Woman's Hour - Engineers, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Music, Dementia

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, scriptwriter and lead actor for the series ‘Fleabag’ has won three separate awards at this year’s Emmys. She won the best lead actress in a comedy series, and best writing. The show also won for best comedy. So what is it about this show that struck a chord with so many? Where might Phoebe Waller-Bridge be going next? TV critic Emma Bullimore will be speaking to Jenni, along with Hetta Howes, lecture in literature from the City University of London. Tomorrow is BBC Music Day, an annual celebration across the corporation about the power of music to change lives. On Woman’s Hour we’re hearing from people who live with dementia and about how music helps them cope. Shelagh is 79, from Madeley in Staffordshire where she lives with her husband Paul, who also has dementia. Woman’s Hour first met Shelagh at a Dementia Diaries event in Birmingham. The group record their experiences about living with dementia and post on dementia diaries.org. Henrietta Harrison went to meet Shelagh in her home and found out how Irish Republican protest songs transport her back to her childhood. Due to an error in this version the music used is not Boolavogue by The High Kings, instead we have used Ireland’s Call by The High Kings. It has been corrected here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07pc3t4One hundred years ago, the Women’s Engineering Society was formed. In a new book ‘Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines’, Henrietta Heald charts the history of the society and the pioneering women who excelled in engineering – often against the odds. Henrietta joins Jenni to discuss. How do you inspire your child to take up a musical instrument or learn to sing? What are the best instruments to learn and how do you help keep their interest should practising become a chore? Jenni speaks to Molly Newton, a music teacher based in York.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Wednesday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. Now in today's programme, the centenary of the Women's Engineering Society. Who were those magnificent women and their revolutionary machines? In advance of tomorrow's BBC Music Day, the role it plays in helping cope with dementia. And children and music, how do you inspire them to learn to sing or play an instrument and find someone to teach them? As I'm sure you're aware, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator and performer of Fleabag and the adapter of Killing Eve, did really rather well at the Emmys on Monday night. She won three awards for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series,

Best Writing, and the show itself won Best Comedy. And it's now been reported that she's been offered a £20 million a year contract to create new shows for Amazon Prime Video and she's still working of course on the new James Bond film. In her speech she confessed that the work hadn't been easy. I find writing really really hard and really painful and but I'd like to say just honestly from the bottom of my heart that the reason that I do it is this. No! Oh, my God! No!

Thank you. I find acting really hard and really painful. This is just getting ridiculous. Well, her speeches were recorded by the Television Academy. Heta Howes lectures in literature at City University in London and is a bit of a fan. Emma Bullimore is a TV and culture critic. What did bring what Phoebe described as a dirty, pervy, angry,

messed-up woman to the Emmys? I think her ability to stay true to herself, which is a massive cliche, but actually is what she's been able to do. In TV, it's very easy to get your message diluted, to not really be able to stick to what you wanted to say. But she had this really strong voice. Fleabag started as this little 10-minute show,

piece of stand-up, then went to the Edinburgh Festival, then the Soho Theatre. And to get get it on tv it was kind of outrageous and a voice we hadn't heard before a brand of feminism we hadn't heard before she liked to call it feminism with personality and it was such a breath of fresh air but i can only imagine how difficult it must have been in little meeting rooms at the bbc to try and no, I do want to do this outrageous scene, I do want to say that. But the fact that she's been able to get that to the screen and really sort of be unapologetic and brash and bold and fantastic

is, I think, what people have really responded to. Heta, I know you watched it right from the start on television. Yes, big fan. So what did you make of it when you first saw it? I mean, I just just thought what am i watching i've never seen anything like this on tv it felt really new and really fresh um and i think as emma was saying the fact that it's a a one woman show making it onto tv says something really brilliant about where kind of culture is moving um because it's really difficult to get one woman

