Today is Yorkshire Day

[Alastair]

Tuesday is Yorkshire Day, when men and women from across this historic county gather to celebrate their... well, Yorkshireness - leaving outsiders baffled about why they have such a high opinion of themselves.

Brass bands, flat caps, whippet racing, wrinkled stockings, beef dripping with bread, pie and peas.

The above are just a few of the umpteen cliches associated with "God's own county".

Many people - namely non-Tykes - would say that, as well as being stereotypes, they're also reasons to poke fun at Yorkshire folk. But try to get a rise out of any Yorkshireman or woman by invoking one of the above and your attempts will fall as flat as a Yorkshire Pudding baked by a southerner.

THE VOICES OF YORKSHIRE

Click on the links below to hear local dialects and accents
Life-long residents of Helmsley, North Yorkshire
Language of our childhood discussed by locals from Leeds
Tourists, travel and swearing discussed by folk from York
Three generations from South Milford, N Yorks


Audio from BBC Voices
Rather than humiliation, you'll find them beaming with pride. Some will proudly tell you the entire list evokes memories of a happy youth when they could go to t'pub on t'bus and still have brass left for chips wi' bits on t'way 'ome.

The great pride in Yorkshire can be highlighted by considering the etiquette surrounding the first on this list - the brass band.

My own Yorkshireness, while never being in any doubt, was truly galvanised when I signed up for my local brass band. Before joining, I'd known many out-and-out Tykes - members of my family included.

But I'd never seen owt like this before.

What I encountered at the start of that first band practice, and in every subsequent one, was the ritual of bluff Yorkshiremen trying to out-Yorkshire each other with their greetings.Even for me, it was like entering another country.

"'Owdo, tha sees?" ("How are you?")
"Champerton." ("Very well").

The more outrageously, incomprehensibly Yorkshire they could be, the more man points they scored. Needless to say, I can report with great pride that, within a few weeks, I was chelloping away with the best of them. Some even offered to share their "tea" with me.


Pancakes... baked, or Yorkshire Pudding, if you like
"Does ta want a piece o' paah?" ("Would you like a piece of pork pie?")

And that made me even prouder.

But pride can come before a fall. Take Yorkshire County Cricket Club, for example.

It was 1992 before the club, once a big beast of the county championship, (reluctantly) changed its rules to allow players born outside of the region to play for Yorkshire (although there had been a handful of exceptions over the years).

For many years rival counties had welcomed talent from whichever corner of the country, or, indeed, globe, it sprang.

But Yorkshire remained true to its roots - a stand that prompted many a story of expectant fathers whisking their heavily pregnant wives to a hospital within the county's boundaries, in the hope the off-spring would turn out to be the next Fred Trueman.

But after 24 years of failure to win the championship, even proud Yorkshire was forced to accede to the realities of the changing world.

To outsiders, such apparently blinkered pride in the White Rose can be interpreted as the self-obsessed collective blowing of a county's own trumpet. After all, which other breed could give its county such a grandiose title as "God's own"?

Being from Yorkshire is as much a state of mind as a geographical fact

Liam Allen
Some might interpret such bluster as, dare it be said, arrogance. (Think Geoffrey Boycott - the ultimate brusque Yorkshireman.)

But what exactly is it about Yorkshire that makes it the proudest county in the UK?

It could be related to the fact that it is so large - at 6,000 square miles it's Britain's largest county (or collection of counties: North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, East Yorkshire and West Yorkshire).

So sprawling is Yorkshire that it's traditionally divided into three ridings - North Riding, East Riding and West Riding - each with their own identity and each bigger in its own right than many of the UK's other counties.

And, perversely, another reason for Yorkshire pride could have something to do with that old foe... Lancashire.

The Wars of the Roses, which took place between 1455 and 1485, saw the throne of England and Wales being fought over by the House of Lancaster and the House of York.


Flat caps, whippets, pies and Harvey Nicks - the new Yorkshire
Needless to say, coming from an area the size of theirs, and with marauding Lancastrians on the warpath, the Tykes, or the Yorkists as they were then known, had to pull together to defend themselves.

The ingrained sense of Yorkshire identity could have its roots in the necessity to dig in collectively.

It goes without saying that regional pride is not unique to Yorkshire. Devon, the Welsh Valleys, the Scottish highlands, Liverpool and Manchester - to name but a few - all have a very strong sense of their own identity. But more than any of these places, and putting explanatory theories aside, being from Yorkshire is as much a state of mind as a geographical fact.

That's just the way it is. And as Tykes, ours is not to question why.

And to any readers who are wondering why Lancastrians, as the ultimate victors in the Wars of the Roses, are not a prouder breed than us Yorkshire folk.

Well would you be bursting with pride if you talked funny like they do?