Out of the west: An accent that speaks volumes

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Speak and there's no disguising it. 'You're not from here, are you?' the man on the next stool in the diner ventured last Thursday night. No, indeed. Not from southern Ohio; not from the US either. 'I'm British.'

Almost never will Americans react with indifference to this revelation, except in foreigner-weary Washington where Brits are a virtual ethnic minority. Most will instantly find some conversational peg - a recent UK visit, a distant Scottish relative - to interrogate you about the Old Country.

On this occasion, as often, television provides the opening. 'You ever interviewed those Monty Python people? Or Benny Hill? Benny Hill's real funny.' This brings the rest of my fellow diners into the discussion. Everyone here is a fan of the late Hill. Soon we are talking about Bill Clinton and what people in England make of him.

The Americans are instinctively hospitable; doubtless the same warmth is shown to foreigners of all nationalities. With the British, though, finding those shared cultural reference points will always be easier. And there is the common language. John Major may find it tattered when he meets Mr Clinton today, but for Britons living and travelling in the US that old, hackneyed notion, the 'special relationship', means something still.

Really remarkable is the number of times an American you meet can claim some direct contact with Britain, beyond simply enjoying Benny Hill on the tube. 'Oh yeah, we were in Stratford- on-Avon back in, oh, must 'a' been '54.' Or, as a retired admiral in Alabama said two weeks ago: 'Yes, I was at the Latimer Joint Services College during the war. I believe it's closed now.'

So often a family link exists because of a war wedding. Even my dinner partner in Columbus speaks of an English aunt who had been a GI bride and had lived in the US since 1945. A restaurant I visited last year in Olympia, in Washington state, was run by two women who had both been swept up from their native Consett, County Durham, by a wartime romance nearly 50 years ago.

Some Americans will virtually swoon on hearing the British accent, or mine, at any rate, which I suppose is BBC-verging-on-the- plummy. This can do wonders for the self-esteem but can be embarrassing too. It happened this week when I rang telephone enquiries in Tennessee. 'Mmm, I could listen to you just all the day long,' the female operator cooed.

We know that the Americans respond to a bit of upper-crust mouthing because of the number of radio commercials featuring characters lifted from the set of The Forsyte Saga. 'Some people say you can only be born into good taste,' opines some British butler type in a radio advertisement for Britches, a Washington clothes shop. 'We say you can buy good taste.' Here in Columbus, a Duke of Windsor sound- alike hourly promotes Majestic Motors, a Chevrolet dealership. 'If you want to be treated like royalty . . . '

My voice has brought me little material gain so far. It did help late one evening at the Democratic National Convention at New York's Madison Square Garden when I was barred from the media drinks lounge because I had lost my ticket. 'Oh hell,' the woman at the door said. 'With an accent like that you don't need a ticket. Go on.'

However, being exposed as a Brit can have more tiresome consequences. For nine months now it has been impossible to meet any American without being smothered in enquiries about Charles and Diana, and before that Andrew and Fergie. If you can last half an hour at a dinner party without the Royal Family coming up you're doing well. And the sad thing is that your response invariably disappoints. You have to confess that you have no inside track on the latest palace goings-on. Sometimes you admit that you are not much interested either.

Just occasionally you will meet an American whose enthusiasm for all things British - and therefore for you - can be almost overwhelming. I think, for example, of a gentleman who helped me in Alabama. He and his wife took me to their home in the country which, though definitely from the South, had the distinct pheasant-shoot air of some Surrey country estate.

There was even the black labrador sprawled on the rug in the master's study, looking on lugubriously as we took tea - Earl Grey - and cakes. As I left, they inquired about the Independent on Sunday and whether they should switch to it after subscribing for 30 years to the Observer.