WORDSMITH: TikTok to a troubled past
Sticks and stones may break my bones... writes Gerard Smith this week in his popular WordSmith column...
This week I met a man who hails from Leeds. He was a naturally engaging personality with the most wonderfully warm Leeds accent; his sound reminded me of good times spent with my Yorkshire cousins.
Afterwards I got to thinking of accents, particularly how we respond to them.
Earlier this year I started a TikTok account, primarily to promote this column and other writings. Not long afterwards I received a message: “I love your writing, but I can’t get past your English accent, which I don’t like.”
I politely told the person if they don’t like my accent they don’t have to listen to it. By way of explanation they replied publicly via social media to say my accent was ‘triggering’ because it reminded them of the British soldiers at the border town they grew up in as a child.
To be told something so intrinsic as your sound can trigger past trauma in a person, could be troubling for some. But I didn’t let it trouble me, otherwise I’d never talk again.
My accent arrived in Cavan during the height of the troubles. Within my first week at school, I’d been called a, “British B****rd!” It didn’t bother me. In England I was called an, “Irish B****rd!”
At least in Ireland the abuse alliterated. I dealt with the negative reactions to my accent accordingly: when expletives were hurled, I toughened up and walked away. They were words, they didn’t frighten me, they wouldn’t hurt me. (I was no snowflake, as they’d say, today).
However, one day the words worried me. Walking home from school a kid sidled up to me to tell me my mam and dad were traitors for taking the Queen’s money.
This shift in focus away from me and towards my parents troubled me. I could protect myself, but I didn’t know how to protect them. I became concerned for my parents’ safety, particularly my mother’s. Mam was feisty, with a fiery temper; she wouldn’t walk away from words, she’d shoot back. I was seriously scared she’d get shot. When she began an evening shift in a local pub, my fears increased ten-fold – and they were warranted.
I kept a lid on my fears, until my first Christmas Day in Cavan. Mam and I had spent a lovely morning together. Later in my room, the foodie smells pulled me downstairs towards dinner. I walked into the living room to see Dad busy in the kitchen, and Mam entranced by the TV. When I looked at what she was watching, horror engulfed me – it was the Queen’s Speech.
An innate need to protect her erupted from me, “Mam, don’t tell anyone in the pub you’ve watched this, promise me?”
She stubbed out her cigarette, “And why would I promise you that, Gerard Francis?”
She called me that when annoyed, not a good sign. I peddled backwards, “It don’t matter.”
She wouldn’t leave it, “Tell me, why don’t you want me talking about the Queen in the pub?”
I looked her in the eye and allowed my fear to drench Christmas Day in troubled violence, “You know why, those people were shot in your pub cos they were from England; and you’ve come from England, I’m scared you’ll get shot, too; and that’s why I don’t go in that pub no more, cos I’m scared I’ll get shot in it!”
Dad beavered away in the kitchen, unaware of the talk Mam and I were having. Calmly, I told her everything. She leaned in, “Don’t tell your father about this, not today.”
In retrospect I think Dad also lived in fear of those pub shootings; Mam was probably protecting us both by not wanting talk of further troubles.
I’d been back at school a few weeks when I noticed something missing, the name calling – it had stopped. Slowly, myself and my accent began to integrate.
Now, I suspect Mam had words with people. With whom, I don’t know, for she’s long gone to ask. Over the living years, I never spoke to her about those times, sadly.
I have a photo of Mam taken at home during the time I write about here; she looks haunted. That image and this column have triggered a desire in me – to delve back and write more about that troubled time of life.
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