A microclimate of inequality existed on our street, separating homeowners from council tenants. If you were to draw a diagonal line from the south-west of the county to the north-east, it would measure 55 miles in length, although the creeks and inlets on its eastern side make the Essex coastline at least 400 miles. Before the influx, his classmates were the children of farmers and agricultural labourers, with old Essex accents more akin to the rounded rural burr of Suffolk or Norfolk. It is embraced by politicians who celebrate it as the home of no-nonsense, “real” people – David Cameron hired the ex-Basildon Echo reporter Andy Coulson as his head of comms – but also mocked for these same qualities, often by the very same political classes who praise its authenticity. In contrast to the European-influenced modernism of new towns such as Basildon – which one Tory minister had dubbed “little Moscow on the Thames” – the architecture of South Woodham was more traditional, with triangular roofs and nods to Essex’s agricultural heritage in the form of wooden weatherboarding. Still, the rise of manufacturing in these newly metropolitan Essex hubs did not create prosperity for everyone. Didnt think he had an accent until someone from the London overspill called him a carrot cruncher, shocked him, speakers think people should move back … In the 90s, the centre-left thinktank Demos conducted a survey of skilled workers in Basildon: in 1992, 64% earned less than £15,000 (£22,000 in today’s money), relatively poor by the standards of the south-east; by 1997, 32% earned less than £10,000. But instead of making an important multi-million pound deal, or explaining to his boss he was held up on the train and was going to be late, he was on the phone to his bookies. And there is the small matter of the Windrush, the ship that carried about 500 migrants from the Caribbean and docked in Tilbury in 1948. For it allows Jenkin – the Cambridge-educated son of a lord – to confidently proclaim that he knows the desires of the “common man”, merely by the mention of this most misunderstood of counties. Essex The Essex accent was voted the least attractive in the country. The disappearance of the old Cockney accent has been blamed on east Londoners moving out to Essex and Kent, and the emergence of ‘Estuary English’. ", "The case of Estuary English: supposed evidence and a perceptual approach", "A contribution to an Essex dialect dictionary", http://roa.rutgers.edu/content/article/files/1208_amos_1.pdf, "Archivists launch campaign to save Essex accent", The Imperilled Inheritance: dialect and folklife studies at the University of Leeds 1946-1962, Part 1: Harold Orton and the English Dialect Survey, "Estuary English: is English going Cockney? “That was the moment I realised that nothing is for ever.”. A grammar-school boy, Tebbit preached the gospel of self-improvement from the beginning of his political career; he was already advocating a free-market agenda when first agitating to become an MP in the 1960s. By Rebecca Creed @Becky_Creed Senior Reporter. “Some years ago we could probably have stuck with Sharan for the UK, but this Essex girl thing has arrived and we don’t want to risk it,” a Volkswagen UK spokesman told the Press Association. Both towns became home to many east Londoners whose homes had been destroyed by German bombing raids in the war. [12][13] Several writers have argued that Estuary English is not a discrete accent distinct from the accents of the London area. The Essex-east London border was also becoming a key battleground for the war against trade unionism. “But I knew of a girl who would say: ‘Oh me and my sister went out at the weekend.’ They would pick pubs that had posh cars in the car park,” she said. The people who “made it” and moved to a big house in South Woodham Ferrers or Chigwell were never going to be taken seriously in the upper echelons of British society. Most people who talk properly from Essex you can't guess where they're from at all, just 'the south'. It contains a quarter of the most deprived areas of Essex, despite housing an eighth of its total population, and is the sixth most unequal town in the country. 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