Woman's Hour - Educating Rita at 40 with Julie Walters, Willy Russell and real life Ritas

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

This summer marks 40 years since Willy Russell’s landmark play Educating Rita was first performed. The funny and moving story of a 26 year-old Liverpudlian hairdresser studying for an Open University degree has barely been off stage since. Dame Julie Walters played the lead role in both the original theatrical production and the later film, for which she was Oscar-nominated. She joins Jane to talk about what playing the role has meant to her, and how much Rita/Susan’s experience chimed with her own. Jane also speaks to Willy Russell about Rita’s story, and why he believes it has resonated with so many women. They are joined by four real life Ritas – working-class women who returned to education in later life, Glynthea Modood, Sue Slater, Kate Wiseman, and the Open University’s Pro Vice Chancellor Liz Marr.

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This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Hi, good morning and welcome to this bank holiday Monday edition of Woman's Hour. We're not live today, but you're still very welcome to contact us on social media and talk about what you hear, because I think you will want to react to what's in today's programme. It's at BBC Woman's Hour on social media, or you can email us via our website. We're marking the 40th anniversary of Willie Russell's play, Educating Rita. It's a funny and moving story of a hairdresser,

a 26-year-old Liverpudlian who studies for an Open University degree. It's rarely been off stage since it was first produced, and of course it was a massive Hollywood film as well, starring Dame Julie Walters playing opposite Michael Caine as her Open University tutor Frank. We can hear from Dame Julie Walters in this programme today. We'll talk too to the playwright and the screenplay writer Willie Russell and we'll hear as well from some real life readers, listeners to Woman's Hour who went back to education and really want to celebrate

it and talk to us about how they got there and why it meant so much to them. First of all I've been talking to Dame Julie Walters who played Rita both on stage back in 1980 in London and memorably of course and she was Oscar nominated for it in the film as well. I asked her what she made of the role when she first got it. Well, at the time I just thought, oh, a nice little two-hander at the Dunmore, and it's really, you know, it's interesting and it's kind of like a parallel to my own life in some ways.

I mean, I'm not her and I don't come from her type of background, but there were still parallels and I loved Willie's work and I worked with him, you know, in job at the at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool and and I thought how lovely to do to do it because I never thought that anything else would happen I thought this is nice three months at the Donmar and great you know so yeah and then the reviews came out and that was it you know we were off and obviously people look for parallels and you've already mentioned it yourself it wasn't your story but there were sort of similarities weren't there i know your mum and dad were very supportive of you pursuing your dreams well not necessarily

acting perhaps perhaps but they were they were proud of you weren't they well i think the difference is they thought education was very important. My mother did. And she was the stronger, really, of the two influences. And so, you know, she wanted that. She certainly didn't want me to be an actor, that's for sure. She was very against that. She was frightened of it, you know,

and couldn't understand where on earth this had come from. And so there were parallels in that, I suppose I came from a working class home where there were no books or anything like that into a middle class set up, which was further education and then the business itself, which is very inclusive but nevertheless is, you know, still a middle class thing. And were there times early in your working life where you did feel out of place? Yes, in nursing, funnily enough.

In nursing, because it wasn't right for me, not at that time anyway. I was too immature and hadn't got the confidence, and I knew there was something else. It was like a vocational pull. There was something else I needed and wanted to do. And it was only when I started that course that I really felt that I fitted in, that I really felt that I was in the right gear in life.

Yeah, so that was when you started to study drama. But there was no point during that drama period that you felt that everybody, I mean, this was all, it was all people smoking roll-ups with leg warmers who perhaps mums and dads did have dinner parties, wasn't it? No. No? Most of them were working, it was great course, most of them were working from working class backgrounds,

more than from middle class, I'd say. Really? Yeah. Okay. I wonder whether that would be the same now, what do you think? No, I don't think, no, it's completely the opposite. I shouldn't think, I should think there are are very very few working class kids in drama school they can't afford it and is that something that worries you yes because drama is art and art

reflects life and it's it won't reflect it because where where are the working class actors where are the working class writers filmmakers going to come from class writers, filmmakers going to come from? I mean, when I went to college, I got a grant. And, you know, everybody did. I mean, it reflected your parents' earnings and things like that. But I got a full grant because I'd worked for three years. So I got a full grant. And that made a huge, I could never have gone without that.

