I have just been reading Brewer's "Britain and Ireland" which gives the etymology of thousands of place-names in the UK. I was particularly taken with one of the maps which showed the traditional counties of England. It brought a tear to my sentimental eye (the left one). Names long vanished: Cumberland (only the sausage remains), Westmorland, the Ridings of Yorkshire. Weren't they lovely? They made writing the address on a letter quite, well, English. Now I live in a place called North Tyneside that is the bastard love child of old Northumberland and the rightly despised Tyne & Wear. I really do wish we could go back to those earlier county names. I was born in Middlesbrough ("middle fortified town") and that used to be in the North Riding ("third thing") of Yorkshire. There was never a South Riding (Cnut decreed that) but we now have little counties and unitary authorities all over the place. Even Darlington. Even South Yorks. God above! Given absolute power, I would restore the boundaries of the old Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Kent, Essex, Sussex, East Anglia, Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria. Ah yes. They were the days. Am I reaching too far back? Perhaps.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Rutland has gone too, hasn't it? I too am not the least bit keen on "Tyne and Wear". I have a friend who refuses to write "Merseyside" on letters, and always puts "Cheshire" although the boundaries were, I think, changed the year he was born. There's too much faffing about with such things, isn't there.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree.
ReplyDeleteI am from Northumberland (or Northumbria), and not 'Tyneside' or 'Tyne and Wear'.