The late great Dave Follows (Me und Mar Lady cartoonist), and the late great potteries accent
As a kid growing up in the 80's in Kidsgrove, every now and then something extraordinary would happen to my Dads accent. It would go from a normal everyday accent (well to a stokey at least) and miraculously changed when in the company of old friends into proper stokey, potteries dialect.
He'd been brought up in the heart of Burslem, the son of a local Miner and Pottery worker, and to him the potteries dialect was the norm. It wasn't until he was older, that he felt he needed to try and tone it down, because he had to work away from home alot, people couldn't understand him.
The other brush with the local dialect was with Dave Follows Me Un Mar Lady. For me grabbing a look at the cartoons in my Dads paper was always a treat for my brother and myself. We'd had no interest in page 3 back then, as little kids. The funnies were where out interests lay. Not that the Sentinel had a funnies page, just a little black and white box on the inside pages showing the cartoon strip me un mar lady. It would take roundabout 20 minutes of us trying to puzzle out what was being said and eventually reach the punchline. I've still got lots of fond memories of "Me" being put down by "Mar Lady", or "Mar Lady" having a natter over the fence with the next door neighbour.
I was a little shocked today whilst watching a interview with Dave Follows, that he never actually spoke with the potteries dialect, and that someone at the Sentinel translated Daves script into potteries (update: for the first 4 months, then as it says in the interview, he had to translate it himself). Hats of to Dave, he created an amazing cartoon series, that will stay a local treasure for a long time to come.
Anyway have a watch of the video, and visit the Dave follows website.
Brilliant.
Dave Follows (October 3 1941 - October 17 2003)
Twitter
Anyone with a twitter account might be interested in the Me un Mar Lady twitter profile that randomly posts the odd comic strip sayings. @May_un_Mar_Lady (also if your on twitter - @mytunstall)
More videos of Dave and his wok can be found here at
http://www.davefollows.com/Video.html
Comments
some people still use a
some people still use a strong potteries accent even now. it is seldom realized by the younger generation that the accent even varied from town to town. there was quite a difference between tunstall/burslem and neck-end. it has been suggested that due to the isolation of the north staffs area in the past that the local accent is very close to old english, containing a largely anglo/saxon base. when used in its broadest sense it is hard for people from the south of england to understand
Potteries Dialect page on Potteries.org - worth a read.
Take a look at local historian Steve Birks page about the local Potteries Dialect
http://www.thepotteries.org/dialect.html
Dave Follows, May un Mar Lady
Enjoyed reading your blog post, always nice to hear people still talking about dads work, thank you. Think a site like this encourages such conversation, well done. As a footnote to your blog above Dave only had someone at the Sentinel translated his script into potteries in the very early days and for only a short while, he translated the strip himself for a good many years. and the website URL recently change back to - http://www.davefollows.com.
Good luck with the site!
May un Mar Lady to become a
May un Mar Lady to become a new radio show on Terry "Oi get yer own oatcake!" Bossons radio show on 6towns radio every friday afternoon. http://6towns.co.uk/
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