I could never have done it. When it came to the film of Educating Rita, I think it's important to say that it was by no means a given that although you'd done the part brilliantly on stage, that you would be in the film. No, because films need stars in order to sell. So what happened is Lewis Gilbert, who did direct the film, his wife came to see the play and then told him

about it and he rang me and said darling um my wife has seen he'd been to see it my wife and i have been to see your play and we love it we want i want to make a film of it and i'd like you to play rita but i don't know yet whether i'll be able to give you the part because you're not a star and in order to get the money for the film we need to have names in it i said oh okay anyway i'm going off to america and to see what i can do then so off he goes to america then he comes back rings me again and says well we they wanted dolly parton and paul newman and i said well we're not willie won't have that and i'm not having that so i said oh okay so then I didn't hear from him a bit then a bit later I don't know weeks later he got back

and he said we've got Michael Caine so you can have the part because we've got a star so I said oh great okay so that was it and I reminded myself of the film watched that yesterday and it's so much sadder than I remember it's also funnier than I remember but it is it's that bit in the pub which I think our listeners will definitely be able to relate to certainly women of a similar age to the character in the film um do you remember the bit I'm referring to where they're all singing they're all singing and her mum says that line, there must be better songs to sing than this. Yeah. Why is that so sad? Her dreams are kind of crushed, I guess. It feels like there's no, it feels like a big old trap and there's a young, hopeful, innocent, well, not so innocent, but but young hopeful girl wanting more from life and and and being these huge walls all around her i suppose it's that's it really i don't know why that may

move me so much but it really made me reflect when i saw it and it's interesting looking at the we had a pile of emails from listeners about this so many of them julie refer to failing their 11 plus oh yeah do you remember that time yes I mean I yes you didn't fail it for a while and then they I was obviously borderline and I got in okay so what you've got a letter saying you had failed yeah and I thought oh my god my heart because my brothers had passed and my heart my older brothers and my heart sank and I remember going around to see a neighbour and telling her, and she said, well, never mind, you've got your church. And then about a week later, they said,

you are one of the borderline people, and you're going to... So we all had to go up for, I can't remember, for an interview or something. And then I heard I'd got in. I told the same neighbour, which is, I thought you'd failed! It's a fury. Well, of course, she still had the church, which must have been an enormous

comfort. It's an enormous comfort at this time. Yeah. Of course, we are now told, and it's always very hard to stand this up, but we are now told that actually the pass rate was higher for girls because more girls passed than boys, and of course they had to have

an even number of girls and boys at grammar school. God, so girls had to work harder. Oh, my. Well, you might know. Well, there we are. We've featured it on Woman's Hour before. We'll do it again. We'll do that again, Jane.

Yeah, we will do. Let's just hear a brief clip from the film. It's from the early part of the film. And you're playing Rita, of course, an outspoken woman who does use the odd swear word in case you're feeling fragile this morning. Here we go. Are you a good lady's hairdresser, Rita? Yeah, I am. But they expect too much, you know, like women who come to hairdressers, like they come in and half an hour later, they want to walk out a different person

you know i mean if you want to change you've got to do it from the inside haven't you you know like i'm trying to do do you think i'll be able to learn are you sure you're serious about wanting to learn i'm dead serious yeah look i know i take the and that, but that's only because I'm not, you know, well, you know, like, confident, like. But, I mean, I want to be honest. When, you know, when did you actually start teaching me, like? What can I teach you? Everything. Well, that was Julie Walters as Rita, of course, or Susan,

and Michael Caine as Dr Frank Bryant in the film of Educating Rita, produced and directed by Lewis Gilbert, came out in cinemas back in 1983. What works in the film, and in the play, of course, is that you don't have an affair with Frank. Would it have worked if you had? No. No, it wasn't about that.

And she's right, they wanted different things. And Lewis actually did think about doing that. And I told Willie, Willie came rushing over to Ireland to stop it. From what I remember, he may tell a different story, but I'm sure that's what happened. But what's wonderful as well about it is that people want that. They want it. It stays in people's heads much more

if they don't get what they want in that way. You know what I mean? Oh, if only they got... Loads of people said, oh, why didn't they get together? But it's what makes them stay with the film somehow. Well, it's what makes the film stay the film somehow well it's what makes the film stay with people that that didn't happen what do you think rita went on to do oh that's a good one um i think in some way she would have wanted to work with people like her so she you know with

kids like her so either she would have done teaching, possibly, or maybe even some kind of social work. I don't know. But I think, you know, she's intelligent and she's from that background. And I think she would want to put that right somewhere. The fact that there's inequality and, you know. So she could have, yeah, she might. ...class kids who should reach their potential. I think she'd feel that. Yeah, I'd like to have seen her as a barnstorming Liverpool MP or something. Oh, yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. That could have been Rita's future, couldn't it? Yeah, definitely.

