In the corner of the inn, three figures sat around a small round table, two of them listening to the third, who was entertaining them with a story. The speaker was a small wiry individual with rosy red cheeks and large jug ears. His companions were a particularly striking-looking figure with brown leathery farmers’ hands, mustard colouring and grey watery eyes sunken in a sepulchral face, and a large woman with an abundant bosom and beehive hair-do.
Like all writers, I am a magpie, a collector of stories and an inveterate eavesdropper and, as I raised the beer to my lips, I took a professional interest in the entertaining conversation. The speaker had the animated voice and timing of a professional comedian.
‘Now, mi Uncle Stan were a character and no mistake,’ said the small man. ‘Wa’n’t ’e, Beryl?’
‘Aye, ’e were,’ replied the woman.
‘Once mi Uncle Stan goes and buys this tup from t’market. Lovely-looking creature it were. Texel. Square as a box, four solid legs, beautiful fleece. Anyroad, he puts it in t’field wi’ yows and sits back to watch ’im do what nature intended ’im to do, if you follow mi drift. Well, nowt ’appens. Tup just stands theer, then does a bit a walking, a bit o’ grazin’, but he’s not interested in any o’ yows. They stand theer waiting for ’im to mek a move but ’e’s just not interested. Well, mi uncle scratches ’is ’ead and dunt know what’s up. ’E’s nivver seen the like afoor. So, he sends for t’vet. T’vet’s puzzled an all. “I shall tell thee what I’ll do, Mester Bannister,” he says, “I’ve got this ’ere Dutch medicine which might just do the trick. Just come on t’market.” And he tells mi Uncle Stan to give t’tup one o’ these pills in t’mornin’. Vet gus back on t’Thursday and ’e asks how things are goin’. “Champion,” says mi Uncle Stan. “I’ve nivver seen the like. Them theer pills certainly did t’trick. Tup’s gone mad. Chasing anything that moves. Sex mad ’e is. Nothing’s safe in t’field wi’ ’im.” We were talking about it in t’pub later that day and I says to mi Uncle Stan, I says, “I wonder what was in them theer pills what t’vet give t’tup.” “I don’t know,” says ’e, “but they taste of peppermint.” ’ The speaker threw his head back and roared with laughter, and his female companion chuckled. ‘It’s a good un, that one, in’t it?’ he asked.
‘Aye, it is,’ said the man with the mustard colouring, his face still as solemn as ever. Then he added, ‘I can’t say I’m all that partial to peppermint, tha knaas.’
Man’s Best Friend
I was at the Broughton Show last June. This always proves to be a superb day out and, on this occasion, it was held on a beautifully sunny day and was packed with families. At this traditional country show there is a range of activities, displays, events, talks and commentaries: acrobatics, clay shoots, pipe and brass band performances, eagle flying, a flat cap whanging competition, ferret racing, stunt teams, fly tying, lure coursing and dressage. The hilarious Birdman Challenge is not to be missed. There is a cask of ale for the one who can achieve the farthest non-powered flight across the river at Broughton Hall. Competitors fly across the river in the most inventive outfits and on a range of incredible contraptions.
Actually, I managed to see very little of the events for I spent most of the day outside the Dalesman Tent, signing one or two books. Not many people stopped, so I sat in the shade with a pint of traditional Yorkshire Dark Horse Brewery Ale, people watching, an activity I love to do.
At this vantage point, I was able to see the most incredible variety of dogs. There were spaniels and setters, retrievers and terriers, pointers and foxhounds, and some other breeds of the most remarkable appearance. I have never seen such creatures in my life and, as owners passed by with their canine companions, I would stop them and enquire: ‘Tell me, what sort of dog is that?’
Proud owners would be only too pleased to give me details of the dog’s breed and provenance.
‘He’s a Tibetan Mastiff,’ said a large man with a shaven head, tight-fitting vest and sporting an assortment of tattoos. The Hound of the Baskervilles eyed me and growled. ‘Soft as a brush,’ he added, before tugging the beast away.
‘Old English Bulldog,’ said another man, who bore a remarkable resemblance to his ‘pet’. ‘He’ll let anyone in the house, won’t you Buster, but just let them try and get out.’ The dog looked up at me with grey button eyes, showed a set of bottom teeth like tank traps and strained at the leash. It emitted a deep rumbling growl. ‘Once he gets hold of anything,’ the man told me, ‘his teeth lock on and he won’t let go.’ I crossed my legs.
‘It’s a Dandie Dinmont Terrier,’ a small lady, wearing a turban and coloured smock, informed me. ‘I did have a Shih Tzu.’
‘Really?’ I said.
