Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Listener week - Elderly caring, women in boat building, dialects, functional skills in schools

Episode Date: August 8, 2026

Listener 'Sarah' tells us about the burden and resentment she feels at caring for a parent who is in her 90s, when she is a pensioner too. This is the time she thought she would have for herself. Clare Jefferies, who co-runs care companies and has written the book: I’m Your Daughter, Not Your Carer, and Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK, discuss the problem with Kylie Pentelow.Have you ever considered working in boat building? We were contacted by Women in Boat Building, a community of women working hands-on in the industry, who wanted to tell us about their experiences and raise the profile of a trade that's largely male-dominated. Abbey Molyneux, a traditional boat builder who runs her own boatyard in Norfolk and is a director of Women in Boat Building, and Vanessa Larmond, who's just starting out in the industry in Southwold, Suffolk, tell us what it is like.Do you ever use dialect when you speak? Do you think of yourself as having an accent? How do you feel about the way you sound? A listener in Yorkshire, Christina Longden, has got in touch with a request to hear from women like herself who are actively keeping regional dialect alive, an endeavour which she says has traditionally been the preserve of men. Christina would also like to discuss accent and dialect bias and why, she says, men have always been more permitted to speak in dialect than women. To discuss why what you say and how you say it still matters and how it’s influenced by gender, presenter Chloe is joined from Yorkshire by Christina Longden, a council member of the Yorkshire Dialect Society; by Diana Rackham, chair of Friends of Norfolk Dialect; and by Rob Drummond, professor of sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University.In two weeks’ time, thousands of young people will open their GCSE results - but what about those who don’t get the grade 4 they need in maths and English? 41% of pupils in maths and 29% in English won’t reach that benchmark, and 82% fail their resits, blocking their path to A levels, T Levels and BTECs. Listener Hannah Gee highlights a hidden alternative: Functional Skills, which have a 60–80% pass rate. Chloe Tilley talks to Hannah and her son Joe, and Claire Green from the Association of School and College leaders.Do men make more noise than women? One of our listeners thinks so and wrote: ‘It seems like a bit of frivolity, maybe, but it is blooming annoying, and I started to wonder if there is something psychological behind it: the noise men make when there is no need to make a noise at all. The coughing, sniffing, ‘ahhing’ as they get up and down, the belching, farting etc. It seems to get worse as they get older; or is it that women become less tolerant? Women seem to be silent in a room, but their other half is constantly making some sort of noise.’ Janet Street-Porter and Tim Dowling discuss.Presenter: Chloe Tilley Producer: Annette Wells

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Growing businesses deal with the same problem, too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odu gives you one place. to manage your business. Visit odoo.com to book a demo. It's O'D-O-O-O.com. Hello, this is Chloe Tilly and you're listening to The Woman's Our Podcast. Hello and welcome to the program. It's lovely to have your company. Coming up, are you caring for your elderly parent but really don't want to? One listener who is in her 60s got in touch to tell us she thought she would

have this time in her life for herself, post-work and raising children. But now she finds herself as the main carer and she talks openly about the resentment she feels. The ancient art of boat building, two women got in touch to tell us why they wanted to do it and the effort it took to make it to a boat yard. Also, the mother who got in touch after her son repeatedly resat his GCSE English and maths exams to try and get a grade four. That's the minimum required to continue in post-16 education. But asked why, after a demoralising journey, aren't young people offered the functional

functional skills test which many haven't heard of. And one listener wanted to know about the noises men make, from burping and coughing to passing wind, we asked to men make more noise than women. A woman's our listener who we're calling Sarah wrote to ask us, I would love you to focus on the expanding problem of OAPs looking after OAPs. My brother is in his 70s. My sister and myself are in our 60s,

and we're looking after a parent in their 90s. Here is a listener we're calling Sarah talking to Kylie Pentelow describing her situation. I have an elderly parent in their 90s. I am in my late 60s now and just retired and had thought that I would get this little section of time before I hit my 70s and ill health. I don't have the greatest of health, but I'm pretty good and I just thought I would have some time to travel. and spend more time with my own children and hopefully soon grandchildren. And I find myself the conduit for my parents' care, really. And it's frustrating because I have a parent who can make decisions but can't dress, doesn't really understand how to manage their money.

