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The Hovis Delusion
Those of us of a certain age will remember Ridley Scott's famous Hovis ad, which shows a flat-capped baker's boy pushing his bicycle up a steep hill to the accompaniment of a brass band playing the New World symphony, while the voice of the (now grown) boy reminisces fondly about the old days. But where is the ad set?
I've always mentally put it up north somewhere, and I'm not alone. In this article, written in 2006 to mark the ad's being chosen "the nation's favourite", the writer places it in "a northern town". And this evening, one of the pundits on Radio 4's Powers of Persuasion twice mentioned the north in general, as well as Yorkshire in particular.
I'd read somewhere that the ad was actually filmed in Shaftesbury, Dorset, but I never wavered from my belief that the fictional setting was the north. [EDIT: As Kalimac points out below, even the website for the hill in Shaftesbury where it was made mentions that the setting is "a northern industrial town".] After all, there's that brass band, and the voiceover is in a Yorkshire accent.
Except - it isn't. It's a West Country accent - quite possibly a Shaftesbury one. Listen for yourself:
I was only ten when the advert aired, and until they played it on the radio for the documentary this evening, I hadn't seen or heard it for years. Somehow, in the interim I grafted a northern accent onto my memory of it. That's a little odd, but what's more extraordinary is that the entire nation seems to have done the same thing. Even tonight, experts on the advert were talking about its northern setting, despite just having heard it.
Why? Is it the flat cap? (But people wore those in the south, too!) The brass band? That must have a lot to do with it.
Perhaps too there's a sense that a certain style of working-class nostalgia belongs properly to the north of England - or even that there is no southern working class at all?
I've always mentally put it up north somewhere, and I'm not alone. In this article, written in 2006 to mark the ad's being chosen "the nation's favourite", the writer places it in "a northern town". And this evening, one of the pundits on Radio 4's Powers of Persuasion twice mentioned the north in general, as well as Yorkshire in particular.
I'd read somewhere that the ad was actually filmed in Shaftesbury, Dorset, but I never wavered from my belief that the fictional setting was the north. [EDIT: As Kalimac points out below, even the website for the hill in Shaftesbury where it was made mentions that the setting is "a northern industrial town".] After all, there's that brass band, and the voiceover is in a Yorkshire accent.
Except - it isn't. It's a West Country accent - quite possibly a Shaftesbury one. Listen for yourself:
I was only ten when the advert aired, and until they played it on the radio for the documentary this evening, I hadn't seen or heard it for years. Somehow, in the interim I grafted a northern accent onto my memory of it. That's a little odd, but what's more extraordinary is that the entire nation seems to have done the same thing. Even tonight, experts on the advert were talking about its northern setting, despite just having heard it.
Why? Is it the flat cap? (But people wore those in the south, too!) The brass band? That must have a lot to do with it.
Perhaps too there's a sense that a certain style of working-class nostalgia belongs properly to the north of England - or even that there is no southern working class at all?
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The line after "'Twas a grand ride back, though" I also miss, and the one after that is "Doorsteps ... always ready," but I can't tell what's in between. This is after listening to it enough times that it only makes the incomprehension worse.
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Note the controversy in the parody's comments section about the setting of the original ad. One commenter knows that it was filmed in Dorset but says it's set in Yorkshire. Reply says: no it isn't. First commenter rebuts by stating it has a Yorkshire-accent voiceover. Reply says: no it doesn't.
So here's another case of someone so sure it's Yorkshire that they misremember the accent.
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* Of course, I would like this to be the title of my popular science bestseller, but I see that someone has beaten me to it with the Mandela Effect.
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Also, does the fact that Ridley Scott was a northerner have anything to do with it? Or do you have to be already partisan for the north to think of him that way?
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I'm pretty sure that the Hovis Delusion was well established long before Ridley Scott became a household name. Perhaps more relevant is that Hovis is a northern brand (though not Yorkshire).
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That my tourist impression is to associate both brass band arrangements of mournful classical music and really steep cobblestone streets with Yorkshire is probably not very significant. I've seen hilly town streets in southern England, but not as steep or as frequently as in Yorkshire, and the fact that this street has its own tourist website does suggest it's a bit unusual.
As for Ridley Scott, is he likely to have been well-known as a director before Alien (1979)?
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I'm old enough to to have seen it in 1973. Except, we were not allowed to watch ITV, so I don't know where my memory comes from. We were also not allowed to watch the Two Ronnies, so it's unlikely to be that I'm remembering. Anyway, it was quite a shock to watch it now and have my folk memory contradicted.
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