May Un Mar Lady

A 10-minute extract from Inspired Film and Video's documentary about the Potteries dialect and Dave Follows, cartoonist and creator of the long-running cartoon strip May Un Mar Lady

[@SIMON8958]

Love the people of the Potteries and the dialect, having lived there for a few years in the 1980s. It’s a tragedy that so many industries were allowed to disappear there- it didn’t have to be that way

[@alrafter1593]

May and Mar lady was a cartoon in the Sentinel newspaper. It was written by Wilf Bloor who was an expert on dust control at the BCRA (British Ceramic Research Association) at Penkhull.He lived a Scot Hay and later Audley. He wrote under the name of Jabez and also said his surname was Scot . I worked in the Ceramics Industry in the 1960's and often went to the BCRA where I once remember him giving a talk on Dust Control. I also lived at Audley and knew his son who was my age and we went to the same Grammar school. You could tell within a couple of miles where a person came from a Tunstall accent was a lot different from a Longton one.

[@markc6318]

you can take our industry, our dialect and our accent.........but you will never take our oatcakes

[@SeeDaRipper...]

Fuckin nora kidda, that made me laugh... :)

[@chitownsteve68]

I'm American and my wife is stoke. So I understand the special need for oatcakes. She won't eat my flapjacks. lol

[@tonyb8157]

@@chitownsteve68 - A dunner blame er mayt. Tell er try meckin er own oatcakes. Tha cos get recipe on t' internet an eets ded eesy. Thee onner as nace as rayl uns but theer better thn flapjacks.

[@pagangamer87]

I don't even like oatcakes... used call'em OAKcakes as a kid LOL...

[@user-tz7xn6rp9i]

Going back hundreds of years my family lived in the area around Stoke-on-Trent and worked in the mines and the potteries. I must be one of the first to have never lived there but I still grew up eating oatcakes. I need to go get some I never see them in the shops these days

[@bigoldgrizzly]

I came from Sussex to the Potteries in 1973 to work down the pit and had to learn a whole new language ! The dialects [more than one] was ever present and strongest down the pit - happy days ! I found potteries folk the friendliest in the country and after 17 years there, I was sorry to have to leave for Yorkshire.... and a new language to learn.

[@jsbart96]

Excellent film, really appreciate being able to learn about working peoples history Thanks

[@harrybeau1712]

Well, not many examples of actual dialect here. My father was born in 1913 in Longton. He lived in Uttoxeter Rd. near to the Gladstone Potter. His mother and father both worked in potteries. Everyone spoke in dialect, even the mayor! This, my father told me. He had to adopt standard English when he went into the army. In WW2, when he was in Belgium he was spoken to by a lad in Flemish - my father was amazed that he could understand him - the lad was using words straight from Potteries dialect. ....Flemish weavers who came to the town hundreds of years ago, before pottery - that's where you should be looking with your research.Uttoxeter - how is it pronounced in Stoke today? 'Uch'tter'- that's how it was pronounced in my dad's time. ..and he told a popular joke about a man from London arriving at the station and asking where he was and not understanding the local's speech - 'Oh, ask me foot!' says the frustrated porter, after being asked several times to repeat the station's name.

[@abenodyuo87]

I’m from India and I met a great friend from Stoke-on-Trent through periscope like 5 years ago and when we speak on phone i can’t understand like 50% of his words. I always insist on texting instead.

[@smithkennedy1444]

Proud to be a stokie ❤️

[@mitchl5220]

3:23 "why? what's up with the way I speak? everyone know what I'm talkin' bout don't they?"

[@harrybeau1712]

an if eh tha doost owt f'nowt, tha do't f'tha sen

[@Fenditokesdialect]

An if ivver da does owt for nowt, da does it for disen

[@SeeDaRipper...]

Dunna fret, "Arayte ode, where thee goin to? oh ah i'm going wom duck...oh ah going to ave thee snappin? aye." (i'm a meir lad) i still keep the Stoke dialect alive even though i now live in Bristol, it's fun to educate people on what the fuck i'm going on about ;) x

[@Fenditokesdialect]

Dun't freat, oreight cock, wheare-ta gooin til? Oh I'm gooin hoäme duck, oh are-ta gooin to have dee snap?

[@aboutthemetal8783]

Ah jam landers and neck Enders , Shame it means nothing to most

[@X3rCobraz]

It's truly a shame that the diallect is dying :(

[@bertvsrob]

ill make it the sole purpose of my linguistics degree to document everything i can about stokey

[@X3rCobraz]

bert vsrob you should. it's interesting how much us stokies differ from the norm

[@bertvsrob]

learned a lot despite it only being my first year. always been aware of the difference and the decline; i used to deliver papers to the owd gents and never understood a word they were saying haha. check back here in three years. my dissertation will be on it dying out/converging. but as with some languages, dialects can be revitalised and even revived =]

[@X3rCobraz]

Let's hope :)

[@reginaldedgararthurcyrilba7952]

Bert vsrob Godspeed to you young man, I wish you the best of luck in your academic pursuits.

[@richardpedley6291]

I rember me nan yoused read them comic strips out paper

[@aboutthemetal8783]

Cos kick a bow agen a wow

[@invectra3219]

ah cost thay?

[@davidrayner9376]

@@invectra3219 Her sut theer, doin' a birra nossin'.

[@ftumptch86]

Arfur towcrate in staffy cher

[@RSR423]

Stoke On Trent, nowhere else like it. Sadly nothing more than a ghost of its former self. Pits gone, pot banks gone, steelworks gone. Not many real Stokies left anymore, most have moved away because there is nothing to stay for. In 2022 over 70% of the people are now immigrants from Romania, Poland, Africa, Pakistan and the countries of the Middle East. The dialect is almost gone now, just a few of us older ones still speak it, anyone under 50 years of age hasn't got a clue.

[@peterhigginsson9875]

I checked and the population of stoke is like 88% white..? I have lived there myself for a few years, my granddad was from tunstall

[@RSR423]

@@peterhigginsson9875 Checked what, where? For your information Polish, Romanian etc etc are white last time I looked.

[@peterhigginsson9875]

@@RSR423 the demographics for stoke. You make it sound like the locals are way outnumbered, i imagine so in a few parts of town.

[@RSR423]

@@peterhigginsson9875 I've lived here 60 yrs, and there are very few locals left. Official demographics are complete bull.

[@brianjones9345]

@@RSR423 My neighbour was a Pole and we always spoke pottery together because he worked down the pit when he fists came over and that's where he learned his "English"

[@samnicholson5051]

So this must what my great-great-grandparents talked like.

[@mikemcguinness1304]

Fred Hughes is NOT AN HISTORIAN