But yeah, I'm not allowed to override any decisions about living in an imprimprenuous. appropriate house, which is now the case. And several years running now, we've ended up in hospital because of accidents in the home. And I get told off by social services. And it's like, but I cannot override the householder. I can't make them just put in a stair lift. Hurrah. But, you know, for three years, I've been advocating for this. And it's really frustrating. It's very stressful. I'm one of three children, but the other two live abroad. And I don't want to do it anymore. You know, I just am stressed by it, exhausted by it, frustrated by it. And one of the most peaceful times in the year was when my parent was in a respite home between hospital and home.

And I just knew where they were and that everybody was looking after them and that it was all joined up and they were safe, you know, I think that's the situation. But it's not going to get better. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. It's not like bringing up children where they develop and start to get skills and fly the nest and it's joyful. This actually is the opposite. And not much fun for my parent, you know, you have to be pretty tough to be in your 90s, you know, but they are that generation with children in the war. So they are robust, but they're also very determined to have their own way. And regardless of who has to pick up the slack, which is basically me.

There is a living carer. So can you tell me a bit about what you're called on to do? Well, coordinate the carers, speak to the GP, speak to the social services. Anything goes wrong. the plumbing, the heating, the whatever, I have to arrange, you know, to fix it. And yeah, I'm already a single parent living in a house running my own household. And, you know, I don't really want to run somebody else's household. Certainly not unsupported, which I am.

Both my siblings are married, so they live in, you know, a supported environment. But they're not available because they don't live in this country. And I love them dearly. and, you know, they're very emotionally supportive. Do you feel any resentment towards them that this is falling on you? I do feel resentment, but not really towards them. It's not anything to do with anything they've done or haven't done. But we've had opportunities along the way, you know,

for my parent to have moved closer or to have moved into a more sheltered environment and they just don't want to. I want to be in my home and that's what I want. And it's like, okay, you know, we'll do our best to try and help you and find you carers. And the carers are lovely. Sometimes there's a mismatch where somebody thinks somebody's coming one day and they're not. So if there's a gap, I have to fill it. And it's perilous.

You say that many of your friends are in the same boat. And you wrote about the taboo of not being able to express just how, depressing it feels for you. Can you describe to us how it feels? I feel frustrated. I feel quite angry. I don't know at whom because it's not really a fault of anybody. I am frustrated, particularly with the NHS, that they do not join up. The doctors in the hospital do not talk to the GP. The GP doesn't talk to the social services. That really makes life difficult. And I do find this depressing. I thought I would be quite carefree for a few years. You know, I've put up my children by myself.

I've run a business. And I just thought I would have time off for good behaviour. And I do. I mean, it's not like I'm trapped or anything, but there is that constant background niggling. And, you know, if I go on holiday, it's quite likely I'll get a, you know, a WhatsApp about the health visitor not turning up. Is there any support available for you?

Not that I know of. I mean, I have really good friends. I'm very lucky. Several of them are in the same position and equally frustrated. And they feel they're doing quite a lot and their parent feels they're not doing enough. And it's like, but it's not just our responsibility. You know, surely it's not. My children are definitely my responsibility.

But I don't feel that my parent is. That was a listener that we're calling Sarah. In the UK, some 3.3 million adults aged 40 to 60 currently care for or support an older parent. And roughly one in five people aged 50 to 64 act as carers for an older family member. Well, to discuss these issues and what support and advice is available, Kylie was joined by Claire Jeffries, who co-runs care companies and has written the book, I'm Your Daughter Not Your Carer. Also with them was Caroline Abraham's charity director,

at Age UK. She began by asking Caroline, how common is that feeling? I think what's very common is the idea that you're having as the carer of an old person to join up all kinds of different services that don't talk to each other, that can't always be relied on and that aren't always very good. And that does make it's a lot harder than it needs to be or it should be. So that's definitely an area which we need to do something about. So for the children, who are the carers then right now, many are daughters. And in this case, as Sarah said, an OAP supporting an OAP, what advice and support is available to them right now?

