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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To once again feel embarrassed to be from Norfolk ?

131 replies

blondegirl1979 · 02/12/2011 20:18

i have been watching 'come dine with me' this week, never seen it before but its filmed in Norwich and I used to work with someone who was on it.

I was born in Norwich to parents from London and have lived here all my life, have always detested the way Norfolk people speak (i actaully dont mean to cause offense, its just my opinion, and obviously not one i go around sharing, its just my 'thing' as it were), its always cringeworthy when someone from Norfolk is being interviewed on tv/radio as it seems that the slowest speaking, thickest accented people are always chosen, almost complete with their tractor and all other stereotypes.

I travel around for my job and noone ever thinks im from Norfolk, which always pleases me (yeah, maybe shallow). Anyway my point is: that bloody chip shop woman makes me ashamed to be from norfolk, she didnt help herslef by coming across as so ignorant 'i dont eat none of that foreign muck' etc etc, and eating a meal before going to someones house becuase she couldnt read the menu ????

In her defense, the other 4 people on the program with her were very educated, non accented people who she kept saying she wasnt comfortable with, and i presume that some dodgy editing had taken place - but even so....... Rant over, she just annoyed me, ive been thinking this all week and now i dont seem to be able to make a concise point. Sorry.

OP posts:

schroeder · 02/12/2011 22:53

what do you mean not Cambs?

Matronalia · 02/12/2011 22:54

No, lots of marshes and fens in and around Norfolk/Norfolk Broads. The Fens were a broad sweep from Lincolnshire to Suffolk.

www.visitnorfolk.co.uk/explore-norfolk/the-fens.aspx

PiousPrat · 02/12/2011 22:54

Nope it is definitely Norfolk. A large percentage of it is actually reclaimed land, that is part of what The Broads are, drainage ditches as well as an early method of connecting the areas where fabric was made and where it was dyed/worked/made into clothing. It is part of the reason that Norfolk will be one of the first places to go when sea levels rise.

lollystix · 02/12/2011 22:56

Esta - DB did his medical training in Scotland and always told me about NFF - normal for fife. They are known to have odd shaped heads in the kingdom.

For what it's worth I love Norfolk- been on holiday there the last 3 years in a row.

Matronalia · 02/12/2011 22:57

Also a lot of the broads were formed by peat digging in the 13th century.

schroeder · 02/12/2011 22:57

What twaddle! The Norfolk broads were medieval peat diggings that have flooded.

valiumredhead · 02/12/2011 23:36

Oh God I was really warming to that woman until she said " I have everything I have because I worked for it and you lot just swallowed a dictionary!!!!" How bloody rude!!

She had the biggest house and the biggest chip on her shoulder for sure! I would never assume the whole of Norwich was like her OP.

Indaba · 02/12/2011 23:43

Surely i can't be the first person on this thread to shout Troll

Whole thing thread smacks of PR person getting quotes.

valiumredhead · 02/12/2011 23:47

Does it ?

Feminine · 02/12/2011 23:51

I don't think she is a Troll...

Luminescence · 02/12/2011 23:57

Yabu. I'm a muggle born Norfolk girl and wouldnt want to live anywhere else.

iceandsliceplease · 03/12/2011 00:36

I druv up cee on Toosdee to dew my sharpen at CooDee and thas right nice, it'it?

OP, YABU, and frankly, a bit of a twat. I'm Norvicensian and I don't have much of an accent, but I love hearing it. It reminds me what a precious thing accents and dialects are and how easily they can be lost. How can you not love the word 'bishybarneybee'?

And the Broads were manmade peat trenches that flooded. The Fens were areas that were reclaimed from marsh (hence Isle of Ely), and should have been left as marsh IMO. I can say that, I survived there for 12 years. You think Norwich is bad? Try Wisbech

NorfolkNCarolSingers · 03/12/2011 07:25

^^ about Wisbech is spot on!

purepurple · 03/12/2011 07:52

YABVVVVU
I grew up in Norfolk and moved away when I got married. I love the accent (although I haven't got one as my parents are from London).
Those wikipedia links to the Norfolk and Suffolk accents made me very nostalgic
Then I found this on about the early 80s music scene featuring Morwich market and lots of young people just wandering around drinking. Brings back lots of memories

Tanith · 03/12/2011 08:53

I come from Pam Ayres/The Wurzels land. You should hear me when I get going

I don't live there now, but DH says he can always tell when I'm on the phone to the family because my accent gets more and more "Cays 'n' 'aystax" as I go on!

altinkum · 03/12/2011 09:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

crazyspaniel · 03/12/2011 09:06

There are plenty of people like the woman from CDWM who are not from Norfolk - I watched the programme and didn't think her personality and attitudes had anything to do with her regionality. I do agree that she was extremely rude and ignorant though. Just because she happened to have poor vocabulary and grammar, she seemed to think that everyone should be forced to descend to her level.

One of the worst CDWMs I've seen in the one in York, the one where one of the contestants brings out a pet snake which then shits on the table. I was goggle-eyed at a couple of the contestants that week - a 50-year old woman who was living in a glamous past that had clearly ended twenty years ago, and a misogynistic, racist, ignorant guy who couldn't understand why anyone would read a book and sneered relentlessly at another contestant who was a playwright. I think one of the reasons that episode particularly got under my skin is that I used to live in York and both types were extremely familiar to me.

valiumredhead · 03/12/2011 10:46

I remember the shitting snake!

schroeder · 03/12/2011 15:54

Thanks for that purepurple Twas lovely.

Does anyone remember a very late night-think 2 or 3 in the morning- cooking show that was filmed in Norwich in the late 80s? I just have this weird recollection of a guy in chef's whites swinging across the screen sort of like tarzan.

BleurghUna · 03/12/2011 16:10

blondegirl1979 Fri 02-Dec-11 20:18:43 it seems that the slowest speaking, thickest accented people are always chosen, almost complete with their tractor and all other stereotypes.
Well, isn't that the fault of the programme makers, in that they deliberately reinforce stereotypes? It's hardly a reflection on Norwich people themselves, is it? Don't most people realise this?

Original poster

blondegirl1979 · 03/12/2011 16:38

No idea why indaba would claim that i was a troll, for mearly having an opinion.
Crazy spaniel and bleurgh, ok, so it seems that cdwm have a way of editing/selecting people to be shown in a certain way, i did say i hadnt ever seen it before, out of interest i will watch it again when the next series is on, i had somewhat nievely assumed at it was more food related than people related, but you live and learn.

OP posts:

ProfYaffle · 03/12/2011 16:47

I live in Norfolk (just about) from from Warrington originally. I love the Norfolk accent on the odd occasion I get to hear one, just about everyone seems to have dropped it although I have picked up that "I'm now going ..." inflection.

tbh though, I think a lot of people have that thing of hating the place where they're originally from, familiarity breeds contempt etc. Some Warrington accents make me cringe, they really do sound thick.

BleurghUna · 03/12/2011 17:02

Real Norfolk people don't consider you to be one of them unless you have several generations of your family who were born in Norfolk. Apparently. Having parents from London definitely wouldn't qualify you. So don't worry, you're not actually "from Norfolk" and you have nothing to worry about!
(As an aside, does anybody know how long it takes to be accepted as a true Norfolk person?)

MissBeehivingUnderTheMistletoe · 03/12/2011 17:48

blondegirl1979 there is something terribly ironic about your posts chastising people with a Norfolk accent for being thick when I could assume from your spelling mistakes that you were uneducated. I don't assume that btw

coldwed · 03/12/2011 17:53

If you don't have a London accent, I don't want to know.

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