More home thoughts from abroad

This chap is a British Army spokesman who was on the BBC talking about the troops spending Christmas in Iraq and I took his picture because his name was Lt. Col. Dickie Winchester. I didn't think British officers had such marvelous names as that anymore, at least not ones so young who didn't also have massive, Jimmy Edwards-style whiskers. With a name like that he should be leading men over the top at the Somme, not dull PR duties in Basra.

The other thing I noticed about Dickie was that, despite his old-school-tie name, he didn't sound in the slightest bit "posh" and instead spoke with a rather generic middle-class English accent that could be from anywhere south of Birmingham. There was a time when someone with his name and rank would have been all "Bally good show chaps!" and plummy, aristocratic vowels but, apart from the odd appearance by the Royal Family, these days you don't hear frightfully proper "BBC English" much anymore — especially not on the BBC itself. Apparently talking "proper" and sounding upper-class is out of fashion these days, something to be embarrassed about even among the upper classes themselves whose children are dropping their 'aitches and adopting the more common sound of so-called Estuary English in an effort to fit in with the new English egalitarian meritocracy — a country run by celebrities and footballers instead of the old Eton-Oxbridge network. Which of course it isn't, you know those buggers are still in charge.

The only time I heard an old-fashioned upper class accent in London was when I was having lunch at one of the traditional stomping grounds of British nobs, the Peter Jones department store in Sloane Square. Among the crowds of modern young couples pushing their progeny around in Bugaboo pushchairs I'd catch the occasional sound of some haughty, crisp old-money voice and it was such a surprise to the ears I'd stare at the person as if I was looking at some rare bird on the endangered species list.

I'm not turning into Evelyn Waugh in my old age and mourning the decline of the ruling class (plus, I talk common as muck meself), but what is a shame is the continuing loss of colour and character to the national palette and, I must admit, hearing someone crisply crossing their Ts and talking in those clear, cut-glass tones does sound rather pleasing to the ear (especially coming from the mouth of a Jenny Agutter or Joanna Lumley), and what a dull place England would be if we all ended up talking like David Beckham. Knowarrimean?

Download: The Ruling Class - Monochrome Set (mp3)