Jane Dowle: Yes, we’re blunt talkers in Yorkshire, but perhaps we’ve got a right to be

The way James Naughtie introduced new Army boss General Sir Nicholas Houghton on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme made me think.

He described the Chief of the Defence Staff as “a Yorkshireman”. General Houghton is from Otley. I am sure he is a fine and distinguished soldier, but does being born in Otley bestow a person with special qualities? I doubt his provenance would have even been a footnote if he had come from Brighton say, or Norwich.

This set me wondering. What makes Yorkshire people so special that the county of their birth becomes a vital part of their identity?

I am proud that we have another prominent name to add to the national roll of honour. On the face of it though, knowing that the new man in charge is from round here is of no more relevance than learning that he enjoys a round of golf or cooks a mean Sunday lunch.

Wouldn’t it be more instructive to hear that General Houghton is a veteran of both the Troubles in the Northern Ireland and the Iraq War? Perhaps, but such a detail is superfluous when that handy Yorkshireman shorthand speaks for itself. And what does it say? That he’s a tough character? Brave? Direct? Demonstrates a dogged determination to get the job done?

He says himself that he will bring an “honest, straight-talking approach” to his role. 
And that’s another thing. Honest and straight-talking. Put that on the list.

Ask any random person in the street to jot down “typical characteristics of a Yorkshire person”, and you’re likely to find all of the above. Be warned though. Such an exercise is an open invitation to cliché, lazy assumptions and impromptu recitations of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch from 
Monty Python.

Frankly, there is a load of patronising tosh talked about what it means to come from Yorkshire. Having spent a good part of my life “down South” before seeing sense and moving back home a decade ago, I’ve heard it all.

I’ve been mistaken for the nanny at posh weddings. I’ve been informed that I’m “down-to-earth” and that I possess “a heart of gold” even when I’ve wanted to stab the stranger I’m talking to with a cocktail stick. And I’ve learned to bite my tongue when someone in London expresses shock and delight at the fact that Leeds/Bradford actually has an airport.

It is also seriously dangerous to generalise. How applicable those noble characteristics might be to every single one of the 5.3 million people who live here is a matter of debate. At more than 6,000 square miles, Yorkshire is the largest county in Britain. Not for nothing is it called the Broad Acres. And across those hills and dales and towns and cities, I bet you can’t find two people who totally agree about what makes Yorkshire so special. Argumentative. That’s another one for the list.

Yet, over the years, this idealised version of ourselves has been forged. We send out our ambassadors and they speak for us all. You see it in the conviction of the countless politicians our county has produced, from Harold Wilson to Betty Boothroyd to William Hague. You witness it whenever Egyptologist Joann Fletcher explains the mysteries of Tutankhamun in her uncompromising Barnsley vowels. And when football manager Mick McCarthy comments on a match, you recognise that he might sound gruff but he speaks from the heart.

I can’t think of another county in the whole of England and Wales which has a stronger identity of its own than Yorkshire. The furore over the Tour de France is a recent case in point. Why should we give up naming rights for the Grand Départ – allowing England to take all the glory – when the most famous cycling race in the world starts in Leeds? And when our very own tourist organisation Welcome to Yorkshire did so much of the work to bring it here? You can add a belief in fair play to that list of characteristics.

Ah yes, fair play. This is where 
the most serious point is to be made. On occasion, as Naughtie’s reverential radio moment proves, it suits the rest of the country to hold up Yorkshire as a paragon of all that is noble and good. And then the rest of the time we’re derided.

Our disputed claim to the Grand Départ reminds us keenly of this. Our accents are mocked, and our children grow up worrying that they don’t talk like the cast of The Only Way is Essex. Our museums are regarded as far-flung outposts in a cultural desert, held to ransom by decisions made in the far away capital. Our traditional industries are decimated and then our economic concerns for the future patronised by politicians who forget that we were once the workshop of the world.

Our worries about wi-fi speeds and affordable rural housing are dismissed as irrelevant in the national context. I bet you’re thinking this is the Yorkshire chip on my shoulder talking. You’re right. As the General says, we’re honest if nothing else.