Ow at youth: Art celebrating local dialect on show

Black over Bill's mother's refers to dark clouds on the horizon heralding rain

Channock, puthery, franked and widow's memory may not mean much to people from outside north Staffordshire.

But the words all appear on a piece of art, entitled Black Over Bill's Mother's, that will feature in a exhibition in Newcastle-under-Lyme next month.

Ceramist William Boyce said he was inspired to make the piece celebrating the local vernacular after working at a day centre where "women would use these words I had no idea what they meant"

"Widow's memory means sausage, and it would be shouted every time we had sausages on the menu at the Bentilee centre," he said.

One piece of work depicts reports of a UFO sighting over Bentilee

The Macclesfield-based artist retired from social work in 2018, and returned to his love of pottery and the Potteries.

"I've always had a love of the dialect there," he said.

"The women I worked with, many of whom would have been factory girls, would talk about their husbands being franked, or late for work," he explained.

"Lobby is there and it had to be because it's the staple diet of the Potteries.

"I've also got snappin, which is lunch, and puthery which is all about being uncomfortable in the weather," he explained.

"Shord ruck is a pile of shards and the dump from a pottery," he added.

Another work celebrates theatre productions the artist had seen at the New Vic Theatre

The exhibition, A Mirror to Nature, also features a piece about the UFO sighting over Bentilee.

In the 1960s dozens of people reported seeing a glowing red saucer-shaped object landing near a housing estate, which recently sparked a new play.

"I've done that flying saucer over Berryhill because my office used to look out across that view," he said.

Another is based on plays the artist had seen at the New Vic Theatre, where his work will be exhibited.

"My work is always reflective," he added, that's why I have used the title, because I'm always looking around me, I've done it since I was a small child. It's the artist in me."

A Mirror to Nature runs at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme from 8 September to 10 October.