1976: Cockney Accents
Introduced by Melvyn Bragg, Word of Mouth traced the pattern of speech in Britain.
Cockney Lives OK focused on the familiar working-class accent synonymous with London's East End, charting the origin of some common cockney phrases and discussing some of the preconceptions about people who use them. With more and more East End residents relocating to the Essex commuter belt, and a new generation of multicultural, multilingual Londoners growing up in the area, what does the future hold for the Cockney dialect?
Aspects of this programme reflect the time when it was made.
Originally broadcast 12 August 1976.