show on stage let alone on tv um it felt what did you love about the character and what she was up to? And I remember that first one was really quite shocking. Yes, very shocking. I mean, you know, a lot of sex, a lot of talking very frankly and honestly about being single, kind of putting voice to things that maybe you're thinking but never say out loud. I think that's what I loved about the character is that she's not afraid to say anything. And because there's this clever thing in the show where she's kind of speaking to us as an aside, as an audience,

as well as to the characters, we get sort of this real insight into what's going on into her head. I think I was newly single at the time and I was watching it and I was like, yes, I can relate to what dating is like in London. Emma, what is it, though, about her work, the way she puts it together that makes her stand out? It's so intelligent

and slick and quick and you don't get room to be bored or to linger at any point but it's also just really funny. You know, it's an enjoyable thing to watch as well. It's so dense. It's the kind of show you can't really watch while you're doing something else or you're on your phone. It requires your commitment.

And it's one of those that actually gets better. I think series two is actually stronger than series one. And the fact that, you know, she's taken someone like Andrew Scott, who had a massive profile from Sherlock and the theatre and all sorts of things, and almost taken credit for his whole career because everyone just sees him as the hot priest now. But yeah, it's just, it's such a fresh voice. And she still feels like someone you'd want to go to the pub with and and just have a pint and and be normal with she has that quality that

people like Olivia Colman Sheridan Smith have that she can stand at the Emmys on top of the world and you still feel like you could have something in common with her because she was she was so relatable and natural I know you've met her a couple of times. How similar actually is her own character to Fleabag? Well, she always says a lot of her is in Fleabag. And I think there is quite a lot of overlap. But I met her at the very beginning of it all, at the first press screening for the first Fleabag. And she was just very unassuming.

She was proud of the show, but no one really knew what was about to come. And then I met her many years later when it all kicked off, but she still was the same person. I think that's key to it all, really. That show is her. Obviously, she brings herself to all of her work, but Killing Eve is based on someone else's book,

and everything else is taking all sorts of influences, but Fleabag is her through and through. And I think you see that on screen, and that's why it's so successful. There's a now rather famous photograph, Hedda, that's been appearing in the newspaper of her sitting in a very dramatic chair. Looking fabulous. What did you make of that photograph?

I mean, for me, I just said sort of almost a microcosm of the show. She's looking kind of glamorous and totally in control of herself. She's having a cigarette. She's sort of sort of enjoying the moment. And you kind of almost expect her to sort of turn to the camera and wink at you or something, just like she does in the show. It has that quality about it. And it's just really wonderful to see sort of a woman at the peak of her success.

Like, yeah, this is kind of unbelievable. But also, I'm proud of this show. I believe in it. And I can't quite believe I'm here, but it's great. She brought it to the West End this summer, the stage show. Why did you not see it at the Wyndhams? I was desperate to see it at the Wyndhams. I was in the queue.

Me and my partner were both trying to get tickets. And I think I was like 1,000 and something in the queue and I just couldn't get near it. And I think that says quite a lot about what a phenomenon she's become, that people were queuing up to try and see her on stage. I would have loved to have seen it because I never saw the original show. I just came to it from the TV version. I've kind of done a lot of reading about the script and things.

I doubt she'll ever do it again i mean it felt like a one a one-time thing now the show has kind of taken off on its own why go back and repeat and kind of do it over again um so i do feel like i really missed something special there to be honest as you said emma she didn't create villanelle she adapted the killing stories. But in her own show, in Fleabag, some of the characters are so bizarre. Her father, her stepmother, who she became her stepmother in the second series, her sister, her brother-in-law. Why are they all so successful? Well, I think it's the fact that they are unique. Usually in comedy, in any kind of TV, you are wading through cliches. You've seen these characters a million times before,

but they are so, I mean, especially that Olivia Colman stepmother character is incredibly awful, but deliciously so. And it's just her ability to articulate fresh things in a way that we haven't thought

about saying before and to make these characters out of nowhere. And what I really admire about Phoebe is the fact that she's so brave. She could have so easily just written six series of Fleabag. The fact that after making Killing Eve the most successful show in the world, she just says, oh, someone else can write the second series.