Well, you can always ring AGK, and I think that's in get in touch with us. We have a fantastic information and advice service, and we can direct people to what support is available locally, which might be through a local OGK, or could be from another organisation. There are very good carer services, some places where people can get together and share their frustration, sometimes just talking about it helps.

And knowing you're not the only person in that situation, Careers UK is a lovely charity, which does all of that work all across the country. But the fact remains that we're living longer, and that means we are going to find the people in their 60s, say, are going to be caring for older parents. And that, in a way, just one of the consequences of having an ageing population where we now have four-generation families quite commonly. So I know great-grandparents who are helping to look after their great-grandchildren, which we never would have thought of all those years ago.

Claire, can I bring you in? You cared for your own parents. And you say you didn't know how to say no. Can you tell me about that? I think there is generally, certainly from the 16 years of my experiences, I think there's always somebody within the family who takes responsibility for looking after mum or dad. and it's generally the daughter and the conversations that I've had with daughters over the years

is why me, why do I feel guilty about the fact that I don't want to care for my mother? Why do I resent the fact that she's asking me to do stuff for her? I was in exactly that position. My mother used to generally, I mean, she's been dead a few years now but she would ring me up and she'd say, could you just pop over? and there was absolutely no popping over involved when you had two small children and potty training, one of them and you had to load half your life into a car

to take it down to your mother's house. So I think there is always one person, however big your family dynamic is, that takes that responsibility. And it sounds very much like Sarah is that person who has taken on the burden. Yes, she's got siblings who aren't in this country, but the world is a much smaller place now with technology.

You know, does Sarah need to be taking on all the burden, all the responsibility that she currently does? Parents love having their children around, don't they? It doesn't matter how old they are. But does this cause another issue that no matter how much time or energy that you might give your elderly mum or dad, it will never be enough for them. They always want a bit more. And what effect does that have do you think personally from you, but generally for people who are caring? I think there's this expectation, well, you know, mum needs me.

You know, mum always expects me to drop everything when she needs me. And I think, you know, a lot of what I write about in my book is about creating boundaries for yourself. How do you say no? How do you say, you know what, Mum? I mean, I think Sarah said that she, you know, she travels every week to see her mother. Her mother's living in an inappropriate home. But, you know, it's her home. There's nothing Sarah can do about moving Mum out.

Mum, I don't think, has got dementia. I think by the sounds of it, she's got capacity to make decisions. Therefore, there's nothing Sarah can do. So boundaries that Sarah can put in place to actually say, I'm not doing this for you. Actually, can you call on one of my siblings? Could she have a conversation with her siblings to say, right, can we carve up some of these responsibilities? I know you live in this country and you live in that country. But actually, I'm not doing it anymore.

Does she call out for help? Does she cry out for help and say, help me, I can't do. this anymore or is she suffering in silence because there's no medals for that. Sarah didn't specify whether it was her mum or her dad she was caring for. If the care though is falling on one child, how can you broach that subject with your siblings? Well, it depends the relationship you've got with your siblings. You know, there's, there are many people who don't have a good relationship with brothers or sisters don't have a good relationship and never have done with their mum or their dad.

and they now find themselves in this situation where they're caring for somebody who they don't really like or have never really got on with. So I guess it's what the relationship is that you have with your siblings as to how you tackle having that conversation. But I think there are a lot of women out there who just get on with it and don't say anything.

So the start could be, can we have a family conversation here because I'm not coping with this situation? We've had lots and lots of comments already on this. One here says, I've become a carer for my mother-in-law who's moved in with us. It's becoming very hard, especially as I work and have children to look after. Yes, I feel resentment.

