Fieldworkers for the Survey of English Dialects (SED) travelled all over the West Country’s six counties to record the dialects used there. They interviewed people over 60 years old with a long family history in each village to try to capture the oldest forms of speech. This picture shows one of the original informants from Whiteparish in Wiltshire – a farmer and former blacksmith named Mark Fulford. John Wright, the researcher who visited him, described him as:
‘A most co-operative and lively informant … speaks excellent dialect, and as far as I could ascertain, is the sole inhabitant remaining in the district who has always lived in the locality’

Mark Fulford, one of the Survey of English Dialects informants from Whiteparish, Wiltshire.
( LAVC/SED/2/2/32/9/10)