At our wedding reception 15 years ago, my new father-in-law stood up, pint in hand, looked me squarely in the eye and welcomed me to the family – and to Yorkshire. He acknowledged my obvious defect – my London roots – before offering a note of comfort. “Don’t worry, Zahaan,” he said. “You’ll fit in here eventually. It’ll just take 50 years.” He added that if I’d been from Lancashire, there’d have been an extra zero on that 50.

Not long after the wedding, my wife and I relocated from our first place together in London to her beautiful home city of York. The quality of life and the glorious scenery on our doorstep have made the move more than worth it – but over the last decade and a half, it’s felt like the people of Yorkshire and I haven’t always spoken the same language.

My untrained southern ear quickly decided they all sounded like a cross between Sean Bean in Game of Thrones and former Spice Girl Mel B. It was, of course, a gross oversimplification – but for someone who had previously treated Watford as the edge of the known universe, it was the best I could do.

It wasn’t just how things sounded that caught me out – some words meant something else entirely up north. In the south, “kegs” are what you store beer in; in parts of Yorkshire, they are your trousers. When I was first offered “tea” up in Yorkshire, I imagined a hot drink, perhaps with a small plate of chocolate biscuits on the side. What actually........

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