One of the highlights of the show was the terrier race. A strip of fur was pulled at great speed across the arena, and the terriers were let loose and went in frantic chase. Another popular event was the all-breed race, when any dog could take part. This proved to be absolute mayhem, as great lumbering beasts of every conceivable shape, colour and size galloped around the field, accompanied by hairy little creatures yapping madly at their heels.
My mother was a health visitor and regularly had to visit houses in the poorer parts of Rotherham. At one house, there lived a huge black mongrel called Major and, rumour had it, the creature had been trained by the owner to attack anyone in uniform. Police officers, postmen and rent collectors consequently never made it down the garden path. My mother had to visit the house to look at a baby whom neighbours claimed was undernourished and they thought might be neglected. She was accompanied by a social worker and warned him about the dangerous dog, suggesting he rattle the gate to see if the beast was about before venturing down the path.
‘No need, nurse,’ said the man casually. ‘I can handle dogs.’
As she walked nervously behind him as he sauntered up the path, Major appeared from around the back.
‘Be careful,’ my mother warned her companion, ready to swing her bag, ‘that dog’s vicious.’
‘Don’t worry, nurse,’ he replied, nonchalantly, ‘I have come across many dogs in my time.’
The creature, the size of a small bear, bounded towards them, teeth bared, tail in the air and ears back. The social worker, whom my mother described as a small, insignificant-looking man with a bald head and large ears, remained perfectly motionless until the dog leapt up. He then promptly punched it on the right hinge of its jaw, knocking the beast out cold. ‘You have to know how to handle dogs,’ he told her calmly. ‘I was featherweight boxing champion in the army.’ After that, Major was as gentle as a lamb.
A Country Parish
A curate friend of mine has just secured a living as vicar in a small rural parish in North Yorkshire. He is moving from a vibrant parish in the industrial south of the county to an idyllic spot in the Dales and, although much looking forward to the move, he is a little apprehensive. Having spent ten years travelling around the schools in that part of the country, and meeting many a cleric on my travels, I warned my friend that he will find life very different in rural Yorkshire and will need to adjust to the dry wit and the bluntness of his new congregation.
At a charity dinner in Settle, at which I had been asked to speak, I was entertained with the following story of a grizzled farmer.
‘My mother nivver missed a service at t’church,’ he told me. ‘Come rain or shine she’d walk all t’way from t’farm up to t’village. One winter, it were thick wi’ snow, drifts up to ten foot deep, rooads like icing rinks, wind that ’ud cut thee like a sharpened scythe, but she made it up t’church. Cooarse, vicar were not expectin’ anybody and then mi mother turns up. Only one theer, she were, sitting in t’front pew as large as life. Anyroad, vicar asks ’er if ’e should carry on wi’ service like, seeing as she were t’only one in t’church. “Look ’ere, vicar,” she tells ’im, “I can’t tell thee what tha should do, but if I went out of a morning to feed t’cows and only one on ’em ’ad tekken trouble to turn up, I’d feed it.” He w
ere nonplussed at this, was t’vicar. “Do you know,” he says, “yer right.” And he went ahead with t’service and give one of these long sermons just for mi mother’s benefit. He were pretty pleased wi’ hissen afterwards. “I hope you felt it were worth the walk through all that snow, Missis Bannister,” he tells ’er. “Look ’ere, vicar,” she replies, “I don’t reckon I know all that much about sermons and the like, but if I went out of a mornin’ to feed t’cows and only one ’ad tekken trouble to show up, I’d not be likely to give it t’whole lot of feed.” ’
The vicar in the rural community often plays a vital part of the life of the people, not just by being there for the momentous events, like births, marriages and deaths (‘hatches, matches and despatches’), but by taking an active role in a whole range of activities. This frequently includes chairing the governing body at the local school, and taking the assemblies.
One new vicar had started his assembly in the primary school by telling the children how he had walked to the school that morning through the churchyard.
‘And do you know, children,’ he told them, ‘I had a big, big surprise this morning as I passed the big oak tree near the church gate. I saw something watching me with large black shiny eyes. There it was, perched in the branches of the tree, grey in colour and with a great bushy tail. And what do you think I’m talking about?’ he had asked.
A large boy, with very fair hair and a round red face, replied, ‘I know it’s Jesus, vicar, but it sounds like a squirrel to me!’
Of course, vicars’ feet are kept firmly on the ground by their wives or husbands, who play important roles in the community too. I recall a certain head teacher of a school near Ripon, married to a vicar, telling me that her husband had a tendency to get rather carried away in the pulpit, and his sermons were sometimes over-long. She found a good way of telling him it was time to wind up. She informed him that when he smelt the Yorkshire pudding it was time for him to stop.
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, w
ould 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.
Out of the Woods But Not Over the Hill Page 17