Sound and vision blog

Sound and moving images from the British Library

150 posts categorized "Accents & dialects"

19 April 2021

Recording of the week: 'It is a great thing nettle beer'

This week's selection comes from Dr. Sue Davies, Project Manager for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage.

One thing I love about the sound archive is that by listening I discover things that I wasn’t looking for. This recording on nettle beer comes from a particularly rich source of diverting information. The Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture contains hundreds of recordings made by linguists researching accents and dialects. These conversations capture all sorts of incidental stories about the interviewee’s childhood, education, work and family life. In this clip Olive Metcalf talks about making her own nettle beer. She was interviewed by Patricia M. Morris in 1981 in the Kirkstall area of Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Excerpt of dialect recording in Leeds West Yorkshire [BL REF C1829/598]

Download transcript of interview

Stinging nettles grow in abundance across Britain and the young leaves have long been eaten as an early spring tonic. I can understand why some nettle recipes have fallen out of fashion but nettle beer is genuinely tasty. It is reminiscent of ginger beer and indeed some recipes include ginger.

Nettles
A bag of nettles tops ready to be washed and boiled © Sue Davies

Thick gloves are essential to avoid getting stung when collecting the nettles but that is the trickiest part. Once you have a bagful of young nettle tops making the beer is straightforward and there are plenty of instructions online. The basic recipe requires the nettles to be cleaned then boiled for 15 minutes. The nettles go a beautiful green and the water a rather sinister inky colour. The sugar is dissolved into the strained liquid. When it is lukewarm the yeast is added and the mixture left for a few days. It can be drunk within 24 hours or left for a week.

Nettle beer
Nettle beer ready for drinking © Sue Davies

Here are some alternative recipes sourced online:

How to make nettle beer home brew. Step by step recipe 
Maude Grieve’s 1930s recipe: Traditional 1930’s Stinging Nettle Beer Recipe
Pascal Baudar's recipe: How to make nettle beer

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22 March 2021

Recording of the week: Women’s lives in pre-war Leeds

This week’s selection comes from Daisy Lindlar, Marketing Manager for Sound.

Women’s History Month is marked in March every year to celebrate and recognise women’s contributions to society and history.

Our archives are full of sounds that lift the lid on the experiences of women through the decades. From Florence Nightingale’s voice, to Grace Nichols’ poetry, to accounts from Holocaust survivors like Elizabeth Abraham and Eva Neumann.

Oral histories about women’s day-to-day lives offer unparalleled insight into what life was like for them in days gone by. As the saying goes, “the personal is political”.

Tab Street to St. Mary's Roman Catholic Chapel
c.1930s, view along Tab Street to St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Chapel. Image courtesy of Leeds Libraries, Leodis.net

Dialect recording in Leeds West Yorkshire [BL REF C1829/598]

Download Transcript

This recording features Olive Metcalf talking about her life in working class Leeds before World War II. She talks about her weekly schedule of household chores, detailing how she ran her home in a time before gas ovens, loos in the house and electric irons. She also recalls reading her female neighbours’ letters out to them, as they couldn’t read themselves. One of them hadn’t had the chance to learn as she started working in a mill aged eight.

The recording is also full of laughter. My personal favourite moment is Olive remembering her “Romeo and Juliet act” to passers-by when sitting out to wash her windows. And with the Yorkshire accent regularly named one of the most friendly, trustworthy voices around, it’s simply a joy to listen to.

This oral history was recorded in 1981 and is part of the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture (C1829). It’s from a collection of recordings from the former Institute of Dialect and Folk Life studies, and was gifted to us in 2019 to be digitised by our Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project (UOSH), which is generously funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

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23 February 2021

250,000 sounds preserved by Unlocking Our Sound Heritage

By Katerina Webb-Bourne, Communications Intern for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage.

Time is running out to preserve some of our most endangered sound recordings. The Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project is now four years into an ambitious, National Lottery Heritage Funded five-year project to safeguard at-risk recordings.

Despite the challenges of another lockdown, the resilience and perseverance of the UOSH team has paid off. While navigating national restrictions we have reached a key milestone to save our sounds. 250,000 recordings from across the UK are now safely preserved in our sound archive.

