“Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art,” wrote the art critic John Ruskin in 1885. “Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.” Ruskin wrote those words in his book St. Mark’s 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.
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. “Ow we speak” 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 “we’ll av a reyt neyt”.
By now, many Sheffielders will be familiar with Horton’s work — some of us may even be over familiar with it. This is hardly Horton’s 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’s not exactly operating alone. His signature artistic style is just one example of the phenomenon of Sheffield slang art.
Walk into any gift shop anywhere in the city and you’re likely to be cornered by dozens of prints and greeting cards with phrases like “Be Reyt”, “Ey Up”, “Si Thi” and “Do it thissen” on them. So many places stock this type of art now that logic dictates it must be popular — surely there’s no supply without demand? But so ubiquitous have “Tha Knows” and “Mardy Bum” posters become that a backlash threatens. Many Sheffielders have slang art in their crosshairs.
Listen: it is all too possible that I am not the best person to write this story. I wasn’t born and bred in Sheffield. Even worse — I hail from “the place which must not be named” (whisper it: Lancashire). While we have our own ways of speaking over there, as fellow northerners I’ve 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 “while” when you really mean “until” (“nine while five” is not an intelligible phrase). And why do people around here also call a meal you make at home to take to work a “pack up”, and call their grandmothers “nanans” when “nan” will do?
Nevertheless, there are enough similarities between the way I as a Lancastrian (Bolton, if you’re 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’t necessarily Sheffield or South Yorkshire but are in fact generically northern. Indeed, several of Luke Horton’s prints include lines directly lifted from the routine of Boltonian stand up Peter Kay (“turn big light off” being just one example).
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’s faces? Is it something more sinister, an attempt to piggyback on working class culture and the propagation of a fake kind of Sheffield? Or — a crucial fourth option — is it just really annoying?
I first became aware of the backlash against Sheffield slang art when doom-scrolling through the social network Reddit. “Worst I’ve seen yet,” said one poster above a photo of a print on which dozens of northern phrases were emblazoned. Old favourites “Na’ then” and “Ay Up” get a mention as do the lesser known “fancy a brew” and “was tha born in a barn”. The comments below don’t make pleasant reading for the unnamed artist. “Like a Sheffield version of Live, Laugh, Love,” was how one person summed it up. “Soon to be hung in an Airbnb living room,” writes another.
On another post about a print full of Yorkshire phrases while driving (“bet thi nar its a woman” being one gratuitously sexist example) people are even less complimentary. “There needs to be a public burning of this shite,” 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. “I actually really like it,” says one. “Reminds me of listening to my grandad talking.”
One of the most outspoken voices on slang art on Reddit is Ian Parr, or Devolute as he’s known on the social network. Like me, Ian is an outsider — he’s 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. “I find it absolutely fascinating how some things get popular,” he says. “Sometimes it is because they are good and sometimes it is because of something else.”
Ian has some theories as to what that something else might be. His main one is nostalgia: people wanting to be reminded of “that thing we used to do” 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. “That stuff is still good but there is so much more in Sheffield than steel and Hendo’s, he says. “It feels like we are stuck in a rut.”
Ian thinks there is a world of difference between the worst slang art and people like Pete McKee, whose mural ‘The Snog’ on the wall of Fagan’s pub on Broad Lane is probably one of Sheffield’s most loved pieces of street art. But he still thinks the overemphasis of certain aspects of the city can be reductive. “When I was looking to buy a house in Sheffield there was a Pete McKee in every house I looked at,” he says. “Obviously Sheffield is a town with character and an accent but it doesn't seem very Sheffield to lay it on so thick.” But if no one likes it, then why on earth does it sell?
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