They were talking about the origins of the Bramley apple on The Kitchen Cabinet on the wireless last week, and naturally they spoke of Southwell, that agreeable minster town in Nottinghamshire. I was surprised, almost let down, when a local man pronounced the place-name to rhyme with mouthw’ll. I had long been careful to pronounce the –outh– like the –oth– in mother.

I needn’t have been so shocked. The careful work of Klaus Forster published in 1981, A Pronouncing Dictionary of English Place-Names, includes a version of Southwell rhyming South– with mouth. Indeed it was the version, he tells us, listed in Broadcast English: Recommendations to announcers regarding the pronunciation of same English place-names (1936). But he does give three sources for the mother version being the local choice.

You can’t win. There was a flurry of complaints earlier this month in Cumberland (which has been divided off from Westmorland once again) where railway announcers were pronouncing the second syllable of Aspatria pat, whereas local people preferred pate. It’s a funny place-name, which many visitors assume to have an element from the Latin patria. The real origin is as the ash (tree) of Patrick. Northern Rail is in a difficult position, because, as the mayor of Aspatria rightly points out, the traditional local pronunciation of the town’s name is Spee-atree.If they announced that at Carlisle station, half the travellers wouldn’t know where they meant.

The railway company re-recorded 34 station names last year, including Redcar. That was one of the names triumphantly read out by Boris Johnson after the general election in 2019. He was criticised by some for pronouncing the second syllable like a motor car. I heard on the train recently a pronunciation making it more like cur.  Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, is now announced as slough-wait. There is no doubt Langwathby is to be pronounced lan-ganby and if Northern Rail announcers persevere with that, they deserve a year’s supply of Cumberland sausages.