Melvyn Bragg RP RIP?

[salymap]

Radio 4 8pm to 9pm on Saturday 6th August.

Anyone interested in the BBC and Received Pronunciation should listen to this trawl through the past. Interviews with Lord Reith by Malcolm Muggeridge, the voices of GBS, Frank Phillips,
Alvar Liddell, Wilfred Pickles, [who could drop his Northern accent when required to] many more. Also covers changing accents by HM the Queen and various politicians. Every word loud and clear but so posh compared to today. In my childhood it was the norm on the BBC though.

Shortened repeat on Monday at 3pm on R4.

[french frank]

And also applied to television with announcers like Peter Haig, Sylvia Peters and Mary Malcolm - all in evening dress. Why did the idea ever get around that somehow it was only like this on the Third Programme/Radio 3? (Even the evening dress!!??) It was BBC.

[salymap]

Yes, of course it was just radio when I was a little girl.

Ilove the idea of being called to Lord Reith's presence if a dodgy pronunciation was heard. Even Stuart Hibberd must have been in awe of him. So different now

[Serial_Apologist]

As recently as 1990 or thereabouts, we competitors were required to appear in bow tie and dinner jacket for a Words and Music Quiz finale, adjudicated by Martin Handley (who he??) broadcast live from Bristol's Colston Hall...... for a RADIO broadcast ; I just couldn't belieeeeeeve it! those of us forced to resort to Moss Bross weren't even reimbursed our hire costs

S-A

[french frank]

As recently as 1990 or thereabouts

Recently? What was Words & Music, S-A? Nothing to do with the present programme of that name?

[Serial_Apologist]

Recently? What was Words & Music, S-A? Nothing to do with the present programme of that name?

Well I remember it as Words and Music, FF. Entrants drew up their own teams - ours was workplace-based; we were up against a team with at least one music professor. Maybe the BBC was trialling it on the good people of Bristle - I've really no idea.

[Mary Chambers]

Very enjoyable to someone of my generation. I remember my mother telling me that many people disapproved of Wilfred Pickles reading the news. His northern accent never disappeared entirely, and neither has Melvyn Bragg's, though he certainly sounds very different from the examples of Cumbrian speech he played!

Loved Lord Reith's scorn of 'posh southern' pronunciation of 'theatre' and 'fireside' - though he seemed surprised that people thought he sounded Scottish. The recordings of WW1 soldiers were very interesting, too.

I don't want RP to disappear entirely, though it has changed a lot in my lifetime. I feel there has to be some sort of standard. The liking for regional accents and dialect often conceals an unspoken "As long as it's not my children"

[Serial_Apologist]

What to me is utterly amazing is the almost complete disappearance of Cockney accents among the generation of London-born children aged under 20, regardless of ethnicity, and its replacement by "Jafaikan". This isn't even the friendly Rasta drawl, but a new fast-spoken dialect. The old London accents, outside the 50s+ age group, have moved to the outer suburbs and beyond.

[salymap]

And I note that the BBC's flagship R4 morning programme,Today, has presenters Naughtie and Humphrys who still retain quite a lot of their original accents without being unclear or in trouble with the present boss
of that programme. Long may that last.

I associate John Snagge with wartime disasters as he intoned "This is London". Scary times.

[Mary Chambers]

What to me is utterly amazing is the almost complete disappearance of Cockney accents among the generation of London-born children aged under 20, regardless of ethnicity, and its replacement by "Jafaikan". This isn't even the friendly Rasta drawl, but a new fast-spoken dialect. The old London accents, outside the 50s+ age group, have moved to the outer suburbs and beyond.

My two-year-old grandson (Camberwell/East Dulwich area) is picking up a Cockney-type accent from his nanny. He can count - "one, two, free", " six, seven, ite". She's a local 27-year-old.

[Serial_Apologist]

My two-year-old grandson (Camberwell/East Dulwich area) is picking up a Cockney-type accent from his nanny. He can count - "one, two, free", " six, seven, ite". She's a local 27-year-old.

That's more-or-less where I live!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I like RP, just as I like good English. I don't speak the former, but try to speak the latter.

However, a northern accents is better for poetry, as "masses" rhymes with "brasses", whereas "brahsses" does not rhyme with "messes" and sounds silly in the Chorus of Peers in Iolanthe.

Yes, of course it was just radio when I was a little girl.

Surely it was "wireless" then?

[Serial_Apologist]

I like RP, just as I like good English. I don't speak the former, but try to speak the latter.

However, a northern accents is better for poetry, as "masses" rhymes with "brasses", whereas "brahsses" does not rhyme with "messes" and sounds silly in the Chorus of Peers in Iolanthe.

Surely it was "wireless" then?

"Brahsses" does rhyme with something else though...

[salymap]

It's still'wireless' to one of the BBC presenters, I heard it the other day, with some surprise.

I go back to things called accumulators [sp?] but not quite to 2LO or cats' whiskers. Think the stations were National and Regional,which became Home and Light programmes

[Serial_Apologist]

It's still'wireless' to one of the BBC presenters, I heard it the other day, with some surprise.

Possibly some programme advising OAPs about pensions, or summat!