Accents were so broad as to be almost unintelligible.
Did it occur to you that your "norf west Lunnon" accent might have been just as unintelligible to them? An East London mate I shared a flat with in Devon used to tease the locals about their accent, until I challenged him to say "round the world in a milk bottle" which used to come out as "wound the wewd in a miwk bo'u"!
As I said above - everybody is a "funny local" from somewhere!