Are you kidding? You know, people wait their whole lives for these kind of opportunities. And she's pushing on. You know, now she's got this massive Amazon deal that she's just signed. She's going on to Bond. And the future is fantastic, but it would have been so easy. And I think I wouldn't have been so brave. I'd have said, yes, sign me up for more Fleabag Forever. You know, that's I'll hitch my horse to that, you know. But it's a real testament to her that she just keeps chasing new things. Heta, how important do you think it is that, you know, she said very clearly there will be no more Fleabags after the sad parting from the hot priest.

How important is it actually to stop before a series maybe begins to stale? I think it was such a smart decision. I think, you know, it could have carried on and been amazing and part of me as a fan would have loved to have seen more. But I think knowing when to stop and creating something kind of complete and sort of of its own arc rather than trying to push it past just just for more money really and sort of more kind of oh we can we can get a bit more out of this wouldn't have stayed true to what the show is about what it's trying to do that last scene so many people have said this sort of critics online um but that last scene is so moving and so beautiful and it is the ending i think um uh one of the actress who plays her

sister in it said it's poetry and it is you know to have gone back and tried to do something more with it after that wouldn't have been staying true to what the show is doing just one last point Emma I mean British women seem to be doing rather well at the moment Olivia Colman obviously got an Oscar uh Jodie Comer won an Emmy for her part as Villanelle. What's going on? Well, it really does feel like a moment. And I think it's just long overdue, actually. And of course, it's great that there are better roles for women and all that kind of thing.

But what I'm really heartened by, as you were saying, is that people like Olivia and Phoebe are just able to be themselves and to not be this glossy version of womanhood that Hollywood has so often supported. But to see someone like Olivia Colman, who we all know from Peep Show days, and now she's up there getting an Oscar, but still being herself. And of course she looked fabulous, but not, you know, she's not all plastic surgery'd up. You know, she is herself. She's got her sense of humour.

She's been able to be true to herself in the same way as Phoebe. And I think that is such a powerful message for women, that you can reach that kind of stratospheric level in the most superficial industry in the world and still be funny and still be fresh. And long may that continue. I was talking to Emma Bollimore and Heta Howes. Now, tomorrow is BBC Music Day.

It's an annual celebration of the impact music can have on people's lives and we've been talking to those who live with dementia and find music helps them cope. Sheila is 79 and from Maidley in Staffordshire where she lives with her husband Paul. They both have dementia. We first spoke to Sheila at a Dementia Diaries event in Birmingham. The group records their experiences and then posts them on

dementiadiaries.org. Henrietta Harrison went to meet her in her home and found that Irish Republican protest songs transport her back to her childhood. I love the difference between Irish folk songs and English folk songs. English folk songs are always sort of ta-la-la, you know, girls picking flowers in sally gardens and Irish songs are always about dying on the scaffold. I don't remember in my adulthood that I was so keen on all of them, But I think with dementia, you go back to your childhood. Those memories are very vivid. And whenever I play them, I'm back remembering my lovely grandpa and grandma. Come the day and come the hour

Come the power... So you really feel like there's an extra connection with music since your diagnosis. Yes, I've gone back to the things that I remember from a long time ago and that had real emotional significance a long time ago. What draws you to that song? What does that song make you think about? It has lots of very personal layers to it. I love the melody. I remember Grandad singing it.

I've always been passionately moved by the Ireland's fight for freedom. I love Irish history. There was a lot of studying of Irish history and Irish literature in the past. From the mighty glens of... He died when I was seven, so we're talking 1947. in the past. He died when I was seven, so we're talking 1947, but he would say to me very conspiratorially, we have to draw the curtain so the police won't hear us singing this.

