England 100

Listen to England 100, an 86-year-old man from Plymouth, Devon, in southwest England, who has also spent time in South Africa. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

*This subject is the same as Devon History 2.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 86

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/01/1931

PLACE OF BIRTH: Plymouth (Devonport)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: retired (worked as a draughtsman, among other jobs)

EDUCATION: Fellow of Royal Institute of Naval Architects

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

As a child, the subject was sent to Paignton (also in Devon) during the Second World War, where he stayed for a number of months. He was then evacuated to Penzance, Cornwall, and lived in a hostel at Marazion, Cornwall, for several years. He moved to Cape Town, South Africa, as a young man to reunite with his maternal grandfather, who was a child of 1820 settlers. He has remained in the Cape area of South Africa since then, established his own family, obtained several further qualifications, and followed diverse career paths.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject suffered a stroke approximately two years prior to the recording date but presents without noticeable speech and/or language disability.

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

RECORDED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/10/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Oh, this is a very long journey, actually, if you start from the beginning: I was born in Plymouth, or in Devonport as it was then known, and brought up in a very working-class family, and it wasn’t long before the war came. And that was a terrible time, because my school friends were killed, the home I lived in was bombed. All in all it is not full of happy memories. … And I became a draughtsman, and I worked as a draughtsman for a time, but not satisfied with that, I then, ah, opted to go to South Africa. Now there’s a long story attached to that: My grandfather was South African; he was the child of 1820 settlers. My mother instilled on me her, uh, wish to be reunited with her family, who to a large extent were Afrikaans-speaking, believe it or not. …

Plymouth Gin: It’s the best gin you can get. Gin was always supplied to ships like Sir Francis Drake and so on, because it has a very high alcohol content, which is sufficient for setting off the gunpowder. So it’s about 67 percent or some, some, some ridiculous figure. It’s very good for setting off gunpowder; it’s also very good for setting off people actually, [subject laughs] and, you — as you can probably tell, I’ve had a couple. [Subject laughs.] So there we are. And I found it just this year; it’s the first time I find it, and it — I hate to tell you it’s fifty rand [South African currency] a bottle. But, um, it brings back so many memories. There’s no gin like Plymouth Gin; it has its own flavor; it’s not like any other gin whatsoever …

[This is an abbreviated version of a longer recording. For the complete recording, see Devon History 2.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Nadia Barnard

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/10/2017

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

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

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.