News story: Could it be Edward, urgent appeal for family of Bedfordshire sergeant killed in World War 1

Edward Norton was a Sergeant of the 7th Battalion Durham Light Infantry when he lost his life in September 1918. His body was never found. Today, the MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre is appealing for his family to get in touch after a set of human remains were discovered near the town of Gavrelle in northern France, the place where he fell a century ago.

Born in Stotfold, Bedfordshire in 1881 to Augustus and Mary Ann Norton. Edward originally served in the Bedfordshire Regiment before transferring to the Durham Light Infantry. He married Susan Agnes Bushwell in 1907 and according to the 1911 census, his last known address was 22 Pondwicks Road, Luton.

Now an appeal has been launched by the MOD JCCC to trace Edward’s surviving relatives so they can be invited to undertake a DNA test to prove whether or not the remains are his. If there is a match, the family will be invited to attend a full military burial service in March.

Louise Dorr from the JCCC said:

As a result of our extensive research, these remains are very likely to be 1 of only 2 missing soldiers, so there should be a very good chance of identifying him. He is to be buried in France on 15 March. Rather than bury him as an unknown soldier, I would love to be able to identify him so that his headstone may bear his name.

She added:

There are still so many 1000s of men lost in the Great War who have no known grave. To be able to identify just 1 of them takes a huge amount of research. Most importantly, it brings their individual story to an end and fills in the gaps in their family history.

If you can help with tracing Edward’s family, please call Louise on 01452 712612 extension 5465 or via email: DBS-JCCCCommem4SO3@mod.uk.

Weekly Road Report – West End Ward #dundeewestend

DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL – WEEKLY ROAD REPORT

REPORT FOR WEST END WARD – WEEK COMMENCING MONDAY 15 JANUARY 2018

A85 Riverside Drive – prohibition of right turn from westbound lane of Riverside Drive into Riverside approach and prohibition of right turn from Riverside Approach in to Riverside Drive for one week for works to the sea wall. Prohibitions will only be in place when required.

City Road (at Tullideph Road) – lane restrictions on Monday 15, Tuesday 16 and Thursday 25 January for smart meter antenna works.

Forthcoming Roadworks

Nethergate (at Queens Hotel) – closed on Sunday 28 January for crane lifting works.

Jon Trickett response to Carillion going into liquidation

Jon Trickett MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, responding to Carillion going into liquidation, said:

“The Government must act quickly to bring these public sector contracts back in-house to protect public services and ensure employees, supply chain companies, taxpayers and pension fund members are protected.

"Given £2 billion worth of Government contracts were awarded in the time three profit warnings were given by Carillion, a serious investigation needs to be launched into the Government’s handling of this matter.

"It is vital that shareholders and creditors are not allowed to walk away with the rewards from profitable contracts while the taxpayer bails out loss-making parts of the business.”

Recording of the week: Anglo-Romani and dialect

This week's selection comes from Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English.

It was great to see Peaky Blinders back for a fourth series as, among its many delights, it offers a rare glimpse in the mainstream media of Anglo-Romani. Given the presence of traveller communities across the UK it’s perhaps not surprising that Romani has influenced local dialect in many parts of the country. Speakers either side of the English-Scottish border, for instance, will be familiar with terms like gadgie [from gaujo = ‘(non-gypsy) man’], mort [= ‘girl, woman’], mooey [from mui = ‘mouth, face’], radgie [from radge = ‘mad, angry’] and scran [= ‘food’]. A small set of Romani words are used more widely, including cushty [from kushti = ‘good’], mullered [= ‘dead, killed’] and mush [= ‘man (esp. as form of address’] and a recent collaboration between the British Library and Guardian newspaper to document regional words confirmed the relationship between Anglo-Romani & dialect as contributors supplied numerous expressions including chore [= ‘to steal’ (Poole)], dinilo [= ‘fool, Idiot’ (Portsmouth)], jukkel [= ‘dog’ (Carlisle)], ladging [= ‘embarrassing’ (York)] and tuvli [= ‘cigarette’ (Newark)].

Probably the most unfortunate contribution of Anglo-Romani to English is the word chav, which in recent years has been adopted by young speakers all over the country to refer negatively to a stereotypical young ne’er-do-well characterised by cheap designer clothes, anti-social behaviour and low social status. The word derives from the much more endearing Anglo-Romani word chavvi [= ‘boy, son’] and illustrates how certain social groups have unfortunately always attracted suspicion and condemnation. A WordBank contributor from the Medway, Kent who can pukker [= ‘to speak’] Romani explains, for instance, how he will often jel down the tober to see my little chavvis in my vardo [‘go down the road to see my children in my caravan’], while another contributor submitted an expression assumed to be local to Newark, seemingly unaware of its Romani origins. The book Romani Rokkeripen To-Divvus (Thomas Acton and Donald Kenrick, 1984) records mandi [= ‘I’], buer [= ‘woman’] and rokker [= ‘to talk, speak’].

Jel down the tober to see my little chavvis in my vardo (BL shelfmark C1442/2355)

Mandi don't know what the buer is rokkering (BL shelfmark C1442/1079)

Over 400 recordings capturing English dialect and slang worldwide can be found in the Evolving English Wordbank collection on British Library Sounds.

Follow @VoicesofEnglish and @soundarchive for all the latest news.

Economic assessments of leaving the EU

I have been sent a few copies of a lobby letter concerning the EU Withdrawal Bill which will have its Report stage in the Commons this week. The letter asks me to vote for an amendment that demands a full official economic assessment before MPs vote on any deal which may be agreed between the UK and the EU.

I see no need for more official economic forecasts and assessments. There have been many of them, including several official ones prior to the referendum and more official forecasts since the vote. The official UK study – assisted by the IMF and World Bank – prior to the referendum wrongly forecast falling output, employment and house prices in the year after the vote if we voted Leave. More recent official forecasts of the UK economy estimate continued growth by the UK across the period of our departure, which seems to me to be more realistic.

The UK growth rate 2019-22 will depend much more on domestic policies pursued, and on the world economic background, than on any particular form of Brexit. If the UK government sets a sensible tax and spending policy, and with the Bank of England allows a reasonable expansion of money and credit, the economy will perform fine. As the world economic background is likely to be expansionary with tax cuts, fiscal stimulus, banking deregulation and more energy coming from the USA, easy money in the Euro area and Japan, and decent growth from the emerging market economies, that too will help.

It is difficult to see how the forecasters of gloom could believe voting to leave the EU would damage our growth, or why actually leaving will damage our growth. They wrongly thought consumer confidence would collapse, and now have unrealistic views that we will lose trade because the EU will wish to invent ways of stopping their exports to us so they can damage our exports to them. They need to understand that the EU and the UK will remain under WTO rules whatever deal or lack of deal is achieved. These rules and low tariffs or no tariffs outside agriculture have allowed a good expansion of trade in recent years for countries accepting the WTO system.