And so I thought, I'm sure we didn't. But he liked the idea that they were forbidden songs. And they're lovely, they're lovely melodies. Ireland, Ireland and they're lovely, they're lovely melodies. He was a little wiry Irishman. He would go out on Sunday mornings, set off at about five o'clock in the morning, to walk from where we lived in Newcastle-under-Lyme out into the country to Ashley,

which was a walk of 12, 15 miles. And he'd come back with rabbits he'd snared and sweet peas he'd pinched from people's gardens in the early hours of the morning. I mean, he was an absolute rogue. And I can remember talking and talking and talking with him, always stories about Ireland and the history. You know, it was better than fairy stories.

You spoke a little bit about your grandma as well, singing songs. Remind me where you were living again. My granny and her sister lived in two adjoining cottages with a shared sort of backyard garden and a shared wash house, and we lived there. And quite honestly, I slept in whichever house I felt like sleeping in. I had a bed in both houses. You know, my Aunt Min was very a part of my growing up as well.

She would sing to me too. And tell me what songs that they used to sing to you. Lots of Maury Lloyd songs. My old man says, follow the van, don't dilly-dally on the way. It's a great big shame, if she belonged to me, I'd let her know who's who. Rather sort of anti-men songs in a very subversive way. They really adored songs about women who were strong women.

I've lost my pal, he's the best in all the town But don't you think him dead because he ain't But since he's wed he has had to knuckle down It's enough to wax the temper of a shane I think I said to you before we talked about popular music but I absolutely love opera. I don't know how it was that Granny knew about opera, because I say we were a working-class family,

but she had lots of old records of opera with an old wind-up gramophone, and I used to play them, and I started to love it. At a young age? At a very young age, from sort of six or seven, I would put these records on. You know, very popular things like Loved You Out from La Boheme and bits of Madder Butterfly. And I loved it. I responded to it straight away.

And opera is absolutely my favourite music. I mean, The Marriage of Figaro just moves me to tears. Paul as well, but, you know, we just love it. If you have a stronger connection to music that makes you happy, that makes you nostalgic, presumably also there's a stronger reaction to songs that make you sad. Yes, yes, I'm sure that's true in a lot of ways. Although there were some very bad parts of it,

because Nanny and Auntie Min were quite often ill. You know, they were elderly and quite often had to go to hospital. And when they were, I was farmed out to various people and some of those were really bad experiences. So some of us have memories that are not good to revisit. And that's certainly true of me. The time that they were around, it was absolutely idyllic they gave me so much freedom treated me as an equal all the time although they were quite strict with me but when they weren't there it was it was awful I really hated it

I remember I used to go I often went to stay with with a family who lived out in the country and their three children their three daughters always treated me as a complete outsider and I used to go, I often went to stay with a family who lived out in the country. And their three children, their three daughters, always treated me as a complete outsider and bullied me an awful lot. And we lived in town, but we had a proper lavatory with a flushed chafe, but they didn't, and I was a real townie. I just hated this earth lavatory that you had to go to, and I always longed to go back and was always a bit afraid that one of them might die.

And you and Paul are both great opera lovers. Yes, we are. I was never keen on Wagner and as he was saying to you when you first came in, he learned to like Wagner with his fellow students. And we sort of came together to the Mozart. He's not as keen on Italian opera as I am, but he absolutely loves Mozart. You say that actually you actively see how opera, music can calm him down.

He also has dementia. Yes, he's sort of got the beginnings of vascular dementia, partly, I think, because of his very heavy smoking. And sometimes if I play some music, particularly at night when he can't settle and he'll sometimes go to sleep. Not as often as I'd like, but sometimes. I think you said when I last saw you, you said that he groans sometimes

when certain music comes on with pleasure. Yes, it was Mozart again. It's that beautiful Lassi da Remdevana where it's, I think, the most seductive song in the world, where Don Giovanni's asking, trying to seduce a young serving maid. And it was on, it was on the radio, and I just sort of held my Kindle, my tablet, advertised around the door of his study, and he went...