A lot of it towards my partner's family who are not as supportive as they could be. Caroline, what is the advice for women who are working and caring? Many feel that they have to give up their jobs because they have this second job of caring. Yes, I think my advice really would be to try and keep that job going if you possibly can. because if you stop work, particularly if you're in midlife, it'll be really hard to get back into work once you get a certain age. There's a lot of age discrimination in the job market.

And people often find that if they're out of work as carers and they've got to wait until they reach their state pension age to get the state pension, they're having to use the savings that they'd carefully put by to cushion their retirement just to keep going. I'm afraid at the moment being a carer in working life is an unpaid carer can be a recipe for poverty in later life and so also just for your own sanity for seeing people, for keeping some kind of normal life going,

it's really helpful if you can keep working, even if it's only part-time. But of course, some employers are a lot more flexible and helpful than others, and we basically need employers to step up as well, recognise the burdens and the responsibilities on people in midlife now and help them to be able to continue in employment.

Claire, I just want to end this item with you. You write an Anne finally in your book. You say to the daughter sitting in quiet exhaustion, wondering if anyone sees her, I want you to know you are doing a great job, you're doing the best you can, but it shouldn't cost you everything. So let me offer you this. Don't confuse responsibility with identity.

Can you briefly tell me about that? There is something called Compassion Fatigue. You know, it's real. You know, who's looking after you? There's a little thing that I use, and it's called the little bucket. You know, some days you can pour everything into a massive bucket, and the world is fine. And then other days you have a bucket that's so small that you can't cope with anything.

And it's okay to have little bucket days, recognize them. And if you're having too many of them, get help. You do not have to do this on your own. Claire Jeffries and Caroline Abraham's there. Now, one of the pleasures of Listener Week is hearing about worlds many of us know very little about. We were contacted by women in boat building, a community of women working hands-on in the industry,

who wanted to tell us about their experiences and raise the profile of a trade that is largely male-dominated. Well, Kylie was joined by Abbey Molyneux, a traditional boat builder who runs her own boatyard in Norfolk and is a director of women in boat building, also with them Vanessa Larmond, who was just starting out in the industry in Southwold in Suffolk. She began by asking Abby, as a boat builder and running her own boatyard, what does that actually involve?

Running a traditional boatyard, it's sort of, I always joke that it's kind of 25 jobs all in one. You have to know how to build the boat. You have to know how to manage the team. You have to know how to do all the ordering, all the supply work. And you have to know how they all work, float them, sail them, deal with all the customers, interior design, designing the boats. communicating that to your team and making it all come true. And it's, yeah, it's why I like it because it fills up every aspect of my brain, keeps you busy, there's never a bored moment.

And you're on the Thames at the weekend with one of your boats, the lifeboat that's called the Guide of Dunkirk, which helped to actually evacuate soldiers from Dunkirk. Can you tell me about what you did with that boat? Yeah, so we've just spent the last 12 months restoring a lifeboat called Guide of Dunkirk. She was built in 1939, and the day she was launched, she was sent straight to the beaches of Dunkirk to rescue the soldiers from the beaches.

So we're using her as a platform for traditional boat building, women in boat building, and just to advertise the classic boat industry to a wider audience. So we've been in St. Catherine's dock, showing the public round, and telling the story as well, and bringing the history alive for people, and connecting all those generations of people.

So people have told us stories about their grandfather that was rescued and can we help them find which boat it was on? And it also shows that, you know, there's practical hands-on craftsmanship is a career. And you can do it and we still exist. As I said, you're one of the directors of women in boat building. What are the challenges that women face, both getting into the trade and then once they're working in it?

Well, it's obviously a male-dominated trade. From a business point of view, I found it really hard setting up just to be taken seriously. And I was really lucky to have the support of the man that trained me. And the reference from him is what helped me build my business. And without that, I'd have struggled to get the credibility from people. Because I'm young, but also because I'm female. And it can be really intimidating and it can be really lonely. I mean, for nine years, I was the only woman.

