YORKSHIRE Humour is a funny book – and that’s coming from a southerner. It’s basically a collection of jokes from the region told in the form of very short stories. Much of the comedy is dry, as you might expect, and it makes you laugh out loud frequently.

The anecdotes, a selection of which are nicely illustrated with colourful cartoons by Tony Husband, of Private Eye fame, are categorised into chapters on such themes as “the funny things children say”, “work” and “marital discord”.

They reveal as much about Yorkshire attitudes as they do about Yorkshire humour. For example, there’s the one about the old men of a Dales village chatting over the death of an old friend. Along comes a newcomer to express his sorrow at the passing of the man, who had lived in the village since his early youth.

“It is sad when an old native of the village dies,” says the new resident. “Nay lad, he wasn’t a native, ‘e was a come-er-in-a,” says one of the old men who has lived in the village all his life. “’E only lived here 70 year.”

Being from the south, I had to work quite hard to decipher what some of the meanings, but this didn’t stop me enjoying these amusing tales, compiled by poet Ian McMillan, who hosts weekly radio show The Verb on Radio 3.

A few of the yarns were lost on me, but maybe that’s because I’m not from Yorkshire. Yorkshire Humour will almost certainly make you laugh, possibly quite hard, and will definitely make you smile.