You will soon be able to dip into our collections on our new Sounds website and enjoy sound heritage as diverse as folklore from the Isle of Man to Uyghur music with the electric guitar. The sound items we have preserved also come from ten partner hubs located around the UK, who have contributed over 35,000 recordings of their own and are helping to manage collections from 59 organisations spread throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The UOSH team has adapted to current conditions to continue to provide access to sounds that inspire us and audio we can all enjoy in difficult times. Our Learning and Engagement teams and ten hub partners have launched sound websites, workshops, and a number of creative listening sessions for everyone.

To celebrate all these impressive achievements we want to share the 250,000th sound to be preserved by the UOSH project with you. In this recording you can hear Maeve and Dick discussing how one goes about making ‘Pig Lug’, a Yorkshire dish from the coastal town of Filey similar to a pie or pastry containing currants.

Grab a pen and some paper, and listen closely for the recipe:

Listen to Maeve and Dick

Maeve: aye but now then what about pig lug [= ‘type of pie with currants’] have I tae [= ‘to’] tell thee how tae mack [= ‘to make’] it and then if thou ever gets a wife thou knowest thou can tell her how tae mack it
Dick: aye why
Maeve: have I tae tell thee why dost thou think thou could tell me better Dick
Dick: I daen’t [= daePRESNEG (dae = ‘to do’)] know I daen’t know how tae mack it
Maeve: I know you you mack you mack pastry fost [= ‘first’] though knowest how tae mack pastry Dick
Dick: yes mm
Maeve: you get a bit o’ saim [= ‘lard’] and a bit o’ flour and a bit o’ salt put in and then you mix it in thou knowest and then you get a drop o’ watter [= ‘water’] and mix it tiv [= ‘to’ + vowel] a nice you know a nice movable consistency they call it these days
Dick: aye
Maeve: anyway you get that in
Dick: paste [= ‘dough, esp. pie crust’] aye
Maeve: paste aye and then you roll it out Dick then you put a bit of old blather [= ‘batter/pancake mixture’] on it butter margarine … (aside) go on tae them buns lass … (continues) and then you put some sugar on and then you put it wiv [= ‘with’ + vowel] a few currants your Joan daesn’t [= daePRESNEG (dae = ‘to do’)] like a lot o’ currants course she hae [= ‘to have’] tae she has tae heve [= ‘to have’] her own way like sae [= ‘so’] we put ’em we put ’em as though they were birds flying i’ t’ air thou knowest now and again
Dick: aye
Maeve: but thou likest uh raisins best daesn’t thou
Dick: I dae [= ‘to do’] I like raisins
Maeve: aye well next time we mack em Dick we’ll put raisins in ne’er [= ‘never’] mind about what she likes
Joan: no no no we shan’t cause I daen’t like it
Dick: thou’ll hae tae mack a special ‘un for me then wi’ nowt [= ‘nothing’] but raisins in it
Maeve: aye that’ll be better then I rolls it up and I puts it on a baking sheet thou knowest Dick puts a bit mair [= ‘more’] sugar on top and a drop o’ milk and by thou should see what a shining paste they heve when they come out o’ th’ oven
Dick: oh aye
Maeve: oh they’re grand I know there’s ya [= ‘one’] fella comes tiv our house and if you daen’t put em out o’ road [= ‘out of the way’] there’s nane [= ‘none’] for you he’ll eat lot
Dick: aye that Griffiths fella
Maeve: aye

An illustrated map of Yorkshire with Filey pictured on the coastAbove: An illustrated map of Yorkshire, featuring Filey on the coast between Scarborough and Bridlington. 

Our team enjoyed listening to Maeve and Dick revel in the comforts of baking at home, and it resonated with those of us who picked up new skills during in lockdown. We also found familiar joy in hearing them debate one other about the perfect amount of currants to include in their favourite dish. Perhaps it is time for all aspiring bakers to rediscover an old favourite like Pig Lug?

This recording featuring food from Filey was captured by John Widdowson and is part of the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture (C1829). The collection is a diverse and absorbing treasure trove of sound recordings from the former Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies (IDFLS), part of the University of Leeds from October 1964 to September 1983. It also contains dialect-related recordings made prior to the establishment of the Institute, as well as many sounds recordings made for the Survey of English Dialects (SED), the first ever comprehensive, nationwide survey of vernacular speech in England. The collection was donated to us in 2019 for digitisation as part of the UOSH project.

Over 300 examples of dialect are represented in the SED, forming an important and moving record of life in the late 19th and early to mid-20th centuries. These sound recordings provide us with a window to a vanishing world at a point where many (though not all) the old ways were dying out.

