England 56

Listen to England 56, a 48-year-old man from Stainland, West Yorkshire, England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 48

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1955

PLACE OF BIRTH: Stainland, West Yorkshire

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: operations administrator

EDUCATION: N/A

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: N/A

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/2004

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Umm, I was born in in Halifax, Halifax General Hospital, and my parents lived at the top of a village called Stainland; ahh, uhh, both both sets of parents had lived all their lives in that village, and they both lived probably about several hundred yards away from each other.  They’ve never really told me, uch, how they met, but I would imagine they would have met at probably at a church function, which the, the church was, eh, the focal point socially of the village at the time.  Because at that time no one had cars, no there were very few buses.  So most of the sort of social interaction went on in the village, and most of the social functions were at or around the church.  And when probably when I was about 4 or 5, I think they moved, ehh, down into the middle of the village, which is probably about ehon only a hundred yards away from the church, and I remember my mom being a staunch ch-church-goer.  I can’t remember my father ever going except to funerals and, uh, weddings and such functions like that, but my mother went went religiously to church and as part of that she kind-uh blackmailed me into going to church.  When I was, probably when I was a teenager, they moved out of the village, and it took my mother wanted to, wanted to leave a lot earlier on, but my father was one of the old-styled guys and kind of never, eh, kind of trolled along, never did anything he didn’t like change — he wouldn’t — he c-couldn’t stand anything that was any different, so she, uh, she nagged at him, probably, she probably used the same blackmail techniques on him that she used on me to get him to move ,and after about probably five to seven, I don’t know it seemed like, it seemed like an eternity, but after about five to seven years she finally persuaded him to move; well, it wasn’t really out of the area; it was probably about four miles away, but [other voice: probably no more than one hundred yards …] … it was … [laughter] … it was … it was it was almost on the border of where Huddersfield met Halifax, so it was like a gigantic step for him; umm, anyway, he moved and like w-we moved from like a large middle terrace house next to a council hou– well, within a stones throw of a council housing estate.  We kind of moved to uh a semi-detached, ummm [other voice in background] … semi-detached house in, uh [other voice: house.] [laughter] … in a relatively decent area, but th- the funny thing about it was it was like again, it was on the borderline of a a halfish area and a good area, so my mother gave the house its own name, which it had never had before it was Number 14 New Way Road, so she she went on to name it Brantwood Number 14, and then she chose the better area of the two to-to say at which, so it was in it was in Fickespeare [spelling?] rather than New Way Road out where in which, which the house prices at that time were about five-thousand pounds more if it was in Fickespeare [spelling?] [unclear] rather than if it was the other side of the road in [unclear], and so that went, so … it was eh, we felt, we felt quite chuffed at that time.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Lara Thomas

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/02/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

This working-class man, in his 40s, recalls his childhood and his parents’ early years of marriage in the village of Stainland. He speaks of the church’s central role in village life, and his mother’s social aspirations, cajoling her husband into moving from a “mid-terrace” house to a “semi-detached,” one a short distance away, and naming the house, something the working class would rarely do. The whole family was reported as quite “chuffed” (pleased) at the social advancement conferred by this move. Further details of class and property issues are discussed. You will detect that the subject, while speaking unselfconsciously in his unscripted conversation, seems to effect a stronger accent for the reading.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/2004

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