Posted by Peter Ceresole on May 08, 2012 at 09:17:35 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: S&A 1974 Film - a retrospective view posted by Peter Hyland on May 08, 2012 at 03:54:27:
this is a regional issue not a class issue.
At the time, I think that everything was a class issue, to an extent that we now find almost impossible to imagine. One of the few benefits of the second world war was that it slightly reduced the influence of class. Previously, class was a ghastly straightjacket. Now, it's a bit less so, and the effect on English speech has been blessedly large.
Nancy calling her family 'Bleckett' wouldn't have seemed out of the way even in the North; it would have seemed natural for someone from the well off middle class. Local farmers, whose speech is nicely rendered by AR in the books, would have thought little of it.