Toffs and Plebs in the City of London

Following the downturn slump or recession in the 80's - or was it 90's? - I was let go (fired) from my job in Engineering and unwisely took a backward step into the Security World where I have been trapped ever since; or so it seems to me. In fact it's my excuse for not making a greater effort to escape!

However, it hasn't been all bad and the mind numbing tedium of the 'work' has sometimes been relieved by the characters and the events that I have known and experienced over these years.

One such experience occured during an assignment in the City of London where I carried out my duties in buildings festooned in Lords, Barons, Earls, Upper Crust Johnnies and a lower level of jumped up nobodies that nevertheless outranked me by a long distance and a lot of money.

On this particular day I had arrived at the start of the evening to carry out my reception desk duties before moving onto another function in another part of the complex.

Suddenly a tall robust Gentleman with a Plummy voice (Upper Crust Accent) came down the stairs greeting me with a question.

"Have you seen Pezzman?" he enquired.

"Pezzman Sir?" I responded whilst frantically searching my memory for this Pezzman character. Must be some German feller that has just joined the Company I thought. Buying some time I uttered the following excuse "Eeerrrr...No Sir! I haven't seen anyone yet; I have only just got here."

He looked about quizzically and then said, "Eh! Do you know where Pezzram is?" I began to sweat... "Eh, Pezzram Sir?" Must be two of these Germans who have arrived here without my knowledge I decided.

"Yes" he answered, somewhat irritably, waving a letter about.

The penny dropped! He meant Postroom and by a rapid onset of calculated reasoning he must have meant Postman in the previous question.

"Ah! Yes Sir! Postroom!" I cried out enthusiastically showing him to the door and pointing at a door in a nearby building. "There's the Postroom Sir!" I added in triumph, only to see that it was now closed for the day.

"Oh dear, oh dear" he lamented and wandered off muttering to himself about Bad Luck and the inadvisability of ever closing anything anywhere at any time for fear of destabilising the Planet, etc etc.

For those of you who know how accents in the UK differ over short distances this story may well ring bells and cause some merriment, but for others further afield - such as Wales and Scotland, it may be somewhat less so. Those overseas may well be totally mystified of course.

For those unfortunate deprived people I would refer them to recordings of Prince Charles voice and any of the East End Cockney characters that can be seen in various films going back many years now.

Michael Caine is one such but there are many others listed on the WWW.

Do some research for the best selection and you may well gain an appreciation of the difference between the Cockney accent (mine) and the Toffs. It can produce some amusing misunderstandings occasionally.

For the 'Worst Cockney Accents Ever' google that phrase and come up with some other failed accents of other types too.

For me, Dick Van Dyke took the Title in the Mary Poppins Film when he played the Chimney Sweep.

Happy Days.