THE HOVIS AD DECONSTRUCTED

You’re all sat there unaware that in the next few minutes,

You are going to have your minds blown.

You’ve just listened to the Hovis ad from 1973 –

Which a few years ago was voted the nation’s favourite-ever advert.

It was once the inspiration for Chelsea football fans to wear a flat cap

And carry an uncut Hovis loaf with them whenever visiting northern football grounds

They took great delight at throwing them at rival fans

 Well, I’m now going to reveal to you something that will surprise you…

And it’s not that I was the boy on the bike…

But it is going to make you question your powers of perception.

The Pavlovian slaver brought about through the influence of advertising

Whenever you see that ad…hear that music…

You think North of England…admit it, you do, don’t you?

Well, you’re about to see that it’s all been a hollow sham.

I’m going to deconstruct the advert line by line and we’ll see where it takes us

“Last stop on round would be old Ma Peggotty’s place.”

Before I start there is a grammatical point to be made here…the phrase “Last stop on round” is missing a definite article there, now anyone speaking in northern vernacular would likely say “Last stop on’t round” – it might be the deftest of sounds but when it is missing it jars to a northern listener. Derek Jacobi, much as I love him in Last Tango in Halifax, is a frequent offender. I guess no one dare say to him… “actually you say it like this, Sir Derek.”

And just to prove that even northern vernacular has grammatical rules…I have never heard a northerner saying… “on t’internet” (except Peter Kay for some inexplicable reason). Because when that tiny definite article precedes a noun beginning with a vowel (or the silent letter ‘h’)…the correct pronunciation would be “on th’internet”. An example of this would be “After th’accident, he was taken to th’ospital in th’air ambulance.”

Where was I oh yes, I was doing th’ovis deconstruction…

“Last stop on round would be old Ma Peggoty’s place.”

The voiceover is done by an actor called Howard Lang,

He was more famous for playing Captain Baines in The Onedin Line.

In that programme he played a gnarled old west country sea captain…

And he uses the exact same voice for this ad…that of a west country sea captain

Who has apparently jacked in his maritime career and taken to baking bread

in…I don’t know…Accrington, perhaps.

“Old Ma Peggotty”

Now Peggotty is a name that doesn’t seem to have any history as a surname

(Yes, there are a few on Facebook…but I suspect these have been appropriated).

It was a name made up by Charles Dickens

(just like Chuzzlewit, Pecksniff and Pumblechuck

So, Dickens made a name up for a family who lived in Great Yarmouth

Almost the furthest east you can go in Great Britain…so not really northern.

“Twas like taking bread to the top of the world.”

Well, I bet it was, the poor lad has set off from his supposedly northern bakery

And cycled all the way down to where Old Ma Peggotty lived

Which was Gold Hill…Shaftesbury…in Dorset where they filmed it.

This poor lad cycles from Lancashire…on a bicycle

And bear in mind this was before the M6 and M5 were built

Not that he could use them anyway…him being on a bicycle…

But it does beg the question why Old Ma Peggotty

Can’t get her bread delivered from a baker in Shaftesbury, Dorset

You know…in the south of England

And the other thing about it is, as he’s pushing his bike up Gold Hill

All the houses have thatched rooves…

I mean come on; what northern town has thatched rooves?

“’Twas a grand ride back though”

“’Twas!” When has any northerner ever said the word “’Twas”?

“I knew ‘baker would have the kettle on and hot doorsteps of Hovis waiting. ‘There’s wheatgerm in that loaf, he’d say, get it inside you, boy, and you’ll be going up the hill as fast as you come down’.” 

The boy on the bike was Carl Barlow and he was born in Stratford, East London,

Well within the sound of Bow Bells…definitely more Eastender than a Corrie boy.

Ah, now we get the serious bit of the advert…

“Hovis still has many times more wheatgerm than ordinary bread. It’s as good for you today as it’s always been.”

Well, we’ve all had a laugh at the funny accents…but this bit is serious and needs to be delivered in Received Pronunciation; the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and the most prestigious form of spoken British English.

It has most in common with the accents of London, Oxford and Cambridge…and the BBC

I’ll leave that there…when such a serious point is being made…

We don’t want it to be spoken in those comedic parochial tones.

So that’s dealt with the language…what about the music?

Well, many of you will recognise it as the Largo from the New World Symphony…

Which was composed by Dvorak…who was Czech…

That’s pretty southern in my book.

So, let’s have a recap of what we’ve got…

Howard Lang’s voiceover – southern

Peggotty name – southern

Dorset location – southern

Thatched rooves – southern

‘Twas – southern

Boy on the bike – southern

Posh RP important bit – southern

Music from the Czech republic – southern

Is there anything at all northern in this ad, I ask?

Well, yes, there are two exceptions…one is the brass band

Which is the Ashington Colliery Band from Northumberland

And the other is the director…yes, the director of this ad was

From the north of England…South Shields in County Durham as it happens.

I’ve not heard of him…his name is Ridley Scott…

And let me say, Ridley Scott, whoever you are

That almost everything in your ad is Alien to the north of England.

So, after that deconstruction of the nation’s favourite ad

You’ve got to ask yourself why for at least 50 years

You ever thought it represented the north of England in any way?

Just to press home how stereotypes of northern England

Shouldn’t to be taken too seriously, I must tell you

That for the first 50 years of my life I lived on both sides of the Pennines

and in all my time there, I never once saw a whippet race…

That was until I moved down here…to Cornwall.

The only whippet race I ever saw was at Lizard village…

Britain’s most southerly point.

©graylightfoot