Social groups in modern England / by Henry A. Mess.

  • Mess, Henry A. (Henry Adolphus), 1884-1944.
Date:
1940
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Social groups in modern England / by Henry A. Mess. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/176 (page 41)
    Let me suggest to the reader that he examine his feelings about his own village or town, and about his own county. How do you think of them ? Do they mean much to you ? Does your heart warm when you hear the dialect of your own county ? I am sure that it does with many of you. Perhaps you are a Lancashireman living somewhere in the Midlands ; and if so, I am sure you glow when you hear an accent which tells you that its owner conies from Bolton or Oldham. Or perhaps you are one of those Durham boys or girls who have come to London in these last few years ; if so, are you not hungry to hear people talk as they do in Bishop Auckland or in Chester-le-Street and not in the way the Londoners talk ? It is interesting to notice how often people have a picture in their minds, which stands to them for a whole town or city. If any one says London to me, I think at once of the great dome of St. Paul’s stand¬ ing up above buildings and river. I think a Novo- castrian will always have in mind that view of his city which he gets from the bridges, with the Castle and the Cathedral standing on the cliff. A Wallsend man told me once that when he thought of his town, there came before his mind’s eye that great shed in which the Mauretania was built. And what is true of towns and cities is true, perhaps even more true, of country districts ; they each have their character and their distinctive scenery —and the sight of them and the memory of them are 4i