‘In Stoke-on-trent even an OAP Can be a youth’
Historian MERVYN EDWARDS takes a look at the Potteries dialect which has fascinated him since his gran read him the old Jabez columns from the Evening Sentinel
ISHOULD really begin this column with the greeting, ‘Ay-up, Ducks,’ because this week, we are discussing Stokie dialect. Whether you are proud of the way that Potteries people speak or not, you’ll probably agree that the subject offers comedic opportunities. Who recalls the Star pub in Liverpool Road, Stoke? A short while before its eventual closure, it changed its name in a last-gasp effort to attract the punters. It was re-named the Get Theesen Inn.
Incidentally, I never use the expression ‘duck’ though I rather like another Potteries favourite – ‘youth’ – because of the bizarre way in which it is used.
You might refer to a ‘young youth’ standing in the bus queue. ‘Young youth’ may sound tautological, but in Stoke-on-trent, you can be called a youth even if you are a pensioner.
Equally idiosyncratic is the tendency to turn a noun into a verb, as in, “Dunner start yawpin’ ter mey about lobby. I’ll lobby yer!”
The North Staffordshire lingo has always fascinated me ever since my maternal grandmother read The Sentinel’s Jabez columns to me in the early 1970s.
To one of my tender age, Wilf Bloor’s pieces in Stoke-on-trent dialect were almost impenetrable – but persevering, I came to understand not only the words but the mindset and the attitudes that influenced their pronunciation.
The trouble is, how do you write Potteries dialect? Exponents such as authors Wilf Bloor and Alan Povey, as well as cartoonist Dave Follows, may well have been adept, but it is likely that they’ve occasionally been taken to task by broad-tongued, oatcakescoffing potters for not quite getting the lingo right.
And what of outsiders who attempt a Potteries accent? I am thinking of John Mills in the 1980s television series Young At Heart, and other would-be imitators.
The accent usually comes out as flattish and vaguely Northern, but not authentic, because they fail to grasp the essential laziness of Stoke-on-trent-speak.
I do not merely refer to the way in which Stokies omit the preposition
– ‘I am going Hanley, duck.’
I allude to the ‘onner bothered’ or ‘leyve me alone’ subtext that underpins Potteries speech.
Most old Stokies speak in a laconic way, indicating a desire not to be drawn into the fripperies of a lengthy conversation. It’s a way of shutting up shop, exemplified by the expression, ‘Dunner come blartin’ ter may.’
There’s also something slightly iconoclastic in the Stoke-on-trent way of speaking, the hint of a put-down that tells you the Stokie has no time for pretence or posturing.
Alan Povey – the creator of Owd Grandad Piggott - got it spot on when he translated Cellarhead as Sell A Yed, Longton’s once-beautiful Crown and Anchor Hotel as the Cry Nun Anker and Florence Colliery as Flurren Spit.
When I refer to laziness, it also manifests itself in the tendency not to correct one’s verbal mistakes.
In Stoke-on-trent, people say ‘I onner’ – unless they are bettereducated, in which case they say, ‘I aren’t!’ One of my nephews is a teacher, but has said “I aren’t” since he was a child and refuses to change despite me ribbing his poor English.
This preference for local culture over correctness is underlined by an incident from the life of Joseph Cook, the Silverdale pitboy who eventually became Prime Minister of Australia in 1913-14.
He was inspecting some troops and chanced across a sergeant major wearing a Staffordshire Knot cap-badge. He asked the soldier where he came from. “I was born in Burslem,” he declared. Cook responded, “Get it right. You mean you come from Bozlum.”
Another fine example of this perversity involves names. Some people refer to me as Melvin, even though they have seen my name written down hundreds of times.
I was on the verge of taking this personally, until I spoke to my sister Glenys, whose name is prominently indicated on a lapel badge whenever she is on duty in a local shop. She informs me that customers have called her Glynis or even Gladys.
What’s more, a lovely young lady and fine public speaker of my acquaintance, with the beautiful name of Elise has told me that she has sometimes been introduced to audiences as ‘Elsie.’
Of course, all this confusion can be avoided if we just call each other
‘Duck’ – which doesn’t easily trip from the tongue if you are not local. Author Margaret Moxom, who was born and grew up in London, but who retired to Werrington in 2016, explains: “I swiftly became familiar with Duck or Duckie, as in ‘Ow at, Duckie,’ muses Margaret. “I found out this meant Duke or Duchess, so it is a really good compliment, though I don’t use it myself.
“I have modified my accent and now incorporate the short vowel instead of the long one in words such as path and grass, but people still notice my accent and say, ‘You don’t come from ‘ere, do you?’ or ‘Thou dustner come fram ‘ereabites, dost thou?’
“I also noticed how people say ‘bank’ for hill, as in upbank or downbank, and when I remark that it is a lot colder here, they reply, ‘You’re nesh’ – although I know that word from people I have met in Derby.”
Some Stokie expressions go back a long way. Sentinel letter-writer Audrey Talbot noted in 1942 that two words that were in constant use in the district were ‘nesh and ‘sneaped.’ This meant snubbed, and was often used by my own grandmother.
As one who has endeavoured to commit Potteries dialect to the printed page in her historical novels set in Stoke-on-trent, Margaret Moxom tells me: “The dialect is not too difficult to understand, unlike Glaswegian or Geordie.
“The first time I went to Glasgow, I was left alone with a friend’s wife, and couldn’t understand a word at first, but I soon got used to it. I had a few problems with the accent of a guy who came from the Joiners Square area, near Hanley – though I loved listening to him speak, especially when he referred to his wife as ‘mar lady.’
“In fact, she later advised me on the use of Stoke-on-trent dialect in my second novel.
“I have since been guided by information on the website of local historian Steve Birks.
“I came to the point where I had written so much Stoke-on-trent dialect in my books that it almost ran off my tongue.
“I could hear the words being spoken in my head, though I still stumble if I try to speak Stokie, as I know I can’t really pull it off.”
It’s easy if you know how, and I am reminded of a story that was offered by a friend of Sentinel journalist John Abberley, some years ago.
John’s chum was in an old-fashioned Longton barber’s and overheard a customer worrying about his extended bald patch. The barber said to him, matter-of-factly: “Luke ‘ere, surry. If thee feyther’s bowd, thay’t be bowd.
“An’ what’s more, if thay’t bowd and thee feyther inner, then ay inner thee feyther.”
Margaret Moxom’s novels are set in Stoke-on-trent and are available on Amazon.co.uk or Lulu.com – or at the Barewall
Art Gallery in Burslem.