My change in accent across the border speaks volumes

Every time we cross the Severn Bridge into Wales, the disagreeable offspring in the back of the car start teasing me, claiming that my speech instantly acquires the hammocky vowels of my homeland.

It’s true the transition from The Good Life’s Margo Leadbetter (“Money, Jerry!”) to Gladys Pugh in Hi-de-hi (“’Ello, cam-pass…”) can be remarkably swift. As England recedes, I say “ewe” for “you” and “vegetable” becomes four syllables instead of two.

My family thinks I am putting it on. I protest that it’s subconscious. I’ve always done it. When I was about four or five, we moved to an Englishspeaking part of Wales where our new neighbours were from the West Midlands. After a week of my playing with the girls next door, my mother was disconcerted to find that I had become possibly the first person ever to speak Welsh with a thick Wolverhampton accent.

Perhaps imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or maybe it arises from an anxious desire to fit in. Harriet Harman admitted she dropped her Fifties cut-glass tones to blend with the Labour brotherhood. An Edinburgh public schoolboy called Anthony Blair acquired a matey glottal stop.

Now, researchers from University College London and Yale have found that when we talk with people from a different social background, there’s an increased flow of blood to the part of the brain that deals with speech and language. Far from being fake, instinct is telling us not to stand out.

Although I speak perfect received pronunciation now, I still get a pang when I go home and people say: “There’s posh you are, Allison.” That’s how I sound, I know. But the person inside? She’d surprise ewe.