11. Thank Him or Kick Him?

The producer appeared behind the recording studio window and grinned and waved to me like an old friend. And after I had read out a little test piece, he said: "That's fine, wonderful, your voice is perfect, lovely, gorgeous." Then I read a longer passage in English about the delights of touring in Britain, and another about the delights of visiting London, and both were "fantastic" and "just right", and I began to consider a career in radio.

To be frank, I was fairly confident in spite of lack of experience. Across the room in the Hamburg news agency where we both work, a colleague named Peter Turner had called to me: "I say, Mike, a chap on the phone here wants someone to do a recording in English, and I'm booked up. Would you read something to him in English as a sort of test?" I did, and they said, "Perfect, lovely, gorgeous," and so on and so forth.

It was after reading the third passage in English in the studio that they noticed my vowel pronunciations were not altogether King's English, or even Prince Philip's; there was a larger silence than usual, then the voice said: "Fine, lovely ... but you said the word 'castle' with a short 'a'. Could we have the passage again please, but this time say 'carsle'."

This was easy. But then he noticed other differences in my pronunciation.

"It's my northern English accent," I said, angry because I had to apologise for it.

"Oh, I see ... but Mr. Jamieson, we'll have to get it right, I'm afraid. The recording is for teaching English to German schoolchildren, and it must be spoken in the way it is taught in German schools."

I read the passage again ... and again ... and again. But of course you cannot change the pronunciation of a lifetime in an hour. The studio men became desperate and underlined the offending vowels, so that I'd remember them. Few, really. But because I had to concentrate on them, I made a lot of mistakes in my reading. Everyone got somewhat irritable, so we all went out for a beer.

When we came back to the studio, it seemed as if the end was already near. Everyone was very polite, but they avoided addressing me, as though I was an embarrassment. "The ironic thing," I threw into the silence, "is that I've always made a point of keeping my northern vowels on the grounds that they are more genuine than some of the pretentious sounds one hears nowadays."

They nodded and smiled politely, but without really understanding.

"In fact, I only toned down my accent because a news editor said he wouldn't employ me as a junior reporter unless I did. But the point is that my English vowel sounds aren't wrong. They're spoken by probably 50 per cent of the British population—that is, in the North of England and Scotland, and Wales."

After we abandoned the project, someone asked: "Where do you come from in England, anyway?"

"Newcastle," I said, "and I don't mean Newcarsle."

"Oh no," the producer said. "I've been there. They speak impossible English! I would have turned you down at the start if I'd known."

Then he added: "But I must say, Considering you're from Newcastle, you speak most excellent English."

I didn't know whether to thank him or kick him!