I CAUGHT one of the kids using the word “the” during a conversation without good reason the other day, sorry, t’other day.

There are many things to worry about in life as a person, a man, a husband, a parent etc, but one of the more surprising concerns that popped into my head recently was the fear that the children would grow up without identifiable accents. All that time watching and listening to American television shows and music will mean they never develop a Yorkshire twang, let alone an accent that those with a good ear can pin down to a specific Dales town or village.

It can be done. The accent of someone brought up in Hawes is subtly different to that of someone from down the road in Bainbridge and Askrigg.

Travelling down the dale, the accents becomes less broad. Get to Northallerton or Ripon and you may as well be in Birmingham or Cardiff for all the similarities the voices have with those you heard at the start of your journey.

Travelling abroad, it was always a great comfort for people to recognise you were certainly northern, probably from Yorkshire and possibly not Leeds or Sheffield.

“You’re from Wensleydale? Where the cheese comes from?” they would usually say.

“No, from Wensleydale where President Wensleydale from Rastamouse comes from,” I would reply.

Do you think they named him after the cheese because mice like cheese? Did everyone except me already know that?

Anyhow, I’d like the kids to have nice, clear Dales accents and am always delighted when they form friendships with up dales children, even if it means longer distances to collect from sleepovers and increases the chances of them becoming hooked on darts.

With all this on my mind, I walked in to the kitchen recently to find a teenager – one of ours, not one who had just walked in off the street – hanging the youngest boy upside down by his ankles and dangling his head in a plate of toast and margarine left behind by the toddler.

“What are you doing? I asked, when on reflection it was perfectly obvious.

“Nowt fatha,” the youngest said as he wiped Flora from his eyebrow. So that’s what pride feels like.