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A Luke Horton mural at Sheffield Wednesday\u2019s Hillsborough stadium. Photo: Ed Sykes\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n\u201cGreat nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art,\u201d wrote the art critic John Ruskin in 1885. \u201cNot one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.\u201d Ruskin wrote those words in his book St. Mark\u2019s Rest, a history of the Italian city of Venice. Little did he know that a century and a half later, these same lines would be used to examine something even more visually spectacular than the City of Canals: vernacular Sheffield tat.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, 19 September, well-known Sheffield street artist and illustrator Luke Horton is to host a launch night for his new collection at The Mowbray in Neepsend. \u201cOw we speak\u201d promises new artworks, thought-provoking interactions and good company. On the right of the website, next to a caricatured image of a faceless man with a ginger beard and baseball cap, are the words \u201cwe\u2019ll av a reyt neyt\u201d.<\/p>\n
By now, many Sheffielders will be familiar with Horton\u2019s work \u2014 some of us may even be over familiar with it. This is hardly Horton\u2019s fault, who is the victim of his own popularity. As well as prints and cards, his work appears on several murals, trams, and even bins across the city. Plus, he\u2019s not exactly operating alone. His signature artistic style is just one example of the phenomenon of Sheffield slang art.<\/p>\n
Walk into any gift shop anywhere in the city and you\u2019re likely to be cornered by dozens of prints and greeting cards with phrases like \u201cBe Reyt\u201d, \u201cEy Up\u201d, \u201cSi Thi\u201d and \u201cDo it thissen\u201d on them. So many places stock this type of art now that logic dictates it must be popular \u2014 surely there\u2019s no supply without demand? But so ubiquitous have \u201cTha Knows\u201d and \u201cMardy Bum\u201d posters become that a backlash threatens. Many Sheffielders have slang art in their crosshairs.<\/p>\n
A Luke Horton mural at Sheffield Wednesday\u2019s Hillsborough stadium. Photo: Ed Sykes\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n
Listen: it is all too possible that I am not the best person to write this story. I wasn\u2019t born and bred in Sheffield. Even worse \u2014 I hail from \u201cthe place which must not be named\u201d (whisper it: Lancashire). While we have our own ways of speaking over there, as fellow northerners I\u2019ve always assumed as easy kinship between our peoples. Nevertheless, even after almost a decade here, there are several things I still find weird about the way you lot speak. For example, why on earth do you say \u201cwhile\u201d when you really mean \u201cuntil\u201d (\u201cnine while five\u201d is not an intelligible phrase). And why do people around here also call a meal you make at home to take to work a \u201cpack up\u201d, and call their grandmothers \u201cnanans\u201d when \u201cnan\u201d will do?<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there are enough similarities between the way I as a Lancastrian (Bolton, if you\u2019re interested) and you as Sheffielders talk, for me to have some skin in this game as well. Much of the slang art out there seems to include phrases which aren\u2019t necessarily Sheffield or South Yorkshire but are in fact generically northern. Indeed, several of Luke Horton\u2019s prints include lines directly lifted from the routine of Boltonian stand up Peter Kay (\u201cturn big light off\u201d being just one example).<\/p>\n
So is this an important attempt to perpetuate dialect in an age when local accents are in danger of dying out, or else harmless nostalgia that does nothing more than put a smile on people\u2019s faces? Is it something more sinister, an attempt to piggyback on working class culture and the propagation of a fake kind of Sheffield? Or \u2014 a crucial fourth option \u2014 is it just really annoying?<\/p>\n
I first became aware of the backlash against Sheffield slang art when doom-scrolling through the social network Reddit. \u201cWorst I\u2019ve seen yet,\u201d said one poster above a photo of a print on which dozens of northern phrases were emblazoned. Old favourites \u201cNa\u2019 then\u201d and \u201cAy Up\u201d get a mention as do the lesser known \u201cfancy a brew\u201d and \u201cwas tha born in a barn\u201d. The comments below don\u2019t make pleasant reading for the unnamed artist. \u201cLike a Sheffield version of Live, Laugh, Love,\u201d was how one person summed it up. \u201cSoon to be hung in an Airbnb living room,\u201d writes another.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe worst I\u2019ve seen yet\u201d. Photo: The Yorkshire Print Company.<\/p>\n
On another post about a print full of Yorkshire phrases while driving (\u201cbet thi nar its a woman\u201d being one gratuitously sexist example) people are even less complimentary. \u201cThere needs to be a public burning of this shite,\u201d writes one particularly angry commenter. Among the anger there are a few more measured voices, but these tend to get drowned out by the crowd. \u201cI actually really like it,\u201d says one. \u201cReminds me of listening to my grandad talking.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the most outspoken voices on slang art on Reddit is Ian Parr, or Devolute as he\u2019s known on the social network. Like me, Ian is an outsider \u2014 he\u2019s originally from Merseyside but has lived in Sheffield for 20 years. His background is in marketing and he acknowledges that Luke Horton has been incredibly successful at selling himself. \u201cI find it absolutely fascinating how some things get popular,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes it is because they are good and sometimes it is because of something else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ian has some theories as to what that something else might be. His main one is nostalgia: people wanting to be reminded of \u201cthat thing we used to do\u201d for the same reason that most of the films in cinemas are Marvel and Star Wars, and why so many TV ads have 90s songs on them. Instead of looking for something new to represent our city, we are always stuck with the same old cultural references. \u201cThat stuff is still good but there is so much more in Sheffield than steel and Hendo\u2019s, he says. \u201cIt feels like we are stuck in a rut.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ian thinks there is a world of difference between the worst slang art and people like Pete McKee, whose mural \u2018The Snog\u2019 on the wall of Fagan\u2019s pub on Broad Lane is probably one of Sheffield\u2019s most loved pieces of street art. But he still thinks the overemphasis of certain aspects of the city can be reductive. \u201cWhen I was looking to buy a house in Sheffield there was a Pete McKee in every house I looked at,\u201d he says. \u201cObviously Sheffield is a town with character and an accent but it doesn’t seem very Sheffield to lay it on so thick.\u201d But if no one likes it, then why on earth does it sell?\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Snog\u201d (real name Frank and Joy) at Fagan\u2019s. Photo: Pete McKee.<\/p>\n
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