Meet a dialect whizz-kid (From Gazette & Herald)

Meet a dialect whizz-kid

Adam Collier, from Nawton, near Helmsley, has become the latest dialect speaker to be recorded for the Old Yorkshire section of www.thisisryedale.co.uk. Adam, however, is unusual among local dialect experts - he's just 23 years old. JAMES KILNER spoke to him about his love of the region's traditional language.

"IT only rained twice this week," says Adam Collier, in his broadest Ryedale accent. "First for four days, then for three days."

Adam has a seemingly endless list of these little funnies, that capture the traditional humour of rural North Yorkshire.

"It's been that windy," he smiles, "one of our old hens has laid the same egg four times."

It is these sort of observations, so characteristic of England's largest county, that prove popular during Adam's performances at village halls across the region.

These shows revolve around dialect recitations, which he has been giving since he was a schoolboy.

Those school days, though, are hardly way off in the distant past - he is just 23 years old, something that gives the lie to the stereotype that associates dialect speakers exclusively with the older generation.

In his formative years, it was Adam's grandparents, in particular, who instilled within him a love of regional speech.

But he really caught the dialect bug when he was at school.

At the age of nine or ten, he, along with five others, performed the Marriott Edgar poem The Lion and Albert, as popularised by the entertainer Stanley Holloway, in Yorkshire dialect.

Next, Adam was asked if he would perform a dialect recitation during a concert at Wombleton village hall. He chose the story Goodies. "It went from there," he says.

He began making regular performances at village halls in the district - "my mum would take me" - and these have continued into adulthood, though pressures of work mean Adam is not able to give his recitations as regularly as before.

A Canadian lady, says Adam, who attended one of his recitations, didn't understand a word he uttered the entire evening, but, nonetheless, laughed until she cried.

And you can't blame her when Adam is liable to come out with such gems as: "She was that bow-legged, she wouldn't stop a pig in a passage hole."

Or indeed: "By, you've been as busy as Willy's wife. She brewed, washed and baked all on the same day, then hung herself with the dishcloth."

However, Adam's performances have their more serious side.

He will recite dialect poems written by the famous Lady Lumley's Grammar School headmaster F Austin Hyde, such as The Yorkshire Shepherd to His Dog.

These are tender and poignant pieces, which evoke the close relationship between farmers and their animals, most obviously their dogs, but even their horses.

"You grew to respect your horse," says Adam, "and care for it. It became a friend."

These poems bring back memories for many members of Adam's audiences. "They bring a tear to the eye," he adds.

As Adam's keen observations suggest, he is not your average 23-year-old.

He has exceptional maturity for his age, which is perhaps something that gives him insight into the character and traditions of his native region, which others of his age may not so easily pick up.

Despite his brushes with dialect at school, Adam still experienced the old problem of teachers frowning upon children who spoke in dialect.

"It was said that you shouldn't talk like that," he remembers. "I went to Ryedale School and the catchment area included places like Farndale and Bransdale. So some of them just couldn't help it."

Adam says that he can speak "as normally as the next person", but is happy, indeed, proud, to admit that he is liable to slip into dialect at any moment.

However, he is acutely aware that he is the exception to the rule, particularly among people of his own age.

"It's dying out slowly," he sighs. "I'm going to be blunt now," he says, before making the point that it is the influx of people from outside the region that has contributed heavily to the decline in local dialect.

However, this decline can be addressed in schools, believes Adam.

"Children should be taught dialect," he stresses. "They are taught French and German. Why shouldn't they be taught something that's a way of life?"

Recordings of Adam speaking in local dialect are now available to listen to in the dialects section this website.

Updated: 09:30 Thursday, May 13, 2004