Oh! HE SINGS the door of his study and he went oh how do you feel about music going into the future i mean you do you know how your disease is going is likely to affect you in the future yes and one of the things that that pleases me is having as i say i've been a carer for mum, for dad, how important music was to them at the very end of their lives. Music was still having its transformational effect. died. My sister and I were sitting on either side of her holding her hands, one of my happiest memories, just stroking her hands because, you know, she was our dying mum when we were there. And suddenly the Blue Danube came on the ward radio. We used to call her the Dancing Queen. She was still going to dances when she was in her 80s. And suddenly she started to sway with our hands in perfect time to the music. And I said to her, look at you dancing with your daughters.

And she picked up first Gina's hand and then mine and kissed it. And I think for both Gina and me, that's... We'll never forget that. For that moment, there was our dancing queen back again. MUSIC And so does that, you know, I mean, it's a very crude question, but do you sort of think how music might help you in the future? I mean, are you telling anyone the music that you like? Oh, no. Yes, I mean, well, they know.

My son occasionally rings up and says, oh, God, you're not fighting the Battle of Vinegar Hill again, are you, Mum? But yes, they know my music and they'll make sure I have it because they know how important it is to me. They know me very well. Bye, Paul. Don't get up. OK.

Will I be able to find my way out again? Yes, go right to the lift. Yeah. And then down to the... Then you don't need any buzzers or anything to get out. Take care, John. Yeah, thank you very much. No, no, you're going the wrong way.

That way. I've't got dementia have you bye Sheila was talking to Henrietta Harrison and the music was wonderful

now still to come in today's programme, more music in advance of BBC Music Day. How do you inspire your child to take up singing or an instrument? And the Radio 4 drama, Just a Woman. Earlier in the week, you may have missed Jane's conversation with Sally Challen, recently released from prison after she was cleared of murdering her husband. She'd served nine years.

Her crime was reduced to manslaughter with diminished responsibility. If you miss the live programme, all you have to do is catch up by downloading the BBC Sounds app. Now, 100 years ago, the Women's Engineering Society was formed. That was 1919, soon after the First World War, which had brought more women than ever before into the profession. Well, Henrietta Heald is the author of Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines. Henrietta, how many women were involved in actual engineering during the war?

Well, we think there were up to a million. And some of them were doing really skilled jobs. It wasn't just working on the production line. I mean, a large number were, of course, doing shell-filling jobs, but many of them had been actually specially trained at a great expense. And they were doing everything from wiring battleships to assembling aircraft parts to running steam turbines in electricity-generating stations. So had the training been established as the war began,

or did some of them have some experience before the war began? Well, some of them did. There were one or two women, very few, who'd been to university. And Rachel Parsons, who founded the Women's Engineering Society, was one of the, she was the first woman to study at Cambridge, mechanical engineering.

That was in 1910. So she was well trained before the war, but during the war there was a kind of crash course, basically, because it was acknowledged that there was no way we were going to produce all the munitions that were required without having trained women because so many men were away at the front. What happened to them when the war ended and I know the answer to this question I knew it even before I read your book. Well it they were required to go back to the home.

They were no longer needed, they were told. And not only that, there was a law brought in, or there was a threat of a law brought in that would ban them from industry. And this was a result of a deal that had been done during the war between the trades unions and Lloyd George, who'd been Minister of Munitions at the time. And the unions would allow women into the factories on the condition that after

the war, it would return to how it had been. Why were the trades unions so opposed to women going out to work? Well, I mean, the main reason was they're taking our jobs. But also, there was a big worry that they would depress wages because the mistaken belief that women would accept lower

wages and men would thought that would go through the industry as a whole. But in fact, Women's Engineering Society, one of its main planks was to campaign for equal pay for women and good working conditions. And actually, during the war,

the working conditions hadn't been too bad, had they? The factories had looked after them very well. Well, they had. I mean, for many women, it was the most exciting time of their lives they had new experiences they went in um they had for the first time they had properly paid jobs they had um they had proper health care because actually what the government realized these women had to be well looked after in order to to really be productive and they even they had one wonderful thing was that they had childcare facilities on site. Many of the munitions factories actually had creches

and the government was paying up to 75% of the cost. And after the war, they all just went. They all just went overnight. Overnight, everything disappeared. And there was, of course, there was a lot of unemployment in the early 1920s. So the climate was very against women. But the Engineering Society became this campaigning force. So who were the women who were behind the foundation of the society?

