What did they sound like?

[SmallTownGirl]

My working class, Berkshire-born grandfather died before I was born, and lately I've been wondering whether he and his Berkshire-born ancestors had any kind of accent and what they would sound like if I could hear them today.  They were from the general Harwell area.

Does anyone know of any sound recording archives, available online, where I might be able to hear the sound of a working class person born in the same area in the 19th century, please?

Thanks
STG

[heywood]

There is one here and maybe more if you search the site. This is Inkpen, Berkshire.
https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects/021M-C0908X0023XX-0500V1

[SmallTownGirl]

There is one here and maybe more if you search the site. This is Inkpen, Berkshire.
https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects/021M-C0908X0023XX-0500V1

Oh, many thanks.  That was very interesting.

STG

[Sloe Gin]

Pam Ayres still has an old-fashioned Berkshire accent.  When I was a child (not far from Harwell) most old people sounded a bit like her, although a few had much broader accents.   She is from Stanford-in-the Vale which is near Uffington, also featured on the link given above.

https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects/021M-C0908X0023XX-0400V1

[HarryW]

I am a Berkshire man, albeit born in Reading (but I don't have a Reading accent).   I now live in Faringdon which used to be part of Berkshire, now Oxfordshire.   The accent in this part of the country is quite distinctive and, as Sloe Gin says, Pam Ayres is a good example of it.   The accent can still be heard quite a bit in most of the villages around here (mainly older people), in Uffington, Great Coxwell, Stanford-in-the Vale, Wantage etc.

The Berkshire accent does vary quite a bit.   Maidenhead is different to Reading (Reading also has two different accents !!).   Newbury is different to Reading and in turn quite different to Wantage.   So the old accent changed within a few miles.   In modern times, like other counties, the accent is disappearing quite quickly.

[SmallTownGirl]

Many thanks, Sloe Gin and HarryW.

That's great listening!

STG 

[Erato]

English speakers from around the world:

https://www.dialectsarchive.com/

[stevemiller]

I was born in Newbury sixty-odd years ago and still have an accent, which survived 30 years living and working in London! I'm now in West Somerset and fit in well!

I can remember cycling around and chatting to folk up the Lambourn Valley in the late seventies, and I could not understand a word some of the older ones said!

For speech, I always thought Reading and points east were the edge of London (dons helmet and retires quickly!). On the streets, I heard more Berkshire in Oxford.

As a schoolboy, I remember a book in Newbury Library called Bygone Berkshire, which had notes on dialect and the famous folk-poem "The Lay of the Hunted Pig" (worth googling to find the text). 

I'm very pleased to say you can see and hear it here https://vimeo.com/214689332

I still say "bwoy" - the opposite of girl. I'm so glad the wonderful lady in the clip says it at 2:50. Someone once told me it was a way to distinguish Berkshire from similar speech such as North Hampshire.

I always say "fur" instead of "for" - I don't know if that is Berkshire, or just me!

The Lay makes much of v for f (so "varmer") and z for s (so "zeen"). I never heard anyone local use these, so the shift was happening certainly by the sixties.





 

[SmallTownGirl]

Thanks Steve. 

Am gradually building a sound picture in my head.

cheers
STG