4 June 2015

Accent

When considering what to write about in this part of our website, it was hard. What are our customers interested in? There’s already so much information about the jewellery and the seashells used in the product descriptions.  So, after careful consideration, I do declare this to be the entertaining, hopefully make you laugh, part of our website. I am going to share some of the experiences we have with customers and Antigua.

Something that made me laugh out loud just recently…

Most people in the UK and USA, by now will have seen the TV series Downton Abbey. It’s a period drama based series, featuring the posh gentry and their staff, based in Downton Abbey in the UK.

I am from Essex in the UK. Chelmsford to be specific, which I may add, is considered the posher side of Essex. Unfortunately Essex now has a bit of an unfair reputation due to the rise of ‘reality’ and ‘scripted reality’ TV shows in the UK. If anyone asks me where I am from, I sadly now tend to say Chelmsford rather than Essex, preferring for them to work that one out for themselves, or hopefully not!

Anyway, on a particularly busy day serving in the Silver Chelles boutique in Antigua I engaged in some jovial chat with some customers from the USA. For some reason Americans find it very hard to place my very English accent. Most think I am from Australia or South Africa. Maybe that’s as a result of all the travelling I have done? Maybe I have picked up a few different accents along the way? But to my ear I am Essex Chelmsford accent through and through. On this occasion though, I was actually told I sounded like I was from Downton Abbey.

How chuffed was I? Finally someone recognised my well-spoken, articulate, refined accent. It was only later that this was quashed when my husband asked “did they mean you sound like the Gentry or their not so well spoken staff in Downton Abbey?”