Maybe we should try and encourage Willie to revisit the whole subject, actually. And see where she is now. Where is Rita now? Yeah. revisit the whole subject actually um see where she is now where is rita now yeah and just as a sort of side note some of our listeners have also referred to growing apart from family um growing away from your roots and that does happen to rita's character in the film she she loses her husband loses her they lose each other don't they yes he's threatened totally by her and her books and learning because he's she's moving she is moving away and intellectually and emotionally moving away from him and mentally and so you can understand that i don't are you going to ask did i have that well i don't know

i mean i'm not i suspect you didn't no not really no i don't think i did because you're what was interesting is your family were your every child in the family was hugely gifted because your brothers were very very brainy too yeah my brother went to cambridge and and my other brother yeah but both of them did well but yeah because my mother thought education was important and she was she was quite different in many ways to other people's parents i i realized that as a child in that she wanted that that was important well of course what you also probably now realize is that as i often think when i think about my grandmothers is that they they were clever they were clever yes they just didn't have any chances you know exactly she was thwarted totally thwarted and her sister had been sent over

to england to be and to be trained to be a nurse when she was kept back to um run the farm she had to kind of run away in the end so you know yeah she was thwarted she was clever yeah yeah and that i guess this is the story of women's lives really that's why educating rita still makes people upset and angry and happy and sad or and reflective all at the same time i'm sure I'm sure you've done bigger jobs, more lucrative jobs, but this has got to be one of those that is, I don't know, something you do feel really proud of. Yes, it's hugely part of my own kind of forming in a way. Yeah, yeah, it's a very important part of my life, yeah and a big part of it

That was Dame Julie Walters who of course played Rita in Educating Rita both on stage and in the film that so many of our listeners have seen and absolutely loved and I've got a pile of emails from people here and we're going to try and read as many of those

as we can during the course of the programme and we'll talk too to some I don't really like the expression but it sort of works, four real-life readers, women who went back to education in later life and they are respectively Glynthea Madud who is originally from Swansea now in Bristol. Glynthea, good morning to you, how are you? I'm fine and good morning to you, Jane. And we have Sue Slater from Sheffield now. Sue, where are you now? Well, I've lived in Whitley Bay for 24 years. Lovely. Thank you very much. And Kate Wiseman is from Oxford, but now living in, well, Turkey, Kate. Yes, here I am. am um sweating a bit but it's lovely to be with you and the Open

University's Pro Vice Chancellor Liz Marr is also with us um and Liz is it fair to say that you are also a reader I am indeed Joan yes um yeah I was uh I went back into education after leaving school, failing my A-levels. And when I had a young child and I started with the Open University and then went on from there. So I can personally testify to how life changing it is. Well, that is brilliant. Of course, the original Rita is Willie Russell, who's also with us. Willie, you were that person because you were the hairdresser who dropped out of school. Yeah, I kind of was, Jane. I wasn't aware that I was the person when I wrote the original play. I didn't deliberately sit down in any sense to write autobiographically. So I felt that I was creating

a wholly new character. And it was only a long time after the play had been written that I was sitting watching, I think it was a touring version, with Kate Fitzgerald and Tom Baker in it at the time and realised how glaringly autobiographical the play was and is. Yeah, but why did you make the central character female then? I wasn't really in control of that there's an assumption that if you write a play you know you're completely in control of what happens a part of writing a play that has a vibrancy to it is is negotiating with what it is you're trying

to write and keeping out of the way and letting whatever gifts you're given, you know, be gratefully received. And that's how I still think of it. It was just, you know, I was in a terrible bind trying to meet a deadline. The RSD commissioned me to write a play for their experimental space in London, now the Donmar, then the warehouse. And I was in complete and utter desperation about delivering this play when one afternoon after weeks, months of sitting at the desk and getting nowhere, she just walked through the door and onto the page. And, you know, I didn't for a

second stop and say, oh, this is a woman or why is this a woman? I just went with it. Stay with us. I want to bring in the listeners who've been so brilliant in responding. Glynthea, can we start with you? You've been to university, but you didn't go until your relatively late 20s. Why didn't you go to university at 18? I didn't have any GCSEs, I didn't have CSEs, I didn't have A-levels. I went to a secretarial college at the age of 11. 11? 11, yeah. Whose idea was that? My mother's, I think. I mean, I went to a Catholic school, working class Catholic school, failed grammar, you know, 11 plus. And so they put me in a secretarial school. I did science until I was 12. And then from there on, it was bookkeeping, short hand and typing.