And that's a really lonely place to be. And women in boat building is, it's a community. And it doesn't favour women over men, but it supports them. I mean, in a workshop space, all the men that I worked with had each other, whereas I didn't have that. So we've kind of artificially created it by pulling all the women from all around the globe, really, to create this network of people so that we can support each other. Vanessa, you've been working as a boat builder in Southworld for the last two years.

You're in your 40s now, but you spent muster of your life, didn't you, chasing this dream? I did, yeah. Tell me about it. So I've always had a fascination with boats. I don't really know where that's come from. And so when I was able to choose my own direction, I went to Coventry University to start off with, wanted to go on the boat design course, but they put me on a foundation to start off with. So I used to sneak into the tuition of the people who would do.

in the boat design course, which made me realise it wasn't the course that I wanted to do because it wasn't hands-on enough. So I did my one year, and then I moved on to Derby University, and I did a sustainable design course, which allows you to choose what you want to do at the end of the course. So the first year, everybody does the same. And the second and third year, you get to choose what you want to specialize in, and I was like, I want to build a boat. Can I do that here? And they were like, yes, it didn't work out. So then I had a couple of children And I found out about the boat building course

The IBT in Lower Stoft So I saved for eight years And then me and my family moved to Lower Stoft And I did the course I finished on the Friday I started working at Harbour Marine Services In Lower Stoft on the Monday After I finished the course

That is a big commitment isn't it To choose to move your whole family And you know Basically to follow your dream Yeah. What did they say when you said we were about to do this? I think my daughter probably didn't believe me because we say things as parents,

are we going to do this, we're going to go here, and she was just like, I never thought it was going to happen. And it did, so I think that was a bit of a shock. But I think they've grown a lot from it. To me, reading about both of you, it almost sounds like a calling to go and build boats. And Abby, it's in your blood, isn't it? It is. It's in my blood. I only discovered that later in my career, but it's just where I'm meant to be and what I'm meant to do. And I think if you can find a job that you love, people tell me I need a hobby and I should go on holidays and I should have a life. But I love what I do. Why would I want to be anywhere else, you know? I feel incredibly lucky to have found that. And it's a really difficult trade to get into it. And Vanessa's story is a good example of that. There is no government-funded training.

So if you want to do this, you either have to save up an awful lot of money for a very long time, or you have to put yourself at risk and live what is quite a difficult life and train in boat yards and be quite transient, which is what I did. So if you want this, you really have to work for it. Can you both describe, Abby, maybe you first, what you actually love about it? What, like, day to day, what is it that you really enjoy? You know, is it literally doing the work on the boat that is. the thing that drives you? I think for me it's the creativity behind it. There is no manual,

there's no set of instructions, there's no complicated mathematics that you have to know and learn and follow. You just create shapes in empty spaces and you bring stuff back to life and you do that by eye and with your own creative kind of interpretation of what it is you're doing. And for me, the freedom of that combined with the physical skill of actually. doing it and being stood in a pile of sawdust and I just love it. What about for you Vanessa? I think it's every day's different. You don't know what you're going into and it's the kind of like, okay, you need to do this

and you're not told how to do it, you have to figure it out for yourself and you have to sit there and think, okay, how am I going to do that, how am I going to make that fit, this is under here, what do I need to take apart, how am I going to put it back together, how is it going to look good when I'm done? And it's like, and you get to do the varnishing, you get to do the cleaning, you're underneath a boat, you're climbing up ladders, and. and it's really active and I hate sitting still. So for me, this really works.

And I like the fact that, oh, there's a rickety ladder. I'm going about two stories up and then I'm going to climb over the boat. Every boat that comes into our boatyard I go into every single one. It's like, I want to see what it looks like. I want to have a look inside. What is it like to be in this space? What's in here? And all the different compartments and how everything goes together.

It varies between one boat and another. And I just love it. Oh, sounds so great. Abby, I was really interested to hear. You don't actually really like being on boats. No, I'm not a boater at all. So boating for me, as soon as they start floating, you're sitting still. There's nothing to do.

