It started with a conversation about football; which, in this week of weeks, is scarcely surprising.

We were talking about a recent match and a penalty kick. 'You must have felt fairly safe with it,' I said to a younger colleague. 'All you had to do was hit it straight, because their goalie was a complete teacake'.

At this another colleague turned to us. His jaw dropped slowly. His eyes widened. He laughed.

'I've not heard that word used about somebody since I was at school,' he said.

The more you think about it, the more you realise how many words have dropped out of use.

A teacake, in our younger days, was a handless clown, a waste of space, an inept buffoon. It's rarely heard these days when language is, shall we say, more robust. But there are those who still know what you mean by it.

But how many know what a cawf 'eead is? Or a caggy-ander?

The first is another name for a teacake. The second is another term for a left-hander.

And they are not English. They are Yorkshire.

It is a dialect which has been in steady decline for probably a century and a half. The first trains gave the mass of people the first chance to travel away from their native hearth. On their travels they began to realise that not everyone spoke as they did.

The coming of radio, talking films and, later, television, were also nails in the coffin of regional dialects.

It was a slow death but a death all the same. If I were to speak in the way my grandparents spoke, few would understand me today, I imagine.

Look at Buxom Betty, for instance.

This redoubtable Bradford lass graced the pages of the T&A and the Yorkshire Observer for many years. She was actually called Emily Denby, and her chronicles of the doings of t'Owd Maids' Club and the Higginbothams and the Nimbletongues became required reading in Bradford households for a generation.

But how many in Bradford today would begin to understand these sagas of life on the lower slopes?

Here's t'Owd Maids' Club returning home after taking in a stray dog:

'When they gat back t' dog greeted 'em wi ivvery sign o' joy an' gladness, and they all med a lot on it woll they saw what it had been dewin'. It must ha' felt a bit dowly woll they were aht, cos it hed rooited rahnd and hed comed across a fancy table runner 'at Lizzie hed been embroiderin' wi gurt blue roses, an' it hed worried it an' chowed it an' shakked it woll you couldn't tell what t' article wor meant for nobbut regs.'

Which translates as: 'When they got back the dog was glad to see them and they made a fuss of it; until they saw what it had been doing. It must have been a bit lonely while they were out because it had rummaged around and had found a decorative table cloth which Lizzie had been embroidering. It had worried and chewed and shaken it until it was only fit for the rag basket.'

Buxom Betty came to mind the other day when Tom Owen, son of the late Bill, of Last of the Summer Wine fame, proudly announced that he could do a 'northern' accent.

Fifty years ago, we'd have wanted to know whether he meant North Wibsey or North Bierley - and there would have been plenty of people around to point out the difference!

Memories of that last tram

My colleague Mike Priestley wrote a fascinating piece last week about the 50th anniversary of the disappearance of Bradford's trams.

In it he mentioned tram number 104, which was feted as the last of the lot to run on the city's tracks.

That, it seems, was only the beginning of a bizarre story which, thanks to Ralph Robinson, of Wyke, I can briefly re-tell.

After its working life, 104 was bought by Harry Hornby, the managing director of Bradford Northern, who took the club to three successive Wembley finals in 1947, 1948 and 1949. He wanted it as a showpiece for Odsal stadium.

There was a misunderstanding and the tram's body was removed from its wheels.

There was another misunderstanding and 104 ended up as a bungalow on Baildon Moor (in the post-war era, pragmatism was more powerful than town planners).

Finally it arrived at Odsal with a borrowed lower deck, was painted cream, and spent the next two-and-a-half years as a scorebox,

The elements took their toll and finally two transport enthusiasts took pity on the old girl.

John Pitts and a young Stanley King - now Lord of the Manor of Heaton and (not before time) Bradford's next Lord Mayor - bought the remains of 104 and, by begging, borrowing and buying, managed to have it returned to its original condition.

Then it was presented to the city as a reminder of a stately but rattlesome way of travelling.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.