It also provides us with a timely reminder of the vital work we are carrying out and spurs us on to keep preserving sounds, as there is lots more work to do. Look out for new websites exploring the History of Recorded Sound and the speeches of famous orators on Speaking Out in the coming months.

Thank you to Jonnie Robinson, Charlotte Wardley and Andrew Ormsby for your contributions to this article, and the Leeds University Dialect and Heritage project for giving us permission to use this recording.

Congratulations are due to every member of the UOSH team at the British Library and partner hubs for all that has been achieved over the past year.

Follow project updates @BLSoundHeritage on Twitter and Instagram.

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22 February 2021

Recording of the week: Breathe in

This week's selection comes from Giulia Baldorilli, Reference Specialist.

Born in 1885 in a small town in the Free State province of South Africa, Tromp Van Diggelen had an unfortunate childhood. He suffered from various respiratory-related illnesses, such as pneumonia.

Supported by his teacher at school, Tromp started studying the functionality of human body which eventually led him to discover that simple circular breathing exercises would improve physical strength and build up body resistance.

Instead of investing in long days of training at the gym, he realised good breathing techniques could in fact help him add a few inches to his chest, thus building up physical endurance. He would later become known as 'The Man with the Perfect Chest'.

This focus on functional strength allowed him much more freedom to finally participate alongside other children in sport competitions.

He understood that muscle flexibility was improved by blood flow, and simple breathing exercises might improve the muscular tone, leaving us with a healthier and stronger appearance. This knowledge is at the core of 'A Lesson in Correct Breathing', released by Columbia.

Colombia disc label

Breathing Made Easy

Download Transcript for Breathing Made Easy

In the recording you hear real intakes, while following Tromp’s clear instructions on how to expand the chest and then release the breath.

These talking demonstrations based on practical and simple advice are sequences that are easy to follow and repeat, accessible to anyone. Ultimately, they show us how much a correct breathing technique can improve the quality of our life as a whole.

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21 December 2020

Recording of the week: Sheffield’s pub carols, a secular tradition

This week's selection comes from Andrew Ormsby, Audio Project Cataloguer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage.

Recorded by Ian Russell on Christmas Day 1974, in The Black Bull public house, Ecclesfield, Sheffield, this rousing rendition of ‘Six jolly miners’, followed by ‘Hark! Hark! What news’, captures the democratic and exuberant nature of the local ‘pub sing’, a tradition which goes back to the 19th century, and still thrives in certain pubs in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

Map displaying view of Sheffield from Park Hill in 1740
View of Sheffield from Park Hill in 1740, taken from ‘The illustrated guide to Sheffield and the surrounding district etc.’, published Sheffield, 1879

The Sheffield carol tradition has its roots in reforms carried out by the Oxford Movement, an influential group of Victorian clergymen, whose attempts to make worship more serious resulted in a purge of certain carols, which were thought of as not really suitable for singing at Christmas. The village musicians, whose presence was no longer required in the west galleries of their parish churches, took the rejected carols to their local pubs, where they have remained ever since. The pub carols often feature different words and tunes to the more familiar Christmas repertoire, and there are variations from pub to pub and village to village. Each area is proud of its own tradition, and some have their own carols, often named after the location itself, such as ‘Stannington’, written in 1950 by Mina Dyson, who was the organist at the local church in that part of Sheffield.

Despite the subject matter, the fervour you can hear in these songs is really an expression of community spirit and uninhibited enjoyment, rather than an outpouring of religious feeling. In many of the recordings you can hear the clinking of glasses, the exchange of Christmas greetings, general pub chatter (including the odd swear word) and an atmosphere of communal enjoyment that rings out in every line. ‘Awake to joy and hail the morn’, sing the locals in the Black Bull, sounding like they’re about to raise the roof. It’s hard to listen without wanting to join in.

Recording of carol singing in Ecclesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire 

Made by Ian Russell in 1974, as part of his research towards his Ph.D. thesis 'Traditional Singing in West Sheffield, 1970-1972', this recording is part of the Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture, which consists of sound recordings of the former Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies (IDFLS), part of the University of Leeds from October 1964 to September 1983, and dialect-related sound recordings made prior to the establishment of the Institute.

The sound recordings were donated to the British Library in 2019 for digitisation as part of the Unlocking our Sound Heritage project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The Ian Russell Collection (C331), documenting traditional English carol singing in the north of England from 1984, will also be digitised and readily available as part of this project.

