England 41

Listen to England 41, a man in his 60s from Andover and Portsmouth, Hampshire, in southeast England. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 60s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1930s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Andover, Hampshire

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: white

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: N/A

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

After early years that included periods of time in Canada and London, the subject settled in Portsmouth, England, and was living in retirement in Gloucester at the time of the recording.

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:

I was born in a country marketplace called Andover, a little two bed, two-up, two-down cottage, looking out onto the recreation ground. We had a very small garden up the back. We kept chickens at the top of the garden. I used to feed the hens and collect the eggs when I came home from school. I had a very v-v- happy childhood. There were nine of us in the family, but the, by the time I was growing up most of them had left home. But we were all happy together; I mainly grew up with my sisters Sadie and Joan. We all stuck together playing games in the rec- we were all so happy. There wasn’t much room in the small house, but then in nineteen thirty-five we moved down to a bigger house just down the road, which was a big Georgian house, big enough for every one of us, and we all played (very) happily. We had a big garden; Dad had a big allotment; we had a big shed that we used to play games in during the school holidays. We used to have picnics up there, and there was always the recreation ground to play games in, very nice bandstand there. We used to sit there on a Sunday afternoon, take sandwiches and a bottle of lemonade, listen to the band. Used to play tennis, played a little golf, matches; the ice cream man used to wheel his barrow up to the side of the rec and we all used to go over’n get ice creams for ourselves. Well, Dad served his apprenticeship at Beal’s, the carpenters, but he, uh, used to go out to all the big country houses of the rich people all around. No transport in those days; he used to put his tools in the bag get on his bike, maybe cycle five, six miles to a country house. He knew most of the rich families all around in their manor houses. And then I used to go over to his carpenter’s shop where he worked and, uh, used to, watch him at work now and again. I remember he used to make coffins; he was in charge of the undertaking side of the business.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Meg Saricks

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

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

His mild Hampshire accent features a conspicuous Canadian raising vowel in the “price” lexical set. You will also hear r-coloration on the “start” set. He reminisces fondly about his childhood as one of eleven siblings born to a hard-working carpenter. For more information on British dialects, visit PaulMeier.com.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

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

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).

 

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