And that was that. So you were set up for life as a clerical worker. That was your destiny. Oh, yeah. The glamorous job of being a secretary. And by the way, of course, plenty of people do it, do it brilliantly. And it can be a very, very decent way to earn a living. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's just bring in Sue.

Did you fail your 11 plus? What happened to you? No, they'd done away with the 11 plus by the time I reached 11. My older sisters had left school at 15 because it was the culture and sort of working class background that I came from that you left school as soon as possible to earn some money to feed the rest of us because there were six of us but I actually managed to stay at school till I was 18 against my mother's wishes and then I went to teach training college at 18

but it was such a huge culture shock that I couldn't cope with it and I just felt really working class and I had quite a broad Yorkshire accent and every time I opened my mouth I felt completely stupid and on the night out we went on the first night there we were chatting about what we'd done on our last night before we became students and I said oh I went to the pub with my mates and one girl said oh I know this sounds awfully ostentatious of me but I had dinner with Wendy Craig, the actress, last night. And all I could think was, what does ostentatious mean? But you did know who Wendy Craig was? Yeah.

I did. I just felt completely out of my depth. I packed my bags and went home after two days. Oh, right. I'm sorry to interrupt you there, but the idea that somebody would know Wendy Craig, who was a massive television star, by the way, and starred in, I mean, Butterflies by Carla Lane is still an absolutely incredible sitcom that she was in.

OK, so you really did. It was that bad for you, Sue. You packed up and left. Yeah, well, I, apart from teachers and doctors, I've never mixed with middle class people before. And it was it was a huge, huge culture shock. And I think I just didn't have the confidence that they had I think that's one thing that it gives you being being middle class makes you makes you feel more confident. Willie Russell um watching the film again last night I I thought actually there was much more about class in the film than I had remembered um that bit about when she is invited round to the fancy dinner party that Frank's having. I mean, it's cringey, but it's real life, isn't it, that?

Well, yeah, and it's Rita imbuing that kind of night with all her kind of fears of that. If you've been denied access to that kind of culture, then, you know, you get all kinds of notions and build all kinds of fences for yourself. I mean, I've never been someone who has that chip on the shoulder, knee-jerk, damn the middle classes attitude. I've never had that for a second. I've never been anti-knowledge or

anti-education. But at the same time, coming from a working class background, I'm well aware that there are enormous differences between the classes. And when you first rub up against a strong kind of middle class culture, it can be fantastically daunting and disconcerting. Let's talk to Kate, because Kate, you grew up in a family where actually everybody was brainy and you did well at school, but your parents just didn't want you to keep going at it. Is that fair? Yeah, I did. I was brilliant at school until I did my O-level levels and they were great and that was all fine and then I kind of it all went pear-shaped and there was no culture in my family of going to university I knew it was what I wanted to do I was kind of chronically lacking in self-esteem but it just and I'm sure

if I'd have put up a fight I could have got there but you know my brothers were out working and I think it just kind of happened really my dad was I grew up in Cowley and and he worked at the car factory all his life and it was just kind of outside of our remit it just didn't happen so you know it took me a long time to get there. And I got there through an access course, which was absolutely wonderful. But you'd had to, you'd lived your working life before that, hadn't you? You'd worked. jobs but they just weren't what I wanted to do and it took going to uni and and reminding myself that I had a brain to to give me the confidence to do what I really wanted to do. And actually you did a master's in English eventually with the Open University didn't you? I did yes so hello wonderful Vice-Chancellor and thank you very much because it was a fantastic time and I absolutely loved it.

Well, Liz, there we are. There's your cue. Why do you, I mean, it's a silly question for you in your role, but why is the Open University so important? I think it's because it gives people like Kate and others opportunities that have been closed to them for much of their lives. It's really interesting to hear people talking about things like self-confidence and self-esteem. I noted all those things down because they're things that we hear frequently from our students even now.

