Talk:Blackbury

The local airport to Blackbury/Grimethorpe/Newtown should, from inference, be a short distance to travel away from the town centre and should be big and important enough to accept Concorde aircraft.

Outside London, only one other British regional airport has hosted Concorde, and that's Manchester, which fits the inferred setting for the Maxwell/Nome books. --AgProv 15:11, 22 October 2007 (CEST)

Rosbury and Stroughbury, are in the south though, aren't they? --Old Dickens 17:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

As are Bury St Edmonds, Aylesbury, Salisbury... but the weight of circumstancial evidence (the Blackbury conurbation being overshadowed by the Pendle-like bulk of Blackdown Hill and the fact there aren't really any serious hills worth considering in the South of England) does tend to suggest a Lancashire setting...--AgProv 21:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, White Horse Hill (site of the real version of Tiffany Aching's beloved landmark rises 900 feet as does the Wrekin, plus a lot of the Chilterns, Berkshire Downs, South Downs and other real examples of The Chalk, while not high, are easily steep enough to place an air-raid spotting station on--User:Britarse

Nobody makes Aylesbury jam, though. --Old Dickens 21:24, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Clever... TP has referred, in the context of Monstrous Regiment, to the traditional English folksong ("occasion for making mucky jokes about carryings-on", as Granny Weatherwax might say) which concerns a young lady on her way to Maidenhead, who is charmed into surrendering her Aylesbury to a plausible soldier boy. So "making Aylesbury Jam" might be another of those mettafor-thingies...

The bit about there being no decent hills in the South of England is the chauvanism of a Welsh person, currently resident in East Manchester close to the Pennines, who has previously spent eleven years living in East Anglia. Whatever the virtues of Norfolk people, and there are many, they are innocent of any serious folds or kinks in the landscape. (Pretty Corner in Sheringham is about the only exception to the "Norfolk is flat" general principle).--AgProv 11:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

On pronunciation and on northern and southern Buries

It gets better....

The placename Bury is in the main pronounced Berry by most English people, including those living in Bury St Edmonds, in Suffolk. Who locally shorten their place name simply to Bury, which can cause disorientation to visitors from Bury, Lancashire. It has not been unknown for a Lancashire man to request a ticket to Bury from Ipswich rail station and be sold a tricket for what, to him, is entirely the wrong bloody Bury. This has caused raised eyebrows from ticket inspectors if the ticket is not looked at until, say, Sheffield, when it is well out of area for a local trip to Bury (St Edmonds).

"If I'd wanted ticket t'Bury Bloody Saint Edmonds, I'd have said so, t't' lass behind counter at Ipswich railway station! In't it obvious that if a man says Bury to lass in t'rail station, he means Bury, Lancashire?"

"Not in Ipswich, it isn't, sir."

Fortunately the ticket inspector was a human being with lots of common sense, who was able to sell the correct ticket upgrade. This was the early 1980's, mind you...

People from Bury, Lancs, pronounce their home town as Burrry, to rhyme with slurry, or "hurry". --AgProv 15:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)