The stereotypical Yorkshireman is a big fat beer swilling bloke who eats Yorkshire Puddings, tripe, black pudding and dripping and bread. He keeps whippets, pigeons and ferrets tha knows. Yorkshire is a backward rural county where everyone plays cricket. However, this stereotype could not be further from the truth...
The Yorkshire stereotype lingers on. A backward, rustic county where we wear flat caps and carry ferrets in our pockets. We are Tykes who speak our own language, sithee. This Monty Python sketch shows this well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
Enough of that!
The Truth
Sure, somewhere in the backwaters of The Pennines or somewhere there are still folk who race pigeons and so forth, bless em. But modern Yorkshire is about vibrant cities like Leeds, Sheffield , Bradford and Hull. I Googled the good things of Yorkshire:
Over a million pages, and that BBC article was a good starting point:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5234444.stm
and:
http://www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk/search.php?county=West%20Yorkshire
Actually the larger conurbation around Leeds and Bradford could easily become “Pennine City” through the course of time. Someone once called this area “HuddersCleckHaliWakeFord or something in recognition of this fact. What a city “Pennine” could be! I was brought up in West Leeds by the way, a couple of miles or so from Pudsey.
What Yorkshire can be Proud of
Yorkshire has a great industrial heritage: woollen mills, engineering, steel (Sheffield) and so on. Culture is everywhere. Leeds has its Playhouse and Grand Theatre. Roundhay Park, famous for its “Children’s Day” and Tropical Gardens. There is Headingley: home of the County Cricket Club, former Rugby League World Champions The Rhinos, and Leeds Carnegie Rugby Union club. Elland Road houses one of the greatest football teams ever. Nearby Huddersfield Town won three league titles in a row once.
My neighbours here in our Cypriot village are from Yorkshire. I have an easier time listening to the Greek than them sometimes!
ReplyDeleteI bet you do, Glynis. Actually, though, I've lost much of my accent since I moved to Lincolnshire.
ReplyDelete