What am I doing in this strange land, where ‘bar’ means gate and ‘gate’ means street? There’s a funny floating ‘t’ that I think means ‘the’, as in t’poet or t’pub, and I’m assured that ‘thou’ and ‘thee’ are alive and well, lurking in the county’s remote regions and spoken by the elderly. Mix in some Geordie from over the border and communication for foreigners i.e. anyone from south of Sheffield isn’t easy. At least a good Yorkshire greeting is down to two words – ‘Ay Up’ if you’re in the west of the county or ‘Ar Reet?’ if in the East.
I swear that here in this village there are more dogs than people. Yorkshire’s big on animals, big on families and hot on self promotion. Convinced it’s the finest place on earth it’s not shy to spread the news. As well as Yorkshire this, Yorkshire that and Yorkshire the other, given the number of TV programmes based on the moors I’m surprised hikers aren’t continually tripping over film crews.
The North East briefly courted fame back in the day with ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’, ‘The Likely Lads’ and ‘Our Friends in the North,’ before seeing sense, shutting up and going on its anarchic, free wheeling way. Its sublime disregard for conventional opinion makes my heart sing.
Kent, where I was born, doesn’t give a toss. It’s too arrogant, too busy making money and too keen to be absorbed by London.
You may wonder why I don’t pack my bags and head North or South. Maybe after thirty years I’m beginning to believe the hype and willing to vote Yorkshire the best place in the world. I wouldn’t go that far but it’s warmer than Northumberland, less snobbish than Kent, has wonderful scenery and generally I find the people talk straight. That’s if I can understand what they’re on about.
(c) 2024 Katya Marsh.
