The Suffolk dialect has fascinated writers such as George Ewart-Evans and Adrian Bell and yet it is still routinely mangled by well-meaning thespians! They have a good excuse: although the Suffolk dialect is easy to find in print, quality sound recordings are virtually impossible to track down, unless you can navigate your way through professional archives. Suffolk Voices changes this, bringing authentic Suffolk speech to your CD player. Each disc is like a radio documentary, with music, sound and, of course, characters with whom you will love spending your time!
Our first Suffolk Voice belongs to Peggy Cole MBE, who became famous in the 1970s for her magnificent village garden. She later appeared in the film version of Ronald Blythe’s Akenfield and although she has given talks in America and on the QE2, Peggy is immensely proud that she still speaks the undiluted accent of her native Suffolk. With contributions from friend Peter Driver, BBC Radio Suffolk’s Lesley Dolphin and Akenfield author Ronald Blythe, we hear her extraordinary and often moving story told in the unique rhythm of the Suffolk dialect.
Customer feedback:
"Many thanks for this lovely CD I just LOVE IT!!! It has made me feel so joyful to hear the accents of my childhood. Although I am younger that Peggy things weren't so very different in my childhood than hers. So much of what she described I could relate to very well. The organic veg and the 'bucket' arrangement toilet for a start! I know I shall listen to it often as Peggy tells her story so well, what an interesting and lovely lady! I will be recommending it to my friend here in Aberystwyth as although she is actually from Norfolk, like me misses the East Anglian accent so I think she'll enjoy it . (I'm not lending her mine though ha! ha! She can listen to bit of it so hopefully it will wet her appetite to buy her own copy!!)" Linda Stoker
Suffolk Voices: Peggy Cole costs £6.99 including postage and packing. You can order it securely online below. Don't panic when you check out and are asked for your Paypal login. Simply select the "Don't have a paypal account" option which allows you to pay safely by credit card.
This CD can also be found in all good bookshops, including all branches of Waterstones in Suffolk (Bury, Ipswich, Lowestoft), as well as the leading bookshops of Woodbridge, Felixstowe, Southwold, Stowmarket, Halesworth and Aldeburgh, as well as Ipswich's Tourist Information Centre and the Framlingham second hand shop. All bookshops can order the CD for you: they just need to look up Suffolk Voices in the Nielsen catalogue.
For our second Suffolk Voices CD, we turned to the extraordinary Gordon Knowles. The response to our CD Bungay: Our Town In Sound, which includes Gordon feeding the famous Ditchingham roundabout chickens, was most encouraging, with many demanding a follow up CD. So we felt it only proper to devote an entire disc to this remarkable man. Gordon is now in his late seventies but he still rises before dawn every day to feed the chickens on "Chicken Roundabout", a round-trip of nearly five miles. But besides his love of animals, he is a marvellous raconteur who recalls his life and times in Bungay with a typical Suffolk humour. The CD includes tributes from Bungay shopkeepers, author and museum director Chris Reeve, as well as rare archive recordings of Gordon's mother.
Suffolk Voices: Gordon Knowles costs £6.99 including postage and packing. You can order it securely online below. Don't panic when you check out and are asked for your Paypal login. Simply select the "Don't have a paypal account" option which allows you to pay safely by credit card.
It is also available in Suffolk Waterstones and in Bungay at the Chocolate Box and the Toy Emporium.