When will women gain equality? Ros Atkins BBC World Have Your Say

BBC

When will women gain equality?

This was the question that BBC World Have Your Say presenter Ros Atkins asked all women today on the radio.

When women are allowed go to Eton, join the Freemasons, become Pope and not have to wear a headscarf  is my simple answer. Until then women will always be second class citizens.

I admire Ros Atkins. I have listened to him for many years now. He comes from a Cornish fishing village and I come from Brixham, a Devon fishing village so we have a childhood in common.

I am so pleased that Ros Atkins has been brave enough to tackle this problem of female inequality. It is hard for any man not to resort to  male superiority in the heat of the moment and forget that a woman might be involved. Ros Atkins is no angel in this respect. In the past he has had his moments that now would make him cringe.

Early in Atkins career he had to interview a male South African statesman on this very subject and the poor female protagonist was very badly served on this occasion by Mr. Atkins. He grovelled to this disgusting example of male misogyny and the poor lady who was opposing this monster hardly got a word in. In fact Mr Atkins cut her off before she had a chance to reply saying that they had run out of time.

So wonderful to have you on the show Minister. Thank you so much for your time Minister. Is there anything else you want to say Minister. It was so embarrassing and I was so incensed that even though the hour was early in NZ I made an effort to email him and point out that he had been rather insensitive and unfair to the woman.... or words to that effect.

Ros Atkins must receive hundreds of emails but to his credit he did reply....almost immediately. He was very annoyed that I felt he had been insensitive. He said it was a Minister  and he felt he had to behave politely.

I replied that if it was necessary to be that polite  that he should have given the woman interviewee more of a chance to put these questions to the man himself or put the difficult questions to this example of male chauvinism if he did not allow time for her to do so. I think the Minister may have refused to speak to her but it was a long time ago.

I also told Ros Atkins if he did not believe me to go and actually listen to his performance which I expect he did because Ros Atkins has produced a TV documentary that I hope I shall see but because I live in NZ where BBC iPlayer is blocked I probably shall not.

I was impressed that Ros Atkins answered my criticism. Women have a long way to go to fight inequality. I can recall when I applied to the BBC for the production course when I was 18 and had won the GSM&D production prize judged by the BBC that my application to attend the BBC production course was refused because:

1. I was a young woman who would leave for marriage and family so I was not worth the investment.
2. I was an attractive woman and the BBC did not employ attractive women behind the camera as they would always be trying to get in front.
3. I did not have a university degree and the BBC preferred degrees preferably males from Oxford or Cambridge.

 This was crushing especially as I saw my male peers who had not won the prize being accepted and going on to produce programmes while I was denied the opportunity.

When 14 years later I did get the opportunity to produce a TV series, I was not allowed to direct as their boys would never take orders from me! They were right their boys didn't until the end when they apologised as they knew I had done a good job. My series ended up on the BBC and finished as a finalist for best edited programme USA LA Monitor Awards alongside CBS 60 minutes. Think what I could have done with some help.

My life has been one long line of male jealousy and harassment. Production stolen and given to a male director. Fine art I have commissioned and paid for and somehow never received now on Art gallery walls and worth a fortune. Family paintings removed by male cousin who was miffed at the will where he was left out because of his behavior, after all he was the male and males come first. I have jumped out of first floor hotel windows to avoid rapists and been harassed and goosed by any male who felt like it and not only in Italy.

All my family expected me to have a career and do the housework. Never once did my husband cut the lawn or paint the house or feed the cat and birds. In fact I got no help from any of my family even when things went wrong. Women of my age were superwomen and totally unappreciated. However I did achieve my dreams with great difficulty.

I am not allowed to be bitter. I mean that would never do for a woman to be bitter  and  even today I must  never be allowed to ask:

Hang on? Would this happen to a man?

Like Ros Atkins I too have a daughter who I was quite certain was not going to have a life similar to mine  A daughter who I  and her father saw to it was educated and could stand up for herself. I might not like it as she can put me in my place and frequently does but she is no push over and no doormat. I am so proud of her. We need more women like this.

Lastly when I am allowed to be a Freemason, a Pope and do not have to wear a headscarf so that a man can go to heaven I shall know true equality has arrived.

  

Line of Duty Series 2 Finale What a disappointment.

