England Twenty-one - Transcription
OK, well I may as well start early - I was born in the Princess Mary Hotel - a hot- not hotel - hospital - even - and that was - it's on the banks of the Tyne - right - so I think that that means I'm a proper Geordie - cos you're a proper Geordie if you are born on the banks of the Tyne - well not literally - but you know - so that means I'm a proper Geordie - and I lived in a place called Jarrow - otherwise known as Jarrow - by posh people - until I was eleven - and my dad's from Jarrow originally - and all of his family are - and my mam's from a place called Fellon - which is also - near Newcastle - and my grandma and all her family are from there - so I lived there until I was eleven - went to school there and everything - and then I moved to Northumberland - and - my mam and dad bought a hotel there - called The Twice Brewed Inn - and it's in a place called Twice Brewed - which is near Bardon Mill - and it's right on Hadrian's wall - so when I first went there - and went to school - it was like a big - culture shock from like living in the town - and went to like this countryside in the middle of nowhere - strange farm - children - and all the rest of it - and they all called me Spuggy - you know like Spuggy off Byker Grove - it's a character off Byker Grove - which is - like this programme -- which is about kids who live in a castle - and they've all got really strong Geordie accents like "[i:] why aye man" and all that - so ehm - they called me Spuggy cos I had a really strong Geordie accent - but since I was eleven - since I've grown up there - my accent's kind of faded a bit - and it's not as strong Geordie anymore - which I have issues with - cos - like my parents' accents are quite strong - unless like they are on the phone and trying to be posh - and so my accent is not as strong as them - so I do worry about losing my accent a bit - and dialect and things - so living in Northumbria - in Northumberland - ehm - I kind of picked up some - some of the dialect and things from there - and picked up some of the accent - like ehm - the kind of dialect that they have in Northumberland - well in - if people are from like Carlisle - and that like runs into the Haltwhistle area - they often say "eh" after every sentence - so I say "ah right I'm going down to town, eh" - and "I'm going here, eh" - and it is actually after every single thing they say they say "eh" - so I actually started doing that - which my brother and my parents kind of ribbed me for mercilessly - and then - I picked up like - some of the - some of the other things they say - like ehm - "["kets]" - and kind of - instead of "sweets" - and I think a lot of things that are also kind of - quite Scottish - because it's up nearer to Scotland.
Transcribed by Christian Jensen, Copenhagen Business School, February, 2005