So many of our students have toyed with the idea of going to university but have believed it's not for them, that they're somehow not allowed into that world and and the open university because we are open access our mission is about being open to people and places and methods and ideas and and being radical and creative and innovative in what we do we're seen as, I think, a much more welcoming environment in which people can develop that self-confidence, that self-esteem, and also the skills that they need to be able to study at that level. I've got an email in front of me, one of many on the subject. This is from a listener called Mary, who says, my experience as an OU student in the 70s actually bore little

relationship to that of Rita. The portrayal on stage and in the film of her relationship with her tutor was reminiscent for me of an Oxbridge College. While understandable, of course, you have to, it was drama, so it had to be done in a certain way. I think it did the OU a great disservice. Well, I mean, as the listener understands there,

it's a drama, so it can't be completely accurate but i i guess the ou isn't quite like the way it was portrayed in educating rita is it no it's not and i and i agree with that that viewpoint that the relationship there between frank and rita is much more of an Oxbridge one than an Open University one. But I would say that our students do set considerable store by the value of the relationship that they have with their tutor. All of our tutors are very accustomed to working with students from very diverse backgrounds. They're very committed to the university and its ethos and they're there for students so in a sense we have very many franks

there even though that they don't always necessarily have one-to-one sessions with students and they're sober as well yes well one would hope yeah um lindthia you you were a tutor at the open university i was yes and and do you what would you like to say about the way it works and the way you as tutors work with your students oh it can be quite um i think very close and it's and it's very relaxed um and you yeah you you get to know them very, very well. And, of course, they ring you, they email you, they've got problems at home, problems that, you know, a standard university doesn't have as much of.

So, yeah, you really sort of invest everything that, you know, the encouragement, everything to make them succeed. Well, I think it's really important that we establish this morning how you start doing an open university course, Liz. So if you can briefly, what do you need to start an OU course? Do you need any qualifications at all or just enthusiasm? You need enthusiasm. You need commitment, you need time. We can help with all of those things but really what it's the desire I think that you need to have to start with. One of the things that Rita displayed was incredible resilience and we still see that

in a lot of our students today that that resilience that allows them to multitask, to juggle all areas of their lives. But in terms of qualification, there are no qualification pre-entry requirements, except obviously for some postgraduate courses and some specialist courses. We do ask students to undertake some diagnostic tests around their English, their maths, their familiarity with IT. And we do have access courses. I think Kate mentioned an access course. We have our own access courses that we encourage students who've been out of education for a long time and who maybe haven't got some of those GCSEs behind them to have a go at those, not just to help with developing the skills for study, but it's about that confidence, that becoming an autonomous learner and also finding what you want to study

because many people don't know. Don't know, of course, because they don't know the range. And briefly, Liz, money, do you need money? Our courses are all loan eligible. Depending on where you live in the UK, the price ranges are different. In fact, in England, they're higher. But you are able to take out a student loan if you meet the requirements, the eligibility. And we also have our own kind of credit system where we pay installments.

But the fees are around £6,000 a year, which is far less than many universities. Can I just ask Sue and Glynthea and Kate as well, just what it meant to you to get the qualifications and to, I suppose, just enhance your knowledge. Sue, what would you say about that? I think it was life-changing. And it wasn't just getting the qualifications, obviously, because one of the reasons I went to university is because I met my husband in the civil service and he's an Oxford graduate and he introduced me to lots of other graduates and it was sort of a whole different

world and I began to regret the fact that I had not completed my education so he encouraged me to do that but it wasn't just getting qualifications it was just the whole experience and everyone I met and the opportunities that it opened you up to even you know it just in your personal life not even in your work life it's just a great experience yeah Kate yeah well I think it kind of meant everything, really. I convinced myself by the time I got to university, which was when I was 38, that was pretty stupid. And I didn't know life was going nowhere. And suddenly I realized that I wasn't stupid at all, that I could attempt to do what I really wanted to do, which was write novels, that, you know, life was still there for me. It wasn't because I'd sort of made a bit of a hash of the first part of it. I could still put it right. You know, it changed it. Yeah, it changed everything. And Cynthia?

Well, it opened up the world to me. I mean, in those days, there was a choice of jobs. You know, I could walk into, you know, what did I want to do? Did I want to teach? Did I want to do civil service, city? For somebody of my background, it was amazing. It's really interesting reading the emails from listeners. I'm going to read just a little bit of one from a listener. I won't mention her name because she reveals a great deal about her marriage and about her life,

but she does say that she came out of college and she went quite late in life, a different person. My husband didn't like the new me and carried on life exactly the same as he'd always done. Although I have changed beyond recognition and have had a full and enjoyable life, my husband is still stuck in the 1960s. And she goes on to say how much she's enjoyed lockdown, where they've had to live separate lives. They're not in, I'm laughing, but it's not actually that funny. They've had to be in separate geographical locations.