You're sat staring at the sea or the river or, yeah. It's also for me I have like a huge understanding of how they work and what all the variables are. I know the age and I know the wear and tear on each individual bit. and I can't switch my brain off long enough to sit still and enjoy something like that. Just finally, what would you say to women and girls who are listening who might be thinking, you know, I'd love to do that? I think it's not for everybody, but if you have that kind of creative brain

and that need to be physical and hands on, just don't let anybody tell you you can't do something. You can put your hands to whatever you like and there is a space for you out there and don't let anybody tell you there isn't. Vanessa Larman and Abby Molland. new there. Now, still to come on the program, do men make more noises than women? Just one of the many topics raised during listener week. And remember, you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day if you can't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC sounds. Now, do you ever use dialect when you speak? Do you think of yourself as having an accent?

And how do you feel about the way you sound? Well, a listener from Yorkshire, Christina Longdon, has got in touch with a request to hear from women like herself who are actively keeping regional dialect alive, an endeavour which she says has traditionally been the preserve of men. Following on from a recent Westminster Hall debate by MPs, which referred to mocking regional accents as the last form of acceptable discrimination in this country, Christina also raised the related issue of accent and dialect bias. Men, she says, have always been more permitted to speak in dialect than women.

Well, to discuss why what we say and how we say it or how our ancestors did still matters and also how it's influenced by gender, I was joined by Christina Longdon, a council member of the Yorkshire Dialect Society, along with Diana Rackham, Chair of Friends of Norfolk dialect, along with Rob Drummond, Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University. I began by asking Rob, what's the difference between dialect and accent and how closely related are they? So they are related and people use the terms interchangeably sometimes, but really, we're being quite precise about it, dialect is the bigger term. Dialect includes words and grammar and pronunciation, how you sound. But when we talk about accent, we're only talking about pronunciation.

So it's just the sounds of your language is accent and everything else is dialect when you think about words and grammar. Now, Christina, we're having this discussion because you suggested it. Just explain to us where your passion came from for dialect and indeed, I suppose, by extension accent. I think it came from my parents. My dad in particular has always been a very broad accent. I must admit as well, I feel like a bit of a thought because I'm a Lancashire last. I was born in Lancashire. And I've been in West Yorkshire for nearly 20 years now. So I went to university first generation, university educated, too, and Russell, university and I felt like a fish out of water for many reasons but primarily because the minute I

opened my gob I sounded so different and I was very very fortunate in that my professor at university Carl Chin who's a very well-known brummy he instantly zoned in on what was my nervousness at speaking and I think it's probably is Carl and reading mother in heights that made me realize actually there's a certain way of speaking, which isn't just your accent, it's the words and it's your mother tongue, it's the words that you learned from very small, when you were small from your grandparents. And then I became curious as to why these words are being lost, partly because of globalisation, Americanisation. And I just thought, as a historian, I kind of, I wicked to myself and to my children to reclaim that, really. And for you, Diana, why were you engaged

in celebrating dialect? I think it's a sort of very similar story, really. When I was growing up, I didn't really realize I was using dialect words. I would say to my mum, oh, the cat's caught a ranny, and I would be confused because somebody else would identify that as a shrew,

and it wasn't until years later did I think, oh, that was a dialect word. And again, that university experience, getting out and meeting people from other parts of the world and hearing other words. I remember opening the fridge and going, oh, the carrots have gone foesy, and nobody else knew what the word foezy meant.

So suddenly I was like, oh, this is really interesting that I have words that I use to describe things and other people don't know what they are. And then the idea of it being of Norfolk dialect origin. That's really interesting. Thank you for explaining that. It's a really interesting insight.

