Where is Little Totterington

Little Totterington (permanent population: 480) - is somewhere south of Birmingham, north of Borsetshire, and maybe between St Mary Mead where Miss Marple lived and Sunnydale where Buffy lives - the murder and vampire centers of the planet. The locals have a Mummerset accent, and live in a picture-postcard village (well, a collection of holiday photos, actually). And the pub serves free pretzels, and coffee with refills. So, not really in the England we all know (or know of) and might love.

There are no bare mountains nearby, it is not near the sea and not in the grain deserts of East Anglia. There are gentle-ish hills, varied agricultural land, some SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) in a remarkable undrained lowland peat bog to the east of the village. The Ham Hog rises fairly gently to the north of the village, although its NE face is steep. The massive city of Dearlcastle (pop. 2 million) is about 30 mins away on the motorway. Little Totterington is becoming a commuter and second-home village, much to the disgust of the older locals.

In answer to the question: Is it the sort of place where the locals play and watch cricket on a Sunday, or the sort of place where people go to a working man's social club, have a Sunday roast, watch the Sunday football game on satellite TV and get drunk worrying about whether their giro cheque arrives on the Monday, etc, the obvious answer is that it's more like the former!

However, this isn't the UK of this multiverse, so there's no way that people can be 'wrong'. Think of the country as 'Englande', to emphasize the point. So those in the USA, Canada and other countries who arn't familiar with the UK should not feel inhibited from adding interesting local colour. We need a bit of consistency to write together, but we want the location - like the Mage rules - to provide it without limiting good ideas.

Although some regional slang terms (for example from London's cockney rhyming slang) have slipped into common parlance, to most people rhyming slang is total nonsense, and it won't be Little Totterington's local accent! However, if it turns out that a group of the locals speak with a cockney accent - maybe their parents were evacuated to Little Totterington during the second world war and never returned to London? As for characters speaking with any accent, if you want to write speech that is very different from 'standard english', it would be a kindness to us all if you provided a translation! For example:

{Kevin}

The well-meaning questions rapidly switched Kevin’s attention from his injuries caused by the girl to the people around him.

‘That f***ing c**t!’ he swore, and then glared at them and asked, ‘You wiv ‘er? Nah, bleedin’ toffs and weirdos.’

Realising that one of the men was trying to feel his skull for swellings, he pushed him away and said, ‘Ger yer mitts off. An’ no bleedin’ rozzers, neither’ he growled at the woman who had suggested phoning the police as her words finally made sense. He stopped for a moment, and then spat vigorously, blood-stained phlegm landing on the man's brown corduroy jacket as well as the ground.

‘I’ll f**king kill Charlie, kill him for th’ f**ing bint.’

Startled by the explosion of anger from of the potential patient, they stood watching as the hulking man walked rapidly from the garden. They heard his feet striding away down the road and looked at each other in amazement.

[Rough translation of this celluloid East End (of London) accent: ‘What an unpleasant young lady. Are you friends of hers? I don’t think so because you look like members of the gentry and eccentrics. Please end your medical examination of me now. It is not necessary to call the police. When I see my friend Charles again, I will take him to task for suggesting a date with that young lady’]

Where is Little Totterington?