Accentuate the positive

The best line in the first episode of the new Dr Who series was when Billie Piper's character Rose Tyler says to the Doctor: "If you're from another planet, how come you speak with a Northern accent?" To which the Doctor replies: "Lots of planets have a North."

This set me thinking about accents in general and my own Northern accent in particular.

At the same time as being inspired by Dr Who, I was in church for Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter. One of the stories told in Holy Week is of Jesus being betrayed by St Peter.

I don't know if you are familiar with story, but it goes something like this: Peter has sworn he will follow Jesus to death, and so after Jesus's arrest he goes into the courtyard outside the place where they are charging Jesus. Here he is accused of being a disciple of Jesus but three times denies it. Self preservation comes before integrity. And one of the reasons they think he is a follower of Jesus is his Galilean accent.

Now, if you know the geography of Palestine you might note something. Jerusalem, where this story happens, the capital of Israel, is in the south east but Galilee, where Jesus grew up, is in the north east.

So, if you translate the story to England, it is as if Jesus has been arrested in London and that he is known to be from Galilee because he speaks with a Northern accent. He talks like me, he talks like us. Isn't that just great?

And yet for years, people have had a chip on their shoulders about accents. It was all right to have a broad Northern accent if you were a comedian, a footballer or even backbench MP, but not if you wanted to be taken seriously.

Even now how many newsreaders speak with a broad accent? It seems to be OK if you're Scottish or Welsh, but if you're a Geordie then you need to be a "cheeky chappie" like Ant or Dec. Not even Wendy Gibson, carefully stacking her papers after reading the news, has a strong accent.

Surely it's time for us to get rid of that chip on our shoulders. But it's very hard. I quite often find myself talking to "posh" people and have become aware of how my accent has changed. Or when I pick up the phone I become aware of what my children call my "telephone voice".

But it's not only me. When I listen to people reading lessons in church they never quite sound themselves. There's one word that is almost invariably pronounced with a Southern accent and that is love. We seem to distinguish between: "I'll just take a pound of apples, love" and: "God is love, and those who live in love live in God." Why?

Don't get me wrong I'm not recommending that we all try and talk down, or speak like Frank ("I love carpets me"). If you happen to speak with received pronunciation then that is all well and good but it's only an accent - it doesn't bestow privileges. What I am saying is that if our region is to be taken seriously and to have a degree of self-confidence, then those of us with an accent from round here should be proud of the way we talk.

After all, if we have an accent it is a badge. It proclaims where we come from and where we live. I once met a German woman who had lived for 20 years in Newcastle; her accent was incredible and it told you something of her story - a cross between a corny war film and broad Geordie.

It has even happened to me. I am from York but lived for years in Sunderland. One day I was visiting my father-in-law in hospital in Reading when a nurse came over and asked if I, like her, was from Middlesbrough? It was as if I had mixed the two accents and settled on one half-way between the two. Maybe that's why I've settled in Teesside.

I have become increasingly frustrated over the years at the way we in the North-East seem to accept some kind of status as a poor corner of the UK.

Why are there virtually no publishers in our region? Why is it that if our children do well at school and get a good education it's almost inevitable that they will have to move away to get a job? Why are we not proclaiming from the rooftops that this is one of the best areas to live in the country?

Yet we are not. In two professional areas I know about, it is very hard to lure people to our region. Doctors and clergy will often say that they don't really want to come up here, this far. And we accept it.

We accept that almost all media, high politics, head offices and the like will be in London and the jobs will be held by people who speak "properly". We are doing away with sexism and homophobia in the workplace but still seem to accept that educated people should speak in a certain way.

Our Prime Minister represents a local constituency yet we seem to find it completely acceptable that his children have never been educated in our region and that his wife has never had to seek work here. It will be argued that a top class lawyer cannot work in the North-East - that is precisely my point.

This of course is not only about the North-East. I could have made a similar plea to the people of the North-West, the Midlands or Cornwall. But I live here, I'm proud to live here and I'm saddened if the people who do live here feel in any sense inferior.

When I first moved to the area I was a curate in Shildon. For three years I lived in the tightest community I have ever known. The people of Shildon supported each other through some very hard times and they came through them. Yet I knew four girls who were having elocution lessons. When I asked their mums why, they replied that it would help their girls get on in life.

Well, if we in this region are to get on in life we need to lose the lack of self-worth that makes us try and pretend we are something we are not. We need to be ourselves in our accents and our ways of behaving.

So you'll have to excuse me as I remove my flat cap and get the whippet off the table.