Jairmany calling: can you place Lord Haw-Haw’s accent?

It’s easy enough to find broadcasts by William Joyce, “Lord Haw-Haw”, on the web and to the modern ear they sound just about as weird and distant as any other voices of that generation. But to wartime listeners his voice became something of an obsession, not just for the inept propaganda, which was widely mocked and parodied, but for his spookily mannered pronunciation.

At first, people took him more or less at face value, as some renegade toff. The nickname came from Jonah Barrington, radio critic of the Daily Express, who took the credit for “his progress from a hack Nazi announcer to a national clown and an international buffoon”.

In December 1939, Harold Hobson, later drama critic for The Sunday Times and the first to acknowledge the genius of Harold Pinter, wrote to The Times challenging the BBC to respond to Haw-Haw’s broadcasts, and dropping in a priceless description of his accent:

The dear fellow is already a figure of national popularity. He is the hero of a revue; he is the subject of a well-known song; that ineffable voice of his, by Cholmondeley-Plantagenet out of Christ Church, has an irresistible fascination.

But this was England, where, as we know, as soon as you open your mouth someone hates you. The first challenge to Hobson came from the novelist Rose Macaulay, who had worked in the propaganda Department of the War Office in the First War and later wrote one of the immortal first lines in literature*. She wasn’t having any of this toff stuff:

Mr Hobson repeats the curious popular legend about Lord Haw-Haw's voice 'being aristocratic, upper class, "haw-haw," and so forth. What is this based on? Lord Haw-Haw speaks excellent English, but surely not "Cholmondeley Plantagenet out of Christ Church." He seems to have a slight provincial accent (Manchester ?) and to commit such solecisms as accenting the second syllable of "comment." I should not call it "public school".

Apres her, the deluge, all sorts of theories. The prize went to Lady Cynthia Colville:

[She] writes to "welcome Miss Macaulay's support of the view I have always held regarding the origin of Lord Haw-Haw's intonation and accent. His nickname has lent colour to the theory that a priggish academic background in England has helped to mould his endearing utterances, but, without claiming the ‘absolute pitch’ that inspired Mr. Shaw's Higgins in his deft diagnosis of Pygmalion's upbringing, I have never doubted but that Lord Haw-Haw’s education in the English tongue has been conditioned by residence overseas. I am never quite sure what an Oxford accent is like, but I am entirely certain that it is not his. His ‘wah’ for ‘war’ is as transatlantic as his nasal intonation, and I should place Chicago high among the probable influences that have produced his now famous, but hardly golden, voice."

Joyce was in fact born in Brooklyn, New York. He had an English protestant mother and an Irish Catholic father, and the family returned to Ireland when he was a child. He was schooled by the Jesuits until he was 16, then, after a dust-up with the IRA, was sent to King’s College School, Wimbledon. He picked up his enthusiasm for fascism while at Birkbeck College, London. At intervals, he visited relatives in Merseyside. No wonder his accent was a hybrid, even before the bizarre overlay of BBC/Oxford vowels – Spenish for Spanish – and a self-consciously theatrical delivery. Could you have pinned him down?

Joyce was captured in May 1945, and brought back for trial as a traitor and hanged by Albert Pierrepoint, after an unsuccessful appeal.

* "Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass. The Towers of Trebizond, 1956

Comments

[B Heaphy]

As a child we listend to Haw Haw on the radio in Willesden Green London, I still remember Germany calling, Germany calling, for a short time he lived in Chapter road Willesden Green, he broadcast from Germany one night saying tonight they will bomb the rats of Chapter Road. I can still mimic his high nassel sound......

[David Boothroyd]

One other characteristic of William Joyce was that he got in fights. In one of them he acquired a deep razor slash to the side of his face, and another saw his nose broken. It seems his nose was never properly repaired afterwards, which explains his very nasal intonation.

It's doubtful his birth in New York had anything to do with it bearing in mind the short amount of time the family was there before returning to Galway.

[Rose Wild]

Thanks for that Roger. I couldn't figure out from The Times coverage when he was identified as Joyce. It's clear from the report of the arrest - see link above - that the soldier who caught him knew his real name

[Roger Tidy]

In fact, Joyce was one of many announcers broadcasting to Britain from the German Radio, and at least two other announcers have been named as the 'original' Lord Haw-Haw, namely Norman Baillie-Stuart ( a former soldier who had been jailed in the 1930s for selling military secrets to Germany) and Wolf Mittler, a German who did indeed speak with an Oxbridge accent.

At the BBC Monitoring Service, Joyce was originally described by staff as 'Sinister Sam' on account of the chilling nature of his voice.

Eventually, the Germans realised they had a star performer in Joyce and started announcing him as Lord Haw-Haw. At some point during the war, Joyce came clean to his listeners about his true identity, after which he was announced as 'William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw'.

His wife also worked for the German Radio and was announced as 'Lady Haw-Haw'.