Sir, – I read with interest Joe Willis' article (Dales Diary, Weekend Times, April 10) about how he is proud that his children are perfecting a Dales "twang" and rightly so.

As someone who was brought up in Leyburn but who has been a boomerang adult, leaving and returning to Wensleydale quite a few times (due to postings with the army), having a Dales accent has not, sadly, always been a good thing, in my experience.

As a young eighteen year old joining the army back in the early 1980s, I was forced to severely tone down my Dales accent. I found that people couldn't understand me and I was teased mercifully which sometimes bordered on outright bullying. I was never taken seriously and was often derided and told to "talk properly" by my military superiors.

Of course, this really says more about other people's intolerance to accents at that time, but nevertheless, I did slowly start to lose my Dales accent in order to fit in. Now that I am older, I am less inclined to bother about what people think about my accent, which is still easily detected as a north country one. It is possible that we are, as a nation, more tolerant of regional accents these days. Although I have found, even in 2015 that people do still judge you on your accent at times.

I do hope the Dales accent is kept alive. It's wonderful to catch glimpses of it now and then when I am in Wensleydale visiting friends and family. But I would say to anyone leaving the Dales, be prepared to have to tone it down when you are out in the big, wide world.

HELEN KEMP

Catterick Garrison