Jeffrey gets a letter
from a lady who
likes the dialect

(Jeffrey occasionally writes a column of broad Derbyshire in the Burton Mail)

Jeffrey   About the dialect you mentioned earlier, we had this letter
Pat It was a woman from Newhall who married and moved away to Cheltenham. Her party piece when she got the family together was to talk South Derbyshire, and she had the children and grandchildren in stitches.
Jeffrey Here it is. (Reading column from Burton Mail). I were ever so pleased last wik 'cos I had a surprise letter in the post. Yow could have knocked me down wi' a feather 'cos I coonna think who could it be from. Any road up it were from Cheltenham, an ex-South Derbyshire lady who comes over here visiting and rayds the Mail and in her own words "really enjoyed my column of broad Derbyshire." It took her back a good few years when the Harrison family in Swadlincote kept a stall on the Delph. She was waiting to be served when she couldn't help but listen to two men who evidently hadn't seen each other for quite a while. And it went like this 'ere:
Fust mon Ay up, sorry, wher yer bin? I enna sayn yer fer yonks. Enya gorra job yit?
Second mon   Ay up! Ar! I'm gorra job nah. I ed to av a job at the pit 'cos I ad to get married and way'm gotta kid now. Ay'm wokkin at Granville. I av to wok shift wok. I'm avvin to wok a wek o' deez and a wek o' nayts.
Apparently it comes to the turn of the lady in the queue to be served so she did not hear any more of the conversation. But in her own words to me she states she has never forgotten the two men and their conversation.

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