After a lifetime abroad in non-English speaking cultures, I sometimes question whether the particular language I’ve ended up with is rich or impoverished. Time has changed the language, changed me, it could be Bedfordshire or middle-Atlantic or euro speak. I enjoyed your standing up for an assumed non-richness.
That's an excellent description of Bedfordshire. My only experiences of Bedfordshire are, my best mate (who was once a big drug dealer) had an older brother lived there, a cop who was also a thief, who's wife sucked off his best mate while he fucked her, and also, Bedfordshire is where my poor brother hanged himself.
The way you describe Bedfordshire it sounds almost Dutch. When we in the Netherlands think someone is very good at something, we tend to call that ‘undutchly good’. (If undutchly is a word in English. Probably not.)
Also, the first view that Google Maps gave me of Bedfordshire, to set the scene, was a graveyard.
Bedfordshire. 1940s. Clophill Primary. Class asked by young teacher about their thoughts on Dunkirk. Anonymous pupil: "me and my dad went dung cart down Cainhoe".
1980s Bedfordshire schoolboy on first sight of the Cairngorm massif. "Big, innit".
The purest essence of Bedfordshire. (Acknowledgements on request!)
When I lived in Zürich for a short time I sought out my writing and reading tribe. One encampment was a monthly book club. Multinational in its makeup, I was surprised not only by its 50:50 gender split but also the depth of philosophical knowledge, no matter a participant's job or background. I felt like the class dunce. Then I recalled that even my German brother-in-law, a carpenter, has Kant and Godel on his bookshelves. Perhaps it's because other European educational systems don't force 15 year-olds down one or other of the British 'Two Cultures' paths. Or perhaps a broad education is assumed within European mainland homes. Or perhaps they're more resistant to 'Americanitis', which coupled with British class obsessions have turned the intellectual and mathematical into the risible.
I like scruffy ground. Scrubland that exists on the edge, often unseen or ignored. A tumpy place most people pass through in a hurry to be somewhere else. Overgrassed and thistled, bomb-pocked and brambled. That was where I played as a child, though always listening out for Mum - a displaced Dorset accent in the middle of Knowle West. Whenever I go back, I'm going home.
After a lifetime abroad in non-English speaking cultures, I sometimes question whether the particular language I’ve ended up with is rich or impoverished. Time has changed the language, changed me, it could be Bedfordshire or middle-Atlantic or euro speak. I enjoyed your standing up for an assumed non-richness.
That's an excellent description of Bedfordshire. My only experiences of Bedfordshire are, my best mate (who was once a big drug dealer) had an older brother lived there, a cop who was also a thief, who's wife sucked off his best mate while he fucked her, and also, Bedfordshire is where my poor brother hanged himself.
The way you describe Bedfordshire it sounds almost Dutch. When we in the Netherlands think someone is very good at something, we tend to call that ‘undutchly good’. (If undutchly is a word in English. Probably not.)
Also, the first view that Google Maps gave me of Bedfordshire, to set the scene, was a graveyard.
Bedfordshire. 1940s. Clophill Primary. Class asked by young teacher about their thoughts on Dunkirk. Anonymous pupil: "me and my dad went dung cart down Cainhoe".
1980s Bedfordshire schoolboy on first sight of the Cairngorm massif. "Big, innit".
The purest essence of Bedfordshire. (Acknowledgements on request!)
When I lived in Zürich for a short time I sought out my writing and reading tribe. One encampment was a monthly book club. Multinational in its makeup, I was surprised not only by its 50:50 gender split but also the depth of philosophical knowledge, no matter a participant's job or background. I felt like the class dunce. Then I recalled that even my German brother-in-law, a carpenter, has Kant and Godel on his bookshelves. Perhaps it's because other European educational systems don't force 15 year-olds down one or other of the British 'Two Cultures' paths. Or perhaps a broad education is assumed within European mainland homes. Or perhaps they're more resistant to 'Americanitis', which coupled with British class obsessions have turned the intellectual and mathematical into the risible.
I like scruffy ground. Scrubland that exists on the edge, often unseen or ignored. A tumpy place most people pass through in a hurry to be somewhere else. Overgrassed and thistled, bomb-pocked and brambled. That was where I played as a child, though always listening out for Mum - a displaced Dorset accent in the middle of Knowle West. Whenever I go back, I'm going home.
Beds. Bedford. Bedfordshite. The best it can offer is a pancake race along Olney high street once a year. Buckinghamshire’s dull ugly sister.
I love that, Toby Litt! Puts me in mind a tiny bit of the short essays Priestley wrote in his little book, “Delight.”