And she goes on to say it was films like Educating Rita, The Dagenham Girls and Shirley Valentine, which have made me realise I was in a coercive relationship. I should say that Woman's Hour has been my lifeline over the years and I've lost count of the number of letters I've written but didn't send. But this time I have emailed you. So to that listener, we've read your email and thank you. And we're very grateful that we've played some part in your life and hopefully in a positive way. But Willie, that is an important part of the play, the fact that Denny, Rita's husband,

doesn't go with her on her journey. No, and it's terribly, as many partners are in that situation, she's terribly, terribly threatened by Rita returning to education. I mean, she doesn't want to threaten him. She doesn't want to even challenge his then, you know, historically very kind of patriarchal attitudes. But she wants to realize what's burning within herself. and unfortunately, in Rita's case, of course, his attitude and his mode of operating is to try to shut her down, to try to stop her.

You cannot want somebody... I mean, I found this both as a student returning to learn myself and then when I became a teacher, if you are someone who doesn't want to learn then nobody can teach you and conversely if you're somebody who wants to learn nothing and nobody can stop you and so I'd say to any partner who feels threatened by the other half wanting to seek an education, just go with it because there's not really any alternative. Yeah, well, I don't know how big your ego is, Willie, but if you were to look at the emails, it's minute. OK, well, I'll try and help you with your ego problem and your lack of confidence. But I've got an email in front of me from a woman. I won't mention her either, but she has a doctorate.

She just says, this is the most influential film of my life. I'm a survivor of childhood trauma, estranged from much of my family, and I became a mother in a tempestuous relationship at 21. I mean, she goes on and there's a lot here, Willie, but suffice to say, I'm at peace with myself. I am now a lecturer in England near my family. Rita really spoke to me and for me.

I feel as if I was her and I went through the plot of the film myself. Coming to education later in life was wonderful. It's given me economic freedom and led me to purpose and healing. But she does say we cannot reinvent our histories. And of course, you can't. Wonderful. It's given me economic freedom and led me to purpose and healing. But she does say we cannot reinvent our histories. And of course, you can't. But you can move on. And Jennifer has emailed to say, I married at 21 and had a family. When my youngest son started school, I began to feel dissatisfied and felt there had to be more to life.

Woman's Hour saved me. I was listening to the programme doing my ironing. The programme was on in the afternoon then. A woman was interviewed at college talking about a college for mature women with dependents. I was so envious and then surprised when I heard the address of the college. It was down the road from me. Long story but she went there,

eventually went on to become a social worker, trained to be a counsellor, worked as a psychotherapist. A phenomenal story. These are all real life enhancing stories, really. And I guess you hear them quite a lot, do you? Is Educating Rita the bit of your working life people want to talk about to you? Yes, it's a massive one that people talk about when the play first opened, not even the film, just the play, we both began receiving letter after letter after letter thanking us and testifying to the fact that, you know,

educating Rita had radically changed the correspondence life. I've always, in responding to such accounts, tended to say, you know, flattered and grateful, though I am to be recognised for that, I suspect that if the person writing had not even seen Educating Rita or not even found the way to Radio 4 and Woman's Hour, if that light had been lit within them, they probably would have found their way back there via some other route. You may have heard me use this line before. It's not a line of mine. It's a line by the great Paul Simon, who wrote, the thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our bones. Well, that's born to treasure. Whoever wrote it, I'll take it. That's fantastic. Glynthea, Sue and Kate, what, if anything, have you told children or relatives about education and learning, lifelong learning. Kate? I have a son who is 25 and I've told him that learning is fantastic

and he has taken that on board. He's done a degree and a master's like I have and he's now in Japan teaching English. And I think, like me, he will never want to stop learning. There's just too much out there, too much to learn. I'd love to go back and do a history degree next if I can spare the time. It's more than what you learn. It's the environment. It's what it does for yourself as a person. Yeah, Well, we should say you're a successful writer. You write for a living now. I do. I write children's novels, children and YA.

