WAS ALF TUPPER A COCKNEY?

stevezodiac · Post by **stevezodiac** » 03 May 2007, 21:46

Further to my reply in another forum I would like to ask the forum in general where they thought Alf Tupper came from when they read Tough of the Track as a kid. As a Londoner who's dad was a welder in the docks it was natural for me to assume he was a Cockney but I used to think the same of Andy Capp only to find out he was from Hartlepool. Bloomin' Ada sounds like a very cockney expression although I used to hear people say Bleedin' Ada around my area (Deptford/Rotherhithe).

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 03 May 2007, 23:45

stevezodiac wrote:Further to my reply in another forum I would like to ask the forum in general where they thought Alf Tupper came from when they read Tough of the Track as a kid. As a Londoner who's dad was a welder in the docks it was natural for me to assume he was a Cockney but I used to think the same of Andy Capp only to find out he was from Hartlepool. Bloomin' Ada sounds like a very cockney expression although I used to hear people say Bleedin' Ada around my area (Deptford/Rotherhithe).

I always thought his adventures were based up north for some reason. I could be wrong.

Lew

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 04 May 2007, 05:52

Lew Stringer wrote:
stevezodiac wrote:Further to my reply in another forum I would like to ask the forum in general where they thought Alf Tupper came from when they read Tough of the Track as a kid. As a Londoner who's dad was a welder in the docks it was natural for me to assume he was a Cockney but I used to think the same of Andy Capp only to find out he was from Hartlepool. Bloomin' Ada sounds like a very cockney expression although I used to hear people say Bleedin' Ada around my area (Deptford/Rotherhithe).

I always thought his adventures were based up north for some reason. I could be wrong.

Lew

His location was always kept deliberatley vague so that kids reading him could identify with this working class hero and put their own idea of his location on him. Being brought up in the wilds of DCT-land, I always figured him as being from North of London, but South of York (my English geography was never that great!

). Look at the names of the towns used in the stories. Brassingford, Greystoke and there are others, but would need to have a proper delve to add the names in. Sounds like a job for Shawfield as his excellent Tough Of The Track website has a lot of good stuff on it.

HighAndMighty · Post by **HighAndMighty** » 04 May 2007, 11:14

I placed him somewhere between Derbyshire and North Yorkshire- I'm sure I remember a cross-peak race where Alf injured his ankle on the rocks but still won the race....

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 04 May 2007, 11:27

Nice Alf Tupper site here:

http://toughofthetrack.net/

I think colocool is correct in that his location was vague so all readers could identify with him. That said, although I live in the Midlands I still felt the Tupper stories were set up North, - Lancashire to be more specific.

I have no evidence to support this. I can only assume that some of the locations in the strip reminded me of the landscape I'd see from the train window on childhood holidays to Blackpool! Daft as that really.

Lew

Kremmen · Post by **Kremmen** » 04 May 2007, 12:11

FWIW, Alf Tupper always seemed to me to be a cockney, based on some of his expresiions.

stevezodiac · Post by **stevezodiac** » 04 May 2007, 21:17

I think we are entitled to at least one cockney character as everyone seemed to have come from up north. Having said that I also presumed Captain Hurricane was a cockney too. Maybe DC Thomson could issue an encyclopaedia of their characters giving their home towns. I'd put Dirty Dick in a small town like Northampton, Banana Bunch in Portsmouth? Colonel Blink in somewhere like Slough. Bash Street Kids have to be in the NE like Middlesborough. Dennis would live in Essex I think. Minnie in Bristol.

Captain Storm · Post by **Captain Storm** » 04 May 2007, 21:53

"Bloomin' Ada" would suggest Cockney and I believe Captain Hurricane was decidedly upper-crust 'cept when in a raging fury

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 04 May 2007, 23:53

stevezodiac wrote:I think we are entitled to at least one cockney character as everyone seemed to have come from up north.

Surely many of the Fleetway characters lived in London? (Charlie Peace, Janus Stark, to name but two.)

As for DC Thomson, I'm guessing that as far as the company bosses were concerned, most of their characters were Scots.

Lew

steelclaw · Post by **steelclaw** » 05 May 2007, 11:09

He must have come from up North he ate Fish & Chips everyday

Brendan McGuire · Post by **Brendan McGuire** » 07 May 2007, 19:12

steelclaw wrote:He must have come from up North he ate Fish & Chips everyday

*GASP!* You - you mean no whelks or jellied eels Guvnor? Gawd luvaduck! Fish an' chips ain't no bleedin' basis for an athletic career! (Raises pint of Whitbread) The Queen Muvver, Gawd bless 'er.

stevezodiac · Post by **stevezodiac** » 07 May 2007, 19:27

Fish and chips are eaten in London believe it or not although I have had to ration my pie, mash and liquor consumption to once a month due to expanding girth. Talking of Charlie Peace I visited Scotland Yard's Black Museum a few years ago and saw his violin case and special folding ladder - i was tempted to touch the ladder but was under strict instructions not to. Yes I remember Rotherhithe being mentioned in a Charlie Peace strip which is where I and my forebears come from.

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 08 May 2007, 11:27

I don't think we can say that Alf Tupper was a Cockney on the evidence of a few phrases. In fact in the original written stories in 'Rover', even those devoted to his early years, there is no mention of a London connection. I think Alf was given to using exclamations like 'Bloomin Ada!' simply because he was patently working class and in the 1950's when most of the stories were written the most recognisable patois of the working classes, thanks to films etc was Cockney. It was a sort of universal language of the working class with familiar slang terms and oaths that were recognisable throughout the length and breadth of Britain.
In fact, even in the 1960's, when 'Steptoe & Son' could be Londoners to their hearts content 'The Likely Lads', set in my kneck of the woods in Geordieland, hardly had a word of Geordie in it for fear the population at large might find it indecipherable. It was still brilliant though!
For what it's worth I always imagined that Alf Tupper was from an area of 'dark, satanic mills' somewhere north of Watford.

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 08 May 2007, 13:59

Kashgar wrote:I don't think we can say that Alf Tupper was a Cockney on the evidence of a few phrases. In fact in the original written stories in 'Rover', even those devoted to his early years, there is no mention of a London connection. I think Alf was given to using exclamations like 'Bloomin Ada!' simply because he was patently working class and in the 1950's when most of the stories were written the most recognisable patois of the working classes, thanks to films etc was Cockney. It was a sort of universal language of the working class with familiar slang terms and oaths that were recognisable throughout the length and breadth of Britain.
In fact, even in the 1960's, when 'Steptoe & Son' could be Londoners to their hearts content 'The Likely Lads', set in my kneck of the woods in Geordieland, hardly had a word of Geordie in it for fear the population at large might find it indecipherable. It was still brilliant though!
For what it's worth I always imagined that Alf Tupper was from an area of 'dark, satanic mills' somewhere north of Watford.

That'll be Leeds then!

Sorry. just couldn't resist the cheap laugh!

stevezodiac · Post by **stevezodiac** » 08 May 2007, 20:30

I adored the Likely Lads and have every episode in dvd box set. But they did use NE phrases like starting a sentence with Eeee! or saying "Though Butt". Another aspect of the Tough of the Track is, of course, the railway arch where he worked. We have hundreds of these arches across London and my nan worked in one for a while. So my dad was a welder, his mum worked in a railway arch, we all have eaten fish and chips at some time in our lives and have used the phrase Bloomin' Ada. So its settled, Alf was a cockney. Thank gawd for that. (Well he always will be to me).

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