Guardian

Oh dear! What a disappointment. After five hold onto your seats Line of Duty episodes the great reveal was the most enormous let down.  Instead of a mind blowing conclusion we were served an episode that would make Agatha Christie blush. Christie would never deliver such a lame final chapter. It is easy to see now why the BBC was reluctant to commission Series 3 as any audience loyalty will have been sadly diminished with the lame duck ending. Let us hope that the BBC insists on knowing the conclusion before shooting starts to ensure this fiasco is not repeated.

It is said in the theatre that one is only as good as your last production and perhaps this is also true of television series. After a magnificent penultimate episode with the fans staying up nights trying to work out who dun-it the writers were obliged to deliver a finale that would shock and thrill by it's brilliance. Sadly this did not happen and it is a great pity.

So what went wrong? Maybe the problem was that the writers did not have a clear idea of the ending right at the start and left it until about episode four before they decided who the culprit was and then had to resort to a flashback which is such a cliche and is not worthy of their intelligent audience.

It also smacked of waiting to see which of the actors would be available for Series 3 and writing out all those actors who would not be available which meant the two best actors who acted the rest of the cast off the screens were guilty. Denton and Dryden both had unfortunate personalities but the actors , Keeley Hawes and Mark Bonnar were such consummate artists that they made the audience like them. Especially Denton who even at the end one felt sympathy for her plight. One wanted to see them again. What a charismatic performance.

This would have been acceptable if the remaining characters had been likeable too but the way the characters were written and played meant that most of the audience positively disliked them by the end. Fleming had not redeeming feature and one felt delighted that she was shut out of her house and was living in a car.  Arnott showed he was a nasty bit of work and never to be trusted again. The only one with a slight appeal is the devious Dot. This line up does not inspire confidence for a follow up. Surely the writers realised that their audience have to like and trust at least a few of their characters in the future.

The denouement was a massive let down. The tracking meter bit was rubbish and Denton leaving the money in her flat while going off with Fleming was too silly for words. Denton was much cleverer that that. Quite frankly some of the bloggers came up with better endings and the discussion was lively and fun. Many will feel cheated and never do this again.

So would be writers make sure your ending is the strongest part of your series. Make sure that your charismatic actors do not get written out and no more flashbacks as you audience will feel cheated and make sure the remaining characters have at least one likeable feature each if you want you audience to hola for more.

Education by BBC

John Charles Walsham Reith BBC

The BBC's founding charter states that it is to inform, educate and entertain and in my case it certainly did educate. I am a testament to Lord Reith to whom I have been extremely grateful all my life because without him and the BBC  I could never have achieved or in fact enjoyed my life to the full because I received no formal education. I am self taught or rather BBC taught and it sure made a better job of it than the nuns.

My father, Major Hugh Miller who had the very best education himself and went to the finest educational establishments that money could buy decided that his daughter should go to the local convent. This was a disaster for me because in 1947  Rosary Priory was mainly run by 18 year old Irish nuns, They did their best but basically had no idea of how to teach. Consequently I was six and a half before I learned to read.  They had no idea of how to teach reading. The nuns were really only happy when teaching the faith and they definitely were brilliant at that. They taught me rather too well the importance of Adam, Eve and Original Sin. This turned out to be a big mistake for them.

However all was not lost as my Grandfather Henry Thorpe was a self educated man and had risen from railway clerk to the head of Ceylon Railways. Pop owned one of the first televisions in about 1946 and I was captivated. Televisions were rare then and the content limited but Lord Reith had taken the educate seriously and the BBC saw to it that the audience was educated by providing the best.

Every week we were treated to excellent drama on Saturday and Sunday, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Wilde, Shaw. I saw my first Midsummer Night's Dream at the age of five and loved it. I watched and enjoyed opera and ballet as well as more typical musical and variety shows. The BBC showed films too and I loved those of Alexander Korda. I was introduced to Great Expectations and Dickens this way. I started to read Dickens which was in my grandfather's library but I preferred Ibsen and Austin and my favorite Shakespeare, I adored Romeo and Juliet.

BBC was good at science too and the new inventions and discoveries were featured. I watched everything especially the test programme every morning which presented classical music. The Waltz from Act 1 Swan Lake and Lena Horn featured. I enjoyed the BBC News and knew everything that was going on in the world. I recall Bernard Shaw's famous interview and also the atomic bomb tests. Aged 4 I saw the opening of the Belsen Concentration Camp and I knew then there was no God. This one news item changed my life. I grew up.

By ten I had started to read Shakespeare and I analyzed  Oliver's Henry V, which the nuns had taken their pupils to see. It was not as I remembered from the text. I discovered that Olivier had taken a lot of licence and I was shocked!