Well, the main one was Rachel Parsons, she was the first president. She'd been a director of her father's firm in Newcastle during the war, one of the first women to sit on a major industrial concern, the board, and she was a really feisty character who actually was determined that women should have now they have just after of course they'd just won the vote December 1918 had been the first election women could vote and now

Rachel was saying now they have to have their economic freedom, their economic independence and this is how we're going to do it and she was that she actually stood for parliament in 1923 in order to further the cause of women's rights. I mean, there were only two women at the time and she didn't succeed, but she was of that very feisty nature. Caroline Haslett was significant. Why was she important? Well, she was very important too. She was the first secretary of the society,

but she had actually done some proper engineering during the war. But her great passion was electricity, because what was happening at the time was that electricity was being made available to the masses, but only gradually, only gradually. But Caroline saw that it was the key to women's liberation because it would get rid of the drudgery in the home. I mean, the whole, we didn't have, you have to remember that in those days there were no gadgets available. I mean, everything was done by hand and it took all day to do the laundry, to do the

cooking. And so Caroline has it, her great sort of mission was to get electricity into the home, cookers, electric cookers, washing machines, irons, hoovers, all the things we take for granted now. But of course, they weren't there. Now, Beatrice Tilly Schilling, this has a very interesting nickname. She was known as Miss Schilling's Orifice. Why? Well, it wasn't her name. That was her invention. OK. No, that was her invention.

And she was an electrical engineer, trained, university educated, worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough and during the Second World War she was aware of there was a lot of crashes happening in Spitfire and Hurricane aeroplanes when they went into a dive or they were either fighting in the Battle of Britain and they were either escaping their enemy or trying to chase him

and often the plane crashed and what was happening was that fuel in the Battle of Britain and they were either escaping their enemy or trying to chase him. And often the plane crashed. And what was happening was that fuel was shooting up. They called it negative gravity. So all the fuel was not staying where it should be in the carburettor. It was causing the engine to cut out. And what was happening when it was in a dive, the plane crashed. So she invented a circular disc which was put into the carburettor which became known as Miss Schilling's orifice. And that fixed the problem. And it saved many lives.

Just one more question. Rachel Parsons, she met a rather untimely end. Oh, it was horrible. It was horrible. I think of it as a tragedy because she had so much going for her. She promised so much and she was highly intelligent, but she was unconventional.

She didn't marry, she didn't have children, and she became more and more an object of suspicion because she was outside the normal expected behaviour of women. And she went to train. She became a trainer, not a trainer. She went to Newmarket to become a racehorse owner. But even that, the hostility there was profound to women, even in the 1950s by this time.

And I'm afraid to say she met a violent death. She was killed by a stable boy. And it was a shock, of course, the most horrible shock. But what was even worse, in a way, was that she was then vilified herself. In order, the defence, when it came to trial, he was charged with murder. He was, in fact, convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation and that was through um the provocation according to his defense counsel was was caused by rachel she was the victim but she was blamed henry eddie heel thank you very

much indeed for being with us and i'll just mention the title of the book again, Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines. Thank you. Thank you. Now so far in advance of BBC Music Day we've heard how important it can be for people who have dementia but what about children when not every school provides tuition and a private teacher can be expensive how do you inspire a child to learn an instrument or have singing lessons well molly newton is a music teacher and lead of the york music hub she joins us from the york studio and yolanda brown plays the saxophone but you didn't bring it with you yolanda did you no i was so looking forward to hearing you no one asked but i'm looking forward to encouraging appearance that's one asked but I'm looking forward to encouraging appearance that's the the aim of the day. What inspired you into music in the first

place? I think just being surrounded by hearing great music. My dad has a fantastic vinyl collection so at home growing up you'd always hear different genres of music from classical to opera to soul and I think I just wanted to be a part of that. You know, it's wonderful to be able to listen to music and dance and sing. But there's something else to be able to actually create it yourself, from yourself. So from the age of six, I started to ask my parents if I could have lessons. And what did you start on? The piano. Piano was my first. We had an electric piano at home.

