Geography with
George
The
action in ‘Get Cracking’ takes place around the villages of Major Wallop and
Minor Wallop. The idea for these names of course comes from the actual Wallop
villages in Hampshire (Over Wallop, Middle Wallop and Nether Wallop, south west
of Andover). Such is the delightful
nonsense of the name Wallop that Will Hay also put it to use – the action in
‘Where’s That Fire’ takes place in Bishop’s Wallop. A name I am so fond of that
I stole it for my novella ‘Temporary Accommodation’. Has anyone named a craft beer Bishop’s Wallop
yet? If not, they ought to.
Will
Hay films are a great source of made up place names. I also love the setting
for his ‘Ask a Policeman’ – Turnbotham Round.
If you are reading this blog post in another part of the world, you
might need to be told that Turnbotham is pronounced “Turnbottom” before you get
the humour. That’s another thing that we are good at in this country – place
names that are not pronounced how they are spelled. One of George’s co-stars in ‘Get Cracking’,
Edward Rigby, also features in a film called ‘Don’t Take it to Heart’
(1944). In this chucklefest of a film,
we are introduced to the fictional village of Chaunduyt, but we soon learn that
it is pronounced “Condit”. It’s a great
send up of those pockets of rural Britain where there hasn’t been an injection
of fresh bloodstock for far too long.
 |
| Rigby and Formby |
There
are hours of fun to be gleaned from English placenames. People are always
compiling lists of double-entendre geography and the area around the real
Wallop villages (Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire) is particularly blessed. What
with names that have the River Piddle as their source and places that sound
like a retired Victorian Colonel with a big moustache and ruddy cheeks
(Glanvilles Wooton, Compton Chamberlayne, Brown Candover). We have our rich and chequered history of
language and settlers to thank for this and of course our early film industry
was going to mine this comedic seam.
As
for places that sound different to how they are spelled – every county has
places like this. The town where I live is almost always pronounced wrong if we
ever get a mention on national television (usually thanks to our famous MP).
Bolsover is pronounced “Bolzovva” by residents, but southern TV types usually
give it a soft s and a full English pronunciation of the “over” bit. This is
how they know when strangers are in town and know when to light the torches and
sharpen the pitchforks. I tease, I am from the big city…although me and my
children marvel sometimes at how we are the only family here not related to
everyone else. In ‘Don’t Take it to
Heart’, Chaunduyt is portrayed as a place stuck in the past, where strangers
are frowned upon as foreigners or socialists – perhaps place pronunciation is a
quick method of identification of friend or foe, dating back to when these
things really were important.
No comments:
Post a Comment