James Tait grew up hearing his father speaking in the old, Cheviot hills tongue; a dialect that has inevitably become diluted as the world has become a smaller place. James has heard how his Great-Grandmother, born in the upper-Coquet valley, spoke rather like Chaucer. Although James does not consider his accent to be as strong as his dad's, the words, with their sometimes peculiar syntax, have always lurked, he says, at the back of his mind, which is why the poems seem to flow very easily from his pen.
James is also a qualified teacher. In recent years, he has been employed seasonally by the Rothbury music festival committee and the Northumbrian Language Society, to enter schools and work with children to produce poems for the Rothbury Traditional Music Festival and Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering competitions respectively. In 2013, this was brought to the attention of BBC Countryfile and ITV's Tales From Northumberland, on both of which programmes James made an appearance.
James currently works as a self-employed musician and teacher, however, his poetry is a great hobby and he is often being asked to give lectures and public recitals of his poems.