And I loved just going up to it and just playing, making a sound and creating a feeling, if you like. And I wanted to learn it a bit deeper. And so went into a sort of traditional way of being taught the instrument. And why the sax? So I found the saxophone around age 13. So a bit later on, I played the drums. I wanted to play a wind instrument, sort of going through that traditional teaching. It's great, you know, but being forced to practice for exams and things like that wasn't quite how I flourished. And listening to music, I loved horns. I loved hearing, you know, the horns in orchestras through to Latin music and the saxophone called to me. And it really felt like my voice, but actually became self-taught on that instrument because I wanted to express myself in the way that I wanted to, not just for the examiner.

Now, Molly, I know the national curriculum includes music up to the end of primary school. What are children supposed to know by the time they leave primary school? Well, according to the national curriculum, by the end of year six, children should have had opportunities to play music to experience music to improvise to compose to kind of appreciate and understand what music is about to have a knowledge of music history but also by the end of year six the national curriculum expectation in england anyway is that children should be able to read notation, including staff notation, which I think is possibly a bit of a big ask in some primary school settings. Now, you said in England.

I know you think Scotland has a different system. Why do you think it's better? I don't necessarily think it's better, actually, in Scotland. I think they've got a different approach to music education, and actually it works well in some places and less well in others, but I'm no expert on Scotland. I think they've got a different approach to music education and actually it works well in some places and less well in others but I'm no expert on Scotland. I think a national curriculum does give people some guidelines to work from which are helpful but I think there is certainly a little bit of a crisis in music education particularly in primary settings where the provision is patchy and for some teachers that

the curriculum is off-putting because it feels unattainable I think. Yolanda you know people will sometimes say oh the arts you know that's on the side that's not so important whether it's drama or music or whatever what did studying music do for you besides just learning to play what did it add to your wider education absolutely it gave me a creative output it gave me ownership of something I could I could create I could perform if I wanted to or I could play for myself it was a very therapeutic experience for me especially when I found the saxophone and sort of stopped my lessons and started to just improvise and play for myself. And I think that there is something in music that needs to be taught in school as well. And I'm glad that you said improvising there in terms

of the national curriculum, because that's the element of creativity. And it is an art, it should be something that young people should be able to create and feel proud of, and actually affect their audience or affect their peers, work together. And I think that's the wonderful part of music that sometimes gets lost when we're focusing on sort of getting a grade or being able to assess how people have learned music. We must remember that it's an art form. And actually, when we go to concerts, you know, and see young other people expressing their art. That's the part of music that we enjoy as consumers. That's what we should be getting young people to experience.

But at the same time, Molly, you do have to know the basics, don't you? Where do you get the basics for a child who wants to play the piano, wants to play the violin, wants to play the saxophone, and then go on to do her own work on it or his own work? who wants to play the piano, wants to play the violin, wants to play the saxophone, and then go on to do her own work on it or his own work? It's a very, very interesting question because it comes back to what's the right age to start?

How do you introduce children into music? There are different schools of thought about how that works. I think there's no such thing as too young. You know, we expose ourselves to music all the time, and children. In fact, just what Yolanda was saying, those opportunities for inspirational events. You know, there was a CBeebies prom series recently. I know Yolanda was involved in that. And yeah, it was a brilliant chance for young people to go and experience music, very, very young people. And it's those things jenny that spark that inspiration that moment i was a child i was one of those children who went to a concert my parents gave me that opportunity and i came away thinking i want to do that and now how do

you start that you you ask questions so in most cases you approach your music hub or your school preschool um early years that that is a that is a bit of a gap in provision for sure. And hubs should be signposting things that are available for parents. It's finding a way to make children feel like music opportunities are for them and make families feel that they're for them. They're not exclusive.

