Speaking the Queen's English

This afternoon I went for a bus ride with my youngest who just loves them. He is at the age where his vocabulary is coming on rather well and he is always chattering away saying whatever comes to his mind.


The questions keep coming fast. “Daddy what is that?” and “ Daddy what is this?” It must be a fascinating time for him.


At long last he can attempt to express himself. It's always good like that until he warns you with seconds to spare that he needs to go! The panic! Kids do not appreciate the usual “wait a minute” or “We are nearly there. Just hold on”.


If they want to go, they want to go. However, amidst all the fun of being on this huge bus, I found myself correcting his pronunciation of certain words. It was rather embarrassing but I just kept on doing it despite the fact that I do have a heavy African accent.


Accents within the UK are one of the things that always surprise people who visit this shores for the first time.


At school, I was taught how words were pronounced. My teachers who happened to be Church Missionary Society people from England never let an inch on enunciating!


If one were to be caught pronouncing “cat” as “cut”, a few cuts of the old cane would grace one's backside! I still fail in that department though and on many occasions I muddle my “hearts” and “hurts”.


My friends have learnt not to ask which word I meant to say. They listen to the whole sentence. But the belief, and it was so in my case, was that everyone in the UK spoke like the Queen. As was the belief that every one was Christian and went to church.



I spent a week in Winchester after my arrival here in the summer of 1995. Winchester is quite middle class. Or at least the areas I was in were. And there spoken English was distinctly very posh. I found that I understood it rather well.


Anywhere I went within the city, I was not worried about not understanding the people. In fact its probably they who never understood what I was saying. Nevertheless, it probably never occurred to me that people could have spoken differently.


I was placed on a train at London's Euston train station by my host Harold on the Monday after I arrived. I had never seen such a huge station.


He made sure that I was not to get lost by alerting some station staff that I needed a train to Lancaster where I was to change to a smaller train to Heysham for the ferry to Douglas. At Euston, I heard my first cockney.


I thought they were foreign just like me. I had a few pounds on me and I went to buy a newspaper to read on the journey. The poor lady at the kiosk and I were completely lost.


I could not understand what she was saying and looking back neither was she understanding what I was saying. A few minutes later, I got my newspaper but she must have headed home after that encounter.



On the train, I sat by an Asian man. We got engaged in conversation especially about Idi Amin and the way he expelled the Indians from Uganda in 1972. He was ever so keen to hear what Uganda was like.


From what I gathered, he had relatives who were affected by the expulsion. I talked to this man expecting him to speak with a very heavy Indian accent. He didn't. He spoke perfect English. All my theories were being turned on the head now


On arrival at Douglas, I was met by the family with whom I was going to stay with for the following three weeks.


There was an awkward silence when we met as they were caught by surprise that I could actually speak English. The relief! I suppose that they had spent the previous month when they knew that I was going to stay with them agonising on how communication was going to be.



The Isle of Man is an idyllic place. Given half the chance I could move there and cut off all contact with the outside world. It's a place that one can completely relax.


I was lucky that the family that I was with lived in a large rambling farm house with extensive grounds. I spent many hours by the stream that ran at the bottom of the farm with the family dog called Koko.


Jimmy and Nad my hosts did a lot of things for the community other than running the farm. They ran meals on wheels and helped other people by taking them around the island.


However, the fact that they were nearly always at home meant that so many other people who were retired treated their home as a tea house. Every morning a group would arrive and sit in the garden drinking tea and generally chatting. Jimmy and Nad hardly noticed them at times.


I, however, joined in at times to listen to their stories and after a while, I was surprised by the way I was picking up the island accent. Gone was my insistence on using the pronoun “my” to replacing it with “me”. As in “me car”.


It was funny that in a few days my African accent was slowly being erased by this accent I was getting bombarded with on the island.



Of course now I have reverted to my heavy African accent. My home town in the UK is Bristol and we do have a lovely accent in that region. Its a friendly one. But even after living there for a long time, I failed to take on the accent.


Living near Stoke now, I do double up in the occasional “ay up!”. Its the most appropriate salutation in certain situations and its usage is so varied. The beauty of the United Kingdom is that much as I was used to the many languages that are spoken in my country of origin Uganda, the different accents, be it Cockney, Estuarine, Liverpudlian or Stoke make it all so exciting when one visits other areas of the country.


In Uganda 70 miles from my home I am literally a foreigner in my country as I may not be able to speak the local dialect. In the UK, apart from Welsh and Scottish languages, bring it on! Its all English!