Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Listen to the Lost Middlesex / London Accent
A few days ago my brother sent me a link to a fascinating collection of disappearing and disappeared English accents.
There are two collections in which I've rooted around so far. Both present English accents from people born during the second half of the nineteenth century. One collection was recorded in 1916, the other during the Fifties and Sixties.
It's a fascinating collection. In some cases it may jog memories and in others fire the imagination. The Kent accents took me back to my childhood listening to the likes of 'Great Uncle Herb' down on my mother's family farm near Sandwich.
Listening to a collection of accents around the south of England, it's notable how much most of the accents share. All have in common that 'ooo-arr' burr we've come to associate with places like Norfolk and Somerset. Even counties now partly consumed by London like Surrey, Kent and Essex had strong 'country' accents in living memory.
You couldn't get much closer to London than Middlesex. So, I was interested to hear a recording of a Middlesex accent from a retired farm bailiff, born in 1868. There's also a recording of a shoemaker from "Hackney, Middlesex" born in 1888. You can hear the crossover between the rural Southern England accent and what we now think of as Cockney. (Ah, so that's where Cockney came from....is it?)
Somewhere between these two accents, I imagine is how the folk round here sounded at around the time Harringay was built up. All fascinating stuff for me.
Access the full collection on the British Library website.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Certainly that colonial link, especially with Aussie. I think the origins of the North American accents are more widespread though and I hear more of the southern English rural accents there than I do of Cockney.
I remember being fascinated by a TV documentary I saw about a decade ago. It visited two island off the east coast of America, one off New England, and the other further south. Both Islands had preserved the English accents of their forbears almost completely intact. One was from Norfolk and the other from Hereford or somewhere. Fascinating. I've tried to locate the programme or mention of the survival of the accents since without success.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on
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Wow!
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Walter Kronkyte! I can barely understand some of them. They also keep the language very simple, uncomplicated. But fascinating and thanks.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I remember reading an account of the Queen Mother visiting the East End during WW2 and remarking how close her accent was to theirs (the pronunciation of 'Gawn' for example).
Where I grew up in the north east there was not only an accent but a rich dialect with words you heard only in certain areas. It started disappearing while I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, I suppose as a result of more and more people getting TVs, but my Ma still talked about the cundie (drain) being blocked with claggy clearts (sticky mud) and carried an umbrella fee (in case) it rained. My Sussex born partner just nodded when she spoke as he only picked up every other word.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Our wonderful magpie language picking up words from everywhere and everyone. In this case partly from the Scots and perhaps also from those armed-to-the-teeth Scandinavian farmers on their frequent small boat trips.
From the Oxford English Dictionary. (Sign in with a Haringey Library card number preceded by HAR)
CLART, n.
Pronunciation: /klɑːt/
Forms: Also clairt, clort.
Sc. and north. dial.a. Sticky or claggy dirt, mud, filth; (with pl.), a daub of sticky dirt.
1808 J.
b. A dirty person (Sc.); a ‘cheap and nasty’ thing; hypocritical talk or flattery (north. Eng.).CLAG n
Pronunciation:: [klæɡ]: Also Middle English clagge.
Etymology: Not traced beyond the 15th cent.: perhaps of Norse origin, compare Danish klag , klagge, sticky mud, clay, klæg , klæget viscous, glutinous, sticky, which point to the same origin as Old English clæg , clay n.CUNDIE
Scots Frae Wiktionary
A cundie or jaw-hole is fund in the grund an lats watter gang throu (for ordinar rainwatter) for tae evite the gate or fermland gettin fluidit.
Strones an rones for ordinar dreep intae cundies.
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Even within a few miles of where I grew up words were pronounced differently or different dialect words used. Clearts where I lived but clarts six miles away in South Shields, pencas for toy marbles in Gateshead and allies (pronounced like the plural of alley) in Roker. You could tell with reasonable accuracy if someone lived on the north side of the river Wear or the south side, Ah divent knaar in south Sunderland and Ah dahnt nar in the north (both mean I don't know)
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Michael, there always were differences in the London dialect (not Cockney) North and South of the river.
A term of greeting in Tottenham in my childhood was always watcha! But in South London, alright? was always used.
Also, Tottenham & Harringay Fish & Chip shops used to sell Rock Eel, always known as Rock Salmon in South London. I think the Tottenham/Harringay/Hackney/ Middlesex dialect was closer to Cockney, than say the South London Sothwark/Lambeth/Wandsworth/Clapham dialect. There were certainly differences with the dialect of West Ham, Leyton & Walthamstow too!
The labouring classes that moved into London in the Victorian age, tended to move along railway lines and remain living close to the railway from home. Look at the census for 1891 & 1901 for Finsbury Park and it's amazing how many residents were born and brought up in Hertfordshire. (In my own family, from Baldock) The same can be said for Berks & Bucks in West London , Surrey & Sussex in SW London and Kent in SE london.
After WW2, a similar thing happened, but in reverse.. with Tottenham & Harringay families moving out to Stevenage & Cheshunt. Whereas East Londoners moved out to Harold Hill, Basildon & Harlow.
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Permalink Reply by Ruth on
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Very interesting Stephen. The link to the railway line, the entry into the city from the more rural areas and then the reverse migration, all worth looking at for sure. Thanks!
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