England 40

Listen to England 40, an 81-year-old woman from Andover, Hampshire, and Gloucester, in southeast England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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England 40a

England 40b

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 81

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1920

PLACE OF BIRTH: Andover, Hampshire

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: nurse, nursing-home matron

EDUCATION: N/A

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

The subject spent most of her working life in Gloucester.

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): 2001

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

[Recording 40A:] Well I was born in Andover, Hampshire, at Vigo Road, and uh, April the third, nineteen-twenty, and, uh, I remember it was, um, uh, my mother said that it [had] snowed on that day. Ah, so, um, that was April third. Anyway, uh, and then we moved to Elmstead. Uh, there were nine of us, and um, [and] I was the seventh child. And, uh, Sadie and Jerry, Jerry’s with me now and he was the youngest and then, um, like my eldest sister, Doris, who trained in Winchester Hospital and Marie trained at Bath Hospital, I trained in, in, um, Dulwich Hospital, London, and Ss, with Sadie my other siste-, my sister, younger. Pretty, pretty girl, pretty lovely lady. And we had tuh-, we were very close and we went everywhere together of course it was war time. We used to come on the, on the trains. The GI’s were there and our troops packed packed out. But we always had a helping hand to get us on the train and down to Andover to see our parents.
[Recording 40B:]  … We went to … the Church of England School, but Sadie, like the, the my other brothers and sisters went to, Andover Grammar school, but I didn’t … get to that stage, and anyway um, we, we had a happy life together um, wonderful parents and some very happy memories … um, and there was a Miles family in Andover for a hundred years until my sister-in-law…left it, and now there’s no Miles left there. But um, uh, I’ve got wonderful nieces and nephews, although I’ve no children of my own um, they write to me and keep in touch, which I think is lovely, I’ve got their photographs, their letters and lovely memories and uh, George and I got married in Andover Church, St. Mary’s, by special license when he was on um, [?] leave, three days we had and then it was back to … back to our various work and uh, and we’ve been married now oh, fifty–fifty–59 years. Well last Christmas I said to him, George, I had Mr. Tesco made mine, and I said oh good gracious, oh for the days when mother used to make all those Christmas puddings eh, and boil them up in the copper, and there would be steam from the kitchen when we came home from school, we used to do, and we used to do all the preparation for the fruit around the big kitchen table and [?] used to come with a copper stick and when they were, the steam had gone off, the cloths were changed to dry cloths hung upside down in, in, in the pantry and we always saved one for, the last one for Easter Sunday. Oh they were enormous! Enormous puddings and of course we used to have em, suet pudding all the year round … because em, mother used to make em, jam-roly poly, wrap it in a cloth, and boil it in a, in a fish kettle and, and uh, spotted dick, layers of custard … we didn’t need central heating, which was just as well we had none, we em, used to keep warm by all the wonderful food we had, and, em, and uh, and when gradually we all left home but em, we used to have our get-togethers and have wonderful Christmases and so therefore happy memories and Elmstead eh,was just ’round the corner and it belonged to a doctor and em … it was said that it was haunted. Anyway, eh, my dad uh, [sic] the doctor said, why don’t you buy it Mr. Miles, and people were hesitant then because they em, they had to be very careful uh, but we went into Elmstead and it was a huge place and the happy get-togethers we’ve had there uh, my mother used to go to the big sales of all the big houses around because of course it was being such a huge place we needed eh, bigger furniture but all the happy, happy memories we had there, and uh, great big cellars, and uh, all lined with lead and they say it was, it was a door one could see these, um, this door and it was said that em, em, the, uh, em, the monks used to, um, eh, uh, uh, go from  there and had a secret tunnel to the church, but my mother said it was haunted because she swore that she came from a very genteel family and she used to see a lady on a staircase when she, when she was on her own. Anyway, um, that lovely place, and then, um, it had to be sold of course when we all went out different ways, but I did revisit it and, um, and uh, uh, uh, and had my last look at the homestead, that we lived off of as a recreation ground, and that, em, all that was, that was our playground, and it was lovely, lovely.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Andi Porter, Meg Saricks and Faith Harvey

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

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject was the seventh of eleven children born to a carpenter and his wife. Her dialect is a good example of the Hampshire dialect, somewhat modified by her years in another county. You will hear some r-coloration, for example, and the Canadian rising vowel in the “price” lexical set. Her reminiscences of war-time England are very interesting. For more information on British dialects, visit PaulMeier.com.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 2001

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