At 13 the nuns introduced us to Dickens  for the first time. It was Great Expectations which I had read when I was 9. We never got past Pip's early life. For me it was a wasted year as I was bored stiff. Later I told one of the nuns about this and she apologized for the dreadful education we received. I felt sorry for all my classmates.

My father realized that I was not thriving at my convent.  As he thought all my brains were in my feet he sent me to a ballet school Arts Educational in London. There I received a secular education for the first time. The Headmistress was the most wonderful English teacher. I can parse my way out of a paper bag.

The BBC had educated me in the arts well so when I got my chance to work at The Royal Opera House as a child I appreciated the opportunity. The management could see and in fact were astonished at just how much a tiny 13 year old knew. I could discuss opera, ballet, Shakespeare on their level. I had a wonderful time as everyone helped me as they enjoyed talking to me. I met many of the finest artists of the day from Sir Malcolm Sergeant down.  It was because of my knowledge of modern music I got to know Benjamin Britten. I was the only girl favorite and I certainly would not have been able to cope with my brilliant Oxford educated GP husband  Miles Heffernan who did not suffer fools gladly. It was he who completed my education in the field of science.

Without this grounding by the BBC none of this would have happened. So when I say I received no education it is not really true. I had one of the best educations money could buy. Thank you Aunty BBC.

The Jimmy Savile sexual harassment cover ups

I never thought that the problem that has now arisen over the covering up of the sexual harassment and possible abuse of young girls by Jimmy Savile would ever effect me. All my life I have lived with this unseen problem and I just had to get on with it.

I chose to work in the theatre  in the 1960's and 1970's and for young women sexual harassment was part of the job. You couldn't complain for if you did no one would believe you and you lost your job. You just had to put up with it.

Girls of my age, think Lady Di at 19, had no formal sex education, we were not taught about homosexuality or pedophilia or plain ordinary sex and had to sort of learn as we went. It was not really an ideal situation. The one thing going for young girls is that many of our male colleagues were not interested in women or girl children and the ballet and musical theatre was almost as safe as a convent.

I spent many years being chased around the wings by leading men,chorus boys and stage hands ready for a quick grope. I learned quickly to obtain an imaginary fiance fast. This did not stop the groping but did put a stop to sexual propositions. Fortunately I did not appeal to lesbians and I have never had one offer in that direction. I do not know whether to be flattered or insulted.

But Jimmy Saville has changed all that for me mainly because of the failure of the BBC to broadcast an investigation into Savilles's alleged abuse because two tributes to his philanthropy were to be shown at Christmas. In hindsight this was a mistake. That nobody felt able to actually to say anything is disturbing. They must have known.

I am in a similar position with a famous composer Benjamin Britten. Next year is his centenary and the arrangements to celebrate this are already in place. Just by chance I was part of that milieu as I was employed in two of his works. It is well known that this composer had a penchant for young boys and a male partner which at the time was a criminal offense which thankfully it is no longer. But today the problem of suspected of pedophilia  must still be there and that is a more serious question.

Parents and those in authority over us just shipped children off into situations that would be unthinkable today. At 15 I was just delivered to men's flats and left there admittedly for auditions and coaching but I should never think of doing that to a child today. Anything could have happened. I was just sent off to Aldeburgh with no questions asked even as to where I would be staying.

When I was there I saw nothing at all unusual but then I was sexually ignorant. I can only recall one occasion when I was 15 when some remarks by one of the favorites gave me cause to think that's strange! The conductor Charles Mackerras was hauled over the coals for mentioning the problem.

Britten's relationship with me was totally above board, I was 19 at the time, but it does cause me some concern today. Is a scandal of Saville proportions about to explode or is this penchant for boys even if only as a voyeur, perfectly acceptable as it happened 50 years ago? I don't know! A book 'Britten's Children' by John Birdcut has lists of boys who were befriended by Britten. None of them ever complained but his behavior seen in today's climate it does appear unacceptable. It would not be allowed now.

It is difficult with composers as one is forced to distinguish between the music and the man. Beethoven was a monster. His treatment of his nephew and his brother's wife was brutal and would not be tolerated today. Wagner too with his vicious anti semitic views would be condemned. Britten it as is known liked young boys and yet their music is among the finest ever written and must remain so even if we despise the writers.

I liked the man but then I was a girl and in no danger. Britten hardly spoke to me before I was 19 but I knew he liked me a lot. Does one praise or distance oneself from the scene? I can't ignore it.