G.V. Chappell

When I was growing up, regional accents were quite firmly delineated. If you came from Birmingham, for example, you spoke Brummie. That is, unless you were posh. In which case, wherever you lived, you spoke the same BBC English – or received pronunciation. Speaking ‘correctly’ was a determiner of class, like a grounding in Latin. If you met someone who spoke RP, you knew they’d probably had a similar education. Even today, when certain people ask, ‘where did you go to school?’ what they really mean is, ‘which public school did you go to?’  I once spent two miserable months working in a housing association, where my accent made me a target for some of my less open-minded colleagues The problem with ‘talking posh’ when I was growing up was that you stuck out.

Attending an English public school in the 1970s when you weren’t from that world was a tough gig. Mum’s family were from the East End. Dad was what might euphemistically be called a ‘wheeler dealer’. Having had little education, Dad was determined his children wouldn’t suffer the same fate. So my brother and I were privately educated from the age of four. Cars, like everything else, were meant to be expensive but understated. Dad obviously hadn’t read that memo At our public school, I was painfully aware of being an outsider. Although I spoke received pronunciation like my schoolmates – regional accents were verboten – I knew I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t share the same interests. I hated sport, especially rugby, and even now avoid discussing it.