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16 December 2020

British Library Sports Word of the Year 2020

Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English, writes:

In a move described as ‘unprecedented’ (a word we’re all too familiar with in 2020), the OED this year declined to nominate its Word of the Year choosing rather to provide a list of potential candidates. But, like the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards (SPOTY), I shall adopt the principle of Dinner For One – a British film, barely known in the UK, but a much-loved New Year tradition in Germany – and follow the ‘same procedure as last year’ in selecting the unofficial British Library Sports Word of The Year (SWOTY). Although pandemic-inspired vocabulary dominated sports media coverage this year (I first spotted furlough in the Guardian Sports pages in March, biosecure bubble in June and Covid-ball in August, to name but a few), I’ve restricted this selection to terms that reflect sport’s more enduring appeal. So, here are the ten nominees for SWOTY 2020, selected from a review of words and phrases gleaned from mainstream broadcast and press coverage in the last twelve months:

January (Vic Marks of England batsman Dom Sibley, Guardian Sport): 'England fans do not wish to watch any more repeats of the Nicker of Sibley.'

January (David Conn on the increasing influence of betting companies in elite sport, Guardian Sport): 'Football supporters, including young people growing into their love of the sport and its heritage, now have gamblification intervowen with it.'

January (Jamie Jackson citing Kevin Parker’s frustrations at Manchester City supporters’ perceived indifference to the Champions League, Guardian Sport): 'He’s playing into the hands of the ‘Emptyhad’ critics.'

February (Pommie Mbangwa’s commentary as England reached a score against South Africa of 111-2, Sky Sports Cricket): 'Nelson for two.'

March (Tumaini Carayol of Brighton manager Graham Potter’s post-match reaction to securing a long-awaited point, Guardian Sport): 'I hope it’s the old ketchup effect.'

May (Andy Brassell on the resumption of Bundesliga fixtures, Guardian Sport): 'The phrase Geisterspielen (sic) is about to become part of international, rather than just German, football.'

June (Robert Kitson citing Lord Myner’s review of RFU plans to introduce a salary cap, Guardian Sport): 'I’m certainly not saying they fell at the Melling Road.'

June (Martin Tyler of some footballers reaction when presented with a goal-scoring opportunity, Sky Sports): '[like a] jigsaw he goes to pieces in the box.'

Photo of jigsaw puzzle in pieces
October (Jonathan Liew of the England men's manager’s attempts to boost player confidence, Guardian Sport): 'You can see why Southgate is so keen to pump their tyres.'

December (Vic Marks of own final game of golf before second UK-wide lockdown, Guardian Sport): 'For my last shot on a golf course for at least a month I was confronted with a Dennis Wise.'

Inevitably, this year’s list comes from a reduced set of sources compared with previous years. As virtually no sport was possible for several months from March, broadcasters had little to offer beyond highlights reels and review shows, while newspapers typically reduced their coverage from multi-page pull-outs to one or two pages devoted to speculation about when sport might return and how it might need to adapt. Rather frustratingly, this year’s list therefore only includes four sports: golf, cricket, football and rugby union, although one of the entries attributed to rugby is in fact a horse racing metaphor. More frustratingly, the nominations also reflect the precedence given by sporting bodies in this ‘unprecedented’ year to (a) elite professional sport – possibly justifiable – and (b) men’s sport – extremely contentious, if depressingly predictable. In a year when sportsmen and women have united impressively in taking the knee to condemn racial injustice and inequality, the Library’s current exhibition highlights how the fight for a level playing field for women in sport, despite notable successes against the odds, remains Unfinished Business.

As ever, this year’s selection illustrates a range of linguistic phenomena and includes dialect (i.e. localised variants, e.g. pump someone’s tyres), slang (i.e. informal forms, e.g. Emptyhad and Dennis Wise) and jargon (i.e. specialised vocabulary, e.g. Nelson). Geisterspiele and ketchup effect offer a glimpse of the occasional welcome presence of languages other than English in British sporting discourse, while gamblification is a fascinating example of how we manipulate English grammar to create new words. The other three – Nicker of Sibley, fall at the Melling Road and jigsaw – are, I suspect, neologisms (i.e. unique expressions coined by the user for a one-off occasion), although fall at the Melling Road might enjoy wider currency. All ten demonstrate how sporting discourse in the press and broadcast media is a wonderful platform for exposing vernacular English to a mainstream audience.

