When people think of their heritage they tend to refer to buildings, archaeology, personal experiences, why is it then that dialect in the West country is overlooked?

As Brits we associate dialect with many places such as Liverpool, Manchester, Hull and Birmingham, this may be partly due to the movement of people during the industrial revolution of the 19th century and the demise of traditional farming, so why the differences here in Dorset, well from conversations that I have had recently many Dorset folk have toned down their dialect to be more acceptable to others.

This has stemmed partly from many School teachers of the mid and late 20th century teaching pupils that when speaking only “Queen’s English was acceptable” even to the extent of beating children to make the point.

Currently we in Dorset find that our dialect is on the wane and we are losing vital oral history and personal experiences and if we do not wake up it will be to late.

“What are we going to do”