Thepworth to be exact.

Ok, that’s enough of that nonsense. Yorkshire people take a defiant pride in their dialect and there’s a whole industry supporting the way they, or some of them, speak. No one has told the lady announcer at Wakefield train station, a city with two stations would you believe, as she spoke with the refined tones of a radio three announcer introducing a concert of Brahms. Was it only me that found it odd? The big black guy talking in an incomprehensible African dialect could be heard by almost anyone on the platform and be sure that his every word was private to him and his caller on his mobile. There was not a word in there that anyone could hazard a guess at.

A parallel is the voice mail on anyone with a phone with Giff Gaff who I suspect are a Yorkshire company, as the voicemail voice sounds like a hill farmer from Borrowdale on borrowed time. Gritty northern tones indicating thrift perhaps.

We all understand each other, and it really would be dull if we all spoke with no dialect accent, indeed I’m told that I speak with the edge of northern twang that started in childhood. There was a time when I was very young at infant school when my parents had some trouble understanding me after a week in my new skuel, and my twang probably emanates from then. But in Yorkshire they take it to another level, and I do take exception to when it appears on posters exhorting people to put their litter into a bin. Gerrit int bin! The poster reads, it’s enough for me to drop litter next to the bin. Yuk!

So I was off to Wakefield on a much maligned Northern Train service from Elsecar. Clean trains, modern rolling stock, made a great change after my less than comfortable trip on the Cross Country train from Cheltenham.

Into Wakefield Kirkgate and then a short signposted walk to the Hepworth Art Gallery. A modern glass and metal place with a permanent display of Barbara Hepworth sculptures and drawings. Lovely bright cold day and to start with I got myself a coffee in the deserted cafe. Admission to the gallery for me was a mere fiver as they were in a change over day preparing some new exhibition for the next day. Didn’t really bother me, I was there for Barbara.

Despite Hepworth’s early years connection with Wakefield, she lived there with her family where her father became the borough surveyor, she left after studying at Leeds to go to the Royal College and then to spend much of her time well away from grimy Yorkshire to Cornwall, where she gained much of her inspiration from the views of the sea and the rocks and moorland. So very little Yorkshire connection apart from early schooling. If she ever had a Yorkshire accent it soon disappeared and hearing her on an old you tube video, it sounds more like she went to Cheltenham Ladies College than Wakefield Grammar School. She might even have qualified to be a train announcer at either of the Wakefield railway stations

The work in the Wakefield gallery is brilliant and the display very well thought out, though a small gripe here: their choice of wall colour here and there is a little strange to me. The cafe had a coffee colour on the walls and one of the galleries an odd yellow. Did nothing for me, they should stick to plain white, if there is such a thing these days

There isn’t just Hepworth to see here, other artists get a look in too. Ben Nicholson who was in Hepworths circle in Cornwall has drawings there. Back to the cafe for a spot of lunch before taking in the shop. Two cards were enough for me. Then after a big walk around a sunlit Wakefield with its cathedral in the centre and some super looking old Victorian buildings and then the train back to Elsecar. Train on time, good day all round, helped by weather that would not have been out of place in California.