SOMETHING is annoying me greatly this week and I want some answers.

As part of my job I talk to a large number of people from Chesham every day but often I'm left confused.

Most people seem to pronounce the name of their home town as Chesham but every now again I come across some smart Alec who prefers to pronounce it Chess...Ham. So who's got it right I need to know. In fact I won't sleep until I find out.

At least two Chesham residents I've spoken to recently have bent my ear over the phone telling me how they are the latest in a long, long line of Cheshamites spanning back centuries to the Doomsday Book and beyond.

They seemed terribly proud of the fact that they could prove to me that their family was Chesham born and bred through the ages back to when men hunted in loin cloths and women cooked the dinner in a cauldron. Fascinating.

But what, I hear you ask, has this got to do with the Chesham Chess...Ham debate.

Well, it seems to me that those residents who harp on and on about their ancient family links with this Bucks town are exactly the same people who prefer to say Chess...Ham rather than good old, no-nonsense Chesham.

Maybe they know something the rest of us don't. Maybe it's to do with some kind of hidden, obscure and dark secret lost in the the passage of time.

Maybe Chess...Ham stems from the tongues of the town's genuine natives most of who have been lost within the crashing tide of commuters and 'aliens' from Welwyn Garden City, Watford, Hemel Hempstead and beyond. Who knows?

But I must say I do find this whole business about family history in Chesham a touch odd.

I'm from High Wycombe, born in London. My mum is from Princes Risborough and my dad is from Hackney in London.

I've yet to meet anyone who can trace their family back hundreds and hundreds of years to when Wycombe was just a cluster of small huts with a shared fire and a chicken.

If someone did dare boast this to me I'd deem them too odd to speak to ever again.

So, please please please can someone tell me what's going on here? Is it Chesham or Chess...Ham and what hold does this town have over generations upon generations of the same family?

Tell me...I need sleep.