I have been paying extra attention to my accent recently. Reason being, like a lot of my fellow North East folk, I feel extremely proud of belonging to the region, it is embedded somewhere deep inside my soul.
I was therefore absolutely devastated to be asked by a taxi driver a few months back 'Where are you from? I can tell you're not from round here!' Errrrk. I happened to be on my way to the station to get to NCT conference in Coventry where I bumped into someone from my town, South Shields, living in the South now but with an unmistakable Sandancer twang. I homed in on her 'I'm from there too' and got 'Oh well you don't sound like it.' ARRGHHHH!!
I had noticed that whenever I bump into someone from my old school they sound incredibly strongly accented to me and I don't remember them sounding like that, presumably because I did too and don't anymore. I was never that strong, my dad's a BBC accent Southener who would pull me up for the way I spoke, but I was more pronounced than I am now. Trouble is, I moved from a village near Shields, where the accent is roughly similar to standard Newcastle/Tyneside Geordie with a few differences that an outsider would struggle to pick up (well it is still on the Tyne...), to Sunderland on the banks of the Wear, where the 'Mackem' accent is so totally different to Shields or Newcastle that they may as well come from the moon. I remember when I occasionally visited Sunderland as a child (which was only twice a year for the dentist as my parents hate the place) I used to think they sounded very, very funny.
Moving from one to the other has wiped me neutral, not helped by being married to a Mancunian. I've even started to pronounce book 'buk' like a Southerner, not 'book' with an 'oo' like Tyneside or 'Beewk' with a long vowel sound like in Sunderland (heaven forbid...... ;-) )
So, no, to people from round here I don't talk like you! I wish I did. To people not from round here ... I'd be interested to hear any opinions .... but the Mancunian inlaws commented my children have lost all traces of a North East accent since I pulled them out of school. Which is good because they were turning Mackem, but how I wish I could make them talk like my original Sandancer. No chance now I guess.
I've decided for myself I may as well give in gracefully and either stay neutral or embrace Mackem, since I now hear it all week and so am absorbing it, I catch myself coming out with the odd phrase here and there (such as when the kids need to stop running off - 'get awwa 'ee-ya'). May be preferable to not sounding North Eastern at all. That would be stripping my roots away entirely. I may have been born within a mile of the Tyne but I did have a step great great grandfather from Sunderland!! Meaning my gran who was brought up by various aunties and grandparents spent three months a year in Sunderland in her teens (and of course was bullied for talking differently, doh...). Her grandparents were round the corner from my house actually above what is now Roker Pie shop :-) I could work on the long vowels. I'm sure after a while they won't sound that bad??! Eg 'tonight there's a fabulous full Meeeewn'. Or even 'Aye ah knarr he'll be awwa the Meeewn wi' that'.
Despite being born near the Tyne I am, and always have been, a Sunderland Supporter. South Shields folk are split 50:50 down the middle as it's about half way between geographically, and the village I grew up in was nearer Sunderland than Shields is so we were roughly a 75:25 split (despite having Tyneside accents - we were very muddled really!) and I went with the majority. Today we drew with Middlesbrough, not bad, a win would have been better but at least we didn't lose. We sadly appear to be 2 places behind Newcastle at the moment, same number of points but worse goal difference. There's time yet!
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6 comments:
I was born in Durham, and brought up for the first year of my life in Sacriston just outside Durham. Then my parents moved to Yorkshire and around Yorkshire, and I grew up without either accent. To my other half I sound northern, to anyone from the north I sound not quite anything I suppose. I lived in Durham for 9 years in my early 20s, but it wasn't enough to give me any accent back.
I love it though, especially the Durham accent, which is different again to your Mackem or Sandancer (I have friends from Shields, Sunderland and various other places round and about). It always amuses me that other ppl can't hear the differences.
People who don't know me very well can recognise me on the telephone - they say it's my accent. I don't think I have one, but I guess it's enough of an amalgamation that it's unique enough for people to recognise it. My father's family are very upper class so I've had that 'posh' accent influence me. My Mum's family are middle class so are very BBC standard English. I went to school at a state school in the London side of Surrey so have a kind of cockney influence in there. Then we moved to Herefordshire when I was 12 so there's some of that there too!
I wonder what the children's accents will turn out like - hopefully not strong Gloucestershire if they don't go to school - it's a horrid accent IMO!
Clare you always sound very well spoken to me, must give across a very good impression to mums who ring for breastfeeding support I wish I could sound like that for work :-))
Jax, yes I have friends who can't tell the difference but to me the accents here are a million miles from each other!
I just clicked on your blog and feel instantly homesick, what a beautiful pic of the beach - I grew up in North Shields. I'm determined to drag my family up to Northumberland this summer so they can experience a proper coastline ;-)
I've been moved about constantly by my parents (hmph), so moved from sth london, to shields, somewhere alongg the line the accents have cancelled eachother out - now I find it a fun game to get people to guess where I'm from!!
I work in North Shields, (lots and lots of pregnant people there seem to want breastfeeding classes haha) the beach in Tynemouth is beautiful too, if 'foreign' being on the other side of the Tyne I prefer gazing at the priory at a couple of hundred metres distance from South Shields ;-) further up it's absolutely stunning - have you been to Warkworth, or even better, Holy Island? I try to get there annually it's an hour and a half North of here (and still English for anyone like my former university colleague who thinks Northumbria is in Scotland...!!)
I think I have been dragged to every part of the northumberland coastline from Berwick to Blyth sometime in my childhood! My dad lived in North Sunderland nr Seahouses when he was younger so he is fixated with Bamburgh and that sort of area, so I've grown to love it too! My husband is from cumbria - everything feels back to front on that coast!!
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