Right. Well, that's brilliant. And Glynthea and Sue, what would you say about that? Sue? Well, my children have been brought up to believe that education has a value, which is not how I was brought up, because I don't think my parents really saw the value of education and my daughter has said that she knew that there's no way she was not going to university because she knew how much I valued it and both my kids did go to university and my youngest daughter's just finished her MSc and she may go on to do a PhD and I think I've always loved learning whatever it is and I've been in working in education as a tutor teaching people with learning difficulties and I also work now as

a mosaic tutor and mosaic artist right so I've been involved in education for a long time as well and I just love learning I think I pass that on to them well I can hear it in your voice learning yeah no the real pleasure that you've taken it it's brilliant and and Glynth. I think I pass that on to them. I can hear it in your voice. Just a love of learning. Yeah, no, the real pleasure that you've taken it. It's brilliant. And Glynthea? Well, I've got two daughters. They both did postgraduate degrees. It's catching, this education thing, isn't it?

But my mother never really got it, you know. I did a diploma at Oxford in history of art. I did an MA at Birkbeck. Well, you're not saying she wasn't impressed? She wanted to know why. You know, why are you doing that? And I said, well, I actually like it.

You know, I love it. But yeah, she never actually got it. Very, very strange. Her, my father, and my brother. Okay, I guess everybody's different uh liz a lot of people um might be yelling at the radio around now actually because what we need to acknowledge of course is that it used to be unusual for women to pursue education and to go on to university now there are actually many more young women heading to university, and let's hope some of them are actually heading there in October of this year, than young men.

And as a result of that, actually, I think perhaps some people have begun to question the value of it because it's been feminised. What would you say about that? I think people have questioned the value of it, not because it's feminized specifically, but because there are more people going. Personally, I disagree with that position. I think higher education has incredible value. It still has value for the sake, for learning for its own sake, as well as the benefits it can it can um it can bring so things like improved health improved welfare we know those things are um accrue to those people who've been through higher education um there are more women going um that putting the balance putting history right i think in in my view so now it's around, you know, 60% of the university

population is female. But we do have to remember that there are still many groups of people who are still excluded and disadvantaged in terms of progression to higher education. Sure. Some of them are women, some of them are men. I was going to say what we need to say to head off critics who will make this point if we don't, is that white working class boys, Willie, if you were to write something now, you should really, well, you can argue with me, you should put a white working class lad from Liverpool at the centre of it, shouldn't you? I completely agree with you and somebody should write that play, but I don't think it's me. Well, as we started, Willie, with educating Rita and with Rita herself, I asked Julie where she thought Rita would be in life and what she would have gone on to do. But I'd quite like you to tell's, you know, that is in the gift of the audience.

Once the play gets to where the play ends. But for me, and listening to everybody talking today, for me, what matters most is at the end of the play, she feels that she's broadened her choice in life and that would seem to be reflected in what all of the contributors have been saying today that if you go through that process of education you widen your choice now what Rita then does with that choice she says in the final scene I don't know what I'll do. I might go to the south of France. I might get married now, a baby. I might do that. None of that's important.

What's important is that I have got the choice of those things now. Willie Russell, thank you very much indeed for being on. Really appreciate it and brilliant to hear from Dr. Liz Maher,Vice-Chancellor at The Open University, from Kate Wiseman, who's a writer and a children's author, and you heard too from Sue Slater and from Glintia Madud, and a host of other listeners did email, and we've tried to include as many of you as we possibly can. But if Educating Rita has played a part in your life

and you want to add something else to the mix, please do feel free to email the programme via the website bbc.co.uk forward slash woman's hour. And if you'd like to watch Educating Rita and remind yourself of its many glories and I really enjoyed it. It made me both happy and a bit sad

at times when I watched it yesterday, I've got to be honest. It is available, it's very reasonably priced, around £3.50 on Amazon prime and the play um willie russell is touring isn't it it had to be stopped obviously because of covid but it should be out and about again yeah wonderful producer david pew is managing somehow to get it into venues here there and everywhere around the country it's just finished at the marvis minnock in cornwall but look out near you there might be a space where it might pop up.

Brilliant. Thank you very much indeed. That's Willie Russell. Thanks to everybody again this morning. Tomorrow on Woman's Hour, I'll be talking to the actress Annette Bening about her new film, Hope Gap, in which she stars with Bill Nighy. It's about the collapse of a marriage after 29 years. And one of my favourite writers, the author Anne Cleaves, who gave us Vera.

She's on Woman's Hour tomorrow. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.