大象传媒

In August 2005, the North West Leicestershire MP David Taylor complained in the House of Commons that there weren't enough local accents on the airwaves.

So as part of the Voices project, we thought we'd hand the headlines over to Mick Peat who presents 大象传媒 Radio Derby's Folkwaves programme and is proud to be Ripley born-and-bread.

Mick read the 大象传媒 Radio Derby news headlines in a broad Derbyshire accent - and you can hear the results by clicking on the link in the right-hand panel.

He said: "I'm very proud of my dialect. Up north and down south they often get the Derbyshire accent mixed up with the Yorkshire accent but in fact they're very different.

"I've lost quite a lot of my dialect over the years. We talked very broad when I was young but at school we were always told to drop it. They tried to teach us to speak the Queen's English!"

Mick, who still lives close to Ripley, is in no doubt that local accents are a thing to be cherished.

He said: "Dialects put a rubber stamp on where you come from and I think they're terrific. Look at the Geordie accent - it's beautiful! And the Scottish accent too."

And Mick remembers fondly a time when there were subtle differences in the Derbyshire dialect as you went around the county.

He explained: "One of the last places in our county to have a very strong accent was Heage - which they used to pronounce HAGE!

"You could tell people came from Heage from the dialect - and of course in those days people didn't travel as much as they do now."