional accents. They are all endangered now with the ubiquity of television and other electronic communication.
ReplyDeleteA bit like Ellie May Clampett, Steve? I think the American southern accent might be last accent to fall.
DeleteEngland is so small, about Oregon size, to have so many regional accents. I stayed in a hostile once, in Vancouver BC. Had a few roommates while there. Two were girls from England but I could barely understand them nor them me, with my Oregon accent. so we spoke slowly with exaggerated syllables and got along fine. They were trying to scrounge money from relatives back home to continue travels, hoping to go all the way down the west coast to Mexico, ending there. I know they got enough "relative donations" to make it to SF by the time they left.
ReplyDeleteStrayer, that's the key to it. You have to slow your speech right down. It is the same when talking to someone for who English is not their first language. Good story about your fellow travellers.
DeleteThe first time I took John to Ireland, I couldn't stop laughing at him. He couldn't understand anything until he had a few drinks! But when we got down to the "country", he was terrified. He would ask me to go to the bar to order the drinks. I had to "translate" everywhere! He got better on subsequent trips.
ReplyDeleteJackie, that's interesting that a few drinks helped John to understand. But if I can speak better, more fluently, after a couple of drinks, perhaps it is the same for hearing. The trouble is if those with you have a few drinks and their accents become even broader.
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