The phrase pump someone’s tyres [= ‘to praise someone in order to boost their confidence’] might be unfamiliar to speakers of British English, but is common in Canadian sporting discourse, especially in relation to ice hockey, as confirmed by an entry at Wiktionary. Nelson [= (in cricket) ‘a score of 111’], originally an Australian dialect form according to the OED, is apparently a reference to Lord Nelson’s one eye, one arm and one leg (despite that not being an accurate reflection of his physical characteristics). As with many sporting terms it has gained wider currency and is now used throughout the cricketing world (i.e. parts of the Commonwealth) and a Nelson is considered, perhaps especially in England, an unlucky score.

As a former teacher of German, I’m always particularly excited to stumble across foreign words in English, hence the inclusion here of Geisterspiel [= ‘football match played without spectators’]. The word came to prominence in May when the German Bundesliga became the first major football league to resume competitive fixtures post-lockdown, albeit matches took place behind closed doors. Early reports of the phenomenon frequently include the original German word in italics or quotation marks, but a direct translation in the form of the calque, ghost-game, has now appeared twice in the Guardian this month alone. The fact it now appears in normal font suggests it has swiftly been absorbed into general sporting parlance, although a New Word submission to Collins suggests the Guardian’s use of a hyphen is not universal. Equally intriguing is ketchup effect [= ‘a period of minimal progress followed by a sudden wave of spectacular results’]. In Swedish, the expression ketchupeffkt is common in sporting circles to describe the conviction that a prolonged period of bad results or poor form can swiftly change to a period of sustained success, mirroring the frustration and anticipation we experience when pouring sauce from a bottle. It was even voted Swedish Word of the Day by The World News website in 2018.

Photo of ketchup bottle
Two forms, Emptyhad [= ‘Manchester City’s Etihad stadium’] and Dennis Wise [= (in golf) ‘deceptively awkward short putt’], capture the irreverent, tongue-in-cheek nature that often characterises sporting slang. Both require an intimate knowledge of recent sporting history and culture. Supporters of rival teams use the term Emptyhad to mock a perceived lack of atmosphere at Manchester City’s Etihad stadium for midweek Champions League fixtures, which are seldom as well-attended as one might anticipate, given the club’s fan base and recent dominance of English domestic football. Dennis Wise, on the other hand, is an ex-professional footballer, whose diminutive stature belied a skilful and combative talent, thus explaining the ironic nickname among golfers for a ‘tricky little five-footer’.

The neologisms, jigsaw [= (of footballer) ‘to display obvious signs of nervousness when close to goal’] and Nicker of Sibley [= humorous reference to the frequency with which England batsman Dom Sibley is dismissed caught behind the stumps], reveal a similar kind of linguistic playfulness. The image of a jigsaw puzzle ‘in pieces in the box’ is a wonderfully witty re-interpretation of the idiom ‘to go to pieces’, in the sense of to succumb to extreme nerves, in the corresponding box on a football pitch (i.e. the penalty box). In cricket, a ‘nick’ refers to a batsman making the briefest of contact with a ball, resulting in a simple catch to a wicket keeper or slip fielder. The fact one particular England batsman, Dom Sibley, became prone to ‘nicking off early’ explains the amusing allusion to the popular BBC sitcom, The Vicar of Dibley, which by strange coincidence reappeared on our screens this month. The other potential nonce-form, fall at The Melling Road [= ‘to fail at an early stage of an enterprise’] is an imaginative extension of the idiom ‘to fall at the first hurdle’. As all horse racing fans will know, the Melling Road crosses the Aintree Grand National course on the approach to the first hurdle, so to fall at the Melling Road is to fail both spectacularly early and embarrassingly incompetently.

Finally, disquiet at the increasingly close relationship between elite sport and betting companies is reflected in gamblification [= 'process by which gambling industry pervades sport']. Not yet sufficiently well established to merit an authorised dictionary entry, gamblification is included in the crowdsourced Macmillan Open Dictionary from January this year. Clearly a recent coinage, its pseudo root verb, gamblify, feels unnatural and is, I suspect, only really likely to occur in the passive – hence I’ve noted several examples of derived forms, such as gamblified and de-gamblified – but the noun, gamblification, is to date by far the most common.

Several of this year’s entries are captured in The British Library’s Newspaper and Contemporary British collections, making the Library an incomparable resource for monitoring vernacular language. As far as the winner is concerned, I’m extremely tempted by Geisterspiel, especially as it came a disappointing 8th in the Duden Wort des Jahres list (behind the rather predictable Coronapandemie), but I’m going to plump for ketchup effect. At the end of such an unprecedented year it seems to convey a refreshingly positive view of how the immediate future can improve beyond all recognition, contrary to evidence from the recent past. And ketchup is, after all, very much a seasonal colour!