If you can make a child feel engaged in music, then the next step is that they want to get involved, like Yolanda said, listening and performing and creating. That's all part of the same pie, really. We all want a part of that. Yolanda, you did say at one point that you got a little bit sick of practising and doing exams and all of those kind of things.

But clearly, at some point, you have to do that kind of stuff. If you're a parent and a child is saying, no, I'm not going to practice my piano or whatever, how do you persuade them that it matters? I think that you need to allow that child to take ownership of the music and I find that a lot of the times when children don't want to practice it's because they're being told to sit down and basically do homework. You know, sit down and practice what your teacher has told you the moment they hear their child going

off on a tangent they say oh no no get back to what you're doing allow your child to have some free time with the instrument as well um you know oh this is a song i made up mum can i perform it at christmas you know all of that that sort of energy and excitement about music still needs to be instilled and then the actual practice that you want the child to do will come naturally briefly molly which is the cheapest way of actually getting tuition on which instrument well the absolute cheapest way for children in primary school is to be accessing the whole class ensemble teaching that goes on in many schools across the country that music hubs support. I spoke to a child yesterday in a whole class setting and asked why they think

it's a good idea to do music like that if they do. And they said everybody gets a chance to do it here, to try before you buy. You get to have a taste, you don't have to go anywhere and everything's here. so the instruments are provided for free and the setting is school so nobody has to get anywhere and it is a brilliant opportunity nobody knows what they're good at until they have a go at it you don't like you don't know what you like until you get you know until you try it and i think that's a brilliant starting point but just really quickly about the practice it is it it is a wonderful thing to do if you can support as parents to know that it is difficult, but it is worth persevering.

68% of parents don't think there's enough music education happening for our young people and parents can support them at home. It is a brilliant thing if you can do it. I was talking to Molly Newton and Yolanda Brown. On the magnificent women and their revolutionary machines, Lucky emailed, The pioneers being celebrated today paved the way for those of us who followed. I obtained a BSC building in 1987. We were two females among a cohort of 40.

I chose to follow a path in international development, much of it in housing and infrastructure in low-income communities. A really rewarding career I may not have enjoyed had I taken any notice of social norms and poor careers advice. I'm looking forward to attending the Women's Engineering Society student conference later this year. Being among a cohort of young, dynamic engineering professionals is a real privilege and pleasure. A reminder, change is happening despite the slow pace. On inspiring your child to take up music, Susan said,

I learned to read music, as did most of the class, by attending recorder lessons at primary school. They were once a week, half an hour after school. We paid 25 pence. After one year, we owned the recorder. Me said, remember local brass bands offer free tuition and instruments and a warm welcome to young musicians.

Sadie said my son, 10, was desperate to learn the saxophone but we couldn't find a teacher for love no money. I live in Chesterfield, hardly the backwaters of the UK. He's learning the drums instead, but it's such a shame he would have loved it. Alison said, your guest wondered how a working class gran knew about opera. Maybe the same as mine, who would queue for tickets outside the theatre in Birmingham to be joined by Grandpa when he'd finished work. They were fortified by the sandwiches and thermos of tea prepared for the purpose. Opera wasn't an upper-class phenomenon. Ordinary people like them would play the music on violin and piano together before gramophones came into being. It's only the recent inverse snobbery that

it's not for the likes of us, which is now being broken down. Now do join me tomorrow if you can at two minutes past ten. I'll be speaking to the five-time Grammy Award nominated composer and electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani. She joins us to discuss a career in music which spans more than 40 years. And what does it take for a mother to stop loving her son? Tracee-Ann Oberman plays a woman whose teenage son is accused of violent sexual crimes in Mother of Him, which is being performed at the moment

at the Park Theatre in North London. Anna Palmer Chandrasekhar is a playwright whose play, set in India, examines a similar crisis when The Crow's Visit opens at the Kiln Theatre on the 23rd of October. And they will both join us tomorrow in the studio. Try and be there two minutes past ten, as I said. Until then, bye-bye. 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.