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30 November 2020

Recording of the week: Baffies on St Andrew’s Day

This week's selection comes from Harriet Roden, Digital Learning Content Developer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage.

The British Library’s Sound Archive plays host to an extensive collection of recordings of English accents and dialects. They’re a great resource for academic linguists, school teachers and their students alike, as well as learners of English as a foreign language.

But on a personal note, when listening to them they do hold a certain joy. They invite you to consider why you say certain words, certain phrases. Raising questions like – what influences did your family, or hometown have on you? Do you have certain words that none of your friends use?

As today is St Andrew’s Day, I’ve been reflecting on what influence my Scottish relatives in the Highlands have had on the vocabulary I use. From the obvious: neeps and tatties – which were a staple part of my diet growing up. To the more playful (or insulting, depending on how you look at it): skinny-marrink to describe my childhood twig-like appearance.

And this influence can extend to the tips of your toes. What do you wear on your feet when you’re at home? Nothing? Socks? Shoes? – Or perhaps, like this anonymous speaker – baffies?

Baffies Wordbank (BL REF C1442/849)

Download Transcript

This term for slippers is thought to originate in the east coast of Scotland, in particular from Fife and Perthshire.

Close up photograph of a pair of hard-soled slippers on carpet
IHHEva047-Pixabay-slippers-2729401 | © Courtesy of Pixabay

The speaker in this clip hits on why we may choose to extend beyond Standard English – for the feeling of it! They describe the term baffies as having a warm, cosy feeling to it which is exactly the purpose to wearing a pair of slippers: to keep your toes toasty.

This recording comes from the Evolving English: VoiceBank, which is a celebration of English accents worldwide. The collection, created between November 2010 and April 2011 by visitors to the British Library exhibition ‘Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices’, includes contributors of all ages and embraces varieties of English in the UK and overseas including non-native speakers.

Discover more familial words like baffies, wibbles or nautica on the British Library’s If Homes Had Ears website.

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02 November 2020

Recording of the week: The horrors of the long drop

This week's recording of the week comes from Emma Burman, Learning and Engagement Coordinator.

A photograph of Helena Street, Burnley, Lancashire, 1966-1974
Helena Street, Burnley, Lancashire, 1966-1974 © Heritage Images via Getty Images (1094419358)

As a 1990’s baby, I have had the pleasure of never experiencing an outdoor toilet, ‘long drop’ or ‘privy’. I have frequented many a bug filled campsite toilet but never the horror of a privy. A privy is described as a basic, outdoor toilet usually without a cover or running water. By the late 1800s, many workers’ homes in industrialised areas of Britain were built with outside toilets.

Here is a recording of six retired friends from Lancashire describing their awkward and humorous experiences of the privy growing up. It’s enough to make any millennial thank the heavens for growing up with indoor toilets! The ladies not only describe the windy, cold conditions of sitting on an outdoor toilet, but also the potential hazards of rats and even cats!

Burnley accent: A women's group debate the name of the toilet

Download trasncript for Burnley accent: A women's group debate the name of the toilet

It wasn’t until after the First World War had ended in 1918 that all new housing developments in the suburbs of London had to include an inside toilet. In fact it was well into the 20th century before indoor facilities were finally a familiar sight in houses.

However this didn’t necessarily mean the end of the outdoor toilet. Although new houses had to be built with an indoor toilet, there was nothing stopping occupants of old houses from keeping their outdoor toilet. So much so, that according to a Halifax housing survey, an estimated 40,000 homes in the UK still had an outdoor toilet in 2010.

And why not? Although the friends in this recording speak of the horrors of the privy; in today’s world, estate agents suggest a well-kept privy can take house sale prices above the local average (assuming there is an indoor WC as well!). In a modern world of outdoor BBQs and children with muddy shoes playing in gardens, an outdoor toilet could come in handy. So perhaps the days of the privy are not so outnumbered?

This recording is part of the BBC Voices project, and was recorded in 2004. The recordings are a series of guided conversations that follow a loose structure based on eliciting opinions about accents, dialects, the words we use and people's attitude to language.

Discover more sounds from our homes on the British Library’s If Homes Had Ears website.

Follow @BLSoundHeritage and @soundarchive for all the latest news.

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