And one thing I want to pick up on, Christina, I know when you got in touch with us, you said that the work of recording, reading, speaking dialect words, has long been the preserve of men. And I'm just interested why you think that and indeed why that is. Yeah, I mean, if you speak to any of the fellas who are involved in the Yorkshire Dialect Society, you know, I'm sure they're in agreement with me, which is just at that point, really in the late end of the Victorian era, this is when the dialect society is in Britain boomed.

So in the 1890s, academics actually, but many of them from, you know, more working class backgrounds who love the dialect, decided to preserve the language in dictionaries. And obviously at this point, women were not engaged in those kind of professions. So it has been, you know, very male dominated in terms of the actual recording and the preservation. Women have always spoken in dialect. We've always gotten on with stuff. We've not had time to be sitting down writing dictionaries and thinking about the way that we speak. We just do it. And I think that's, the interesting bit is so you can speak to women now who speak dialect, but they would not perhaps even know about a society of preserving it. Having spoken to a lot of women the last couple of weeks

about this, unanimously I get told, your accent is bad enough. You have to water that down anyway in order to get on in life, but to speak these words that somebody will have to ask you what they mean is an absolute no-no. And this is why we're losing it. it's because as women, we have this pressure of deference, of hierarchy, the fear, especially if you're from a more working class background, of speaking the way that you would in the home, everything that your family do to sacrifice and to hope that you do well in the world. It's like you're betraying that. So there's this prestige that goes with standard English. And yeah, so it's very much we have to check ourselves. Just a quick example, when you

introduced me then, I didn't say, hey up, or now then, because I had to check that. I thought, well, that alienate people. And it's a nice side of that, which means that you've been inclusive, but also this is what we've been doing to ourselves as women for a long time. That's really interesting. Rob, I want to bring you back in on that, because studies show women use fewer dialect features than men. Is it for those reasons that Christina's just outlined? Yeah, exactly that. There is a greater kind of societal pressure on women to follow the norms of sort of standard English and standard behavior and politeness and all of these things because we live in a very unequal society and historically it's been even more so

and so women have have needed that that prestige that comes with with standard language as christina's just said they need that in order to kind of elevate their position in in a similar situation a man wouldn't necessarily have to do that and she also writing that in the kind historically it has been men who have been recording these things an interesting the survey of English dialect was a very big survey in the 1950s and 60s, which really aimed to preserve dialect across England. And they specifically targeted norms they were called, they were non-mobile, older, rural men, because those were the people who were kind of deemed to be the most authentic dialect speakers. And so that just reinforces this all the time. And so you get

this constant idea that if you want true kind of dialect, you know, you go to these older men. And of course, that's just nonsensical because it has just been pointed out. Women have always used these different ways of speaking. It's just that in society, in areas where people are being judged and where people need to get on, then there is this real inequality and different expectations of men and women. And we see that, you know, even today. Well, when you mentioned that, it made me think about, if we're talking about dialect but also accent, the way Andy Burnham when he speaks can be treated versus, say, for example, Angela Rainer as a woman.

Yeah, absolutely. And this is something we're looking into at the moment, actually. So with my colleague Amanda Cole at Cambridge, we're looking at the voices of people in Westminster. So we've got a project on the go called Westminster Voices. And we're interviewing MPs and members of the House of Lords. And we're asking for their experiences of their ways of speaking. And you're absolutely right. There are, again, different expectations and different judgments. And this just reinforces other studies and other things that have happened in the past,

where we see this real kind of unequal judgment about how people speak. So you can get a man and a woman with seemingly identical other social factors, same class, same background, same ethnicity, same job. Yet it will be the woman who is picked out as speaking in, you know, her speech will be viewed negatively, more negatively than a man. And this happens kind of anecdotally with, I don't know, I've seen it with kind of in presenters in broadcasting. There are some very clear examples, as you say in politics, people like Andy Burnham, Angela Raina, Jess Phillips, Jess Phillips, Jess Phillips, Jess Phillips and Angela Hayna, but they don't get the same kind of judgment. And this is also backed up in research that women's voices are judged more harshly, more negatively.

Christina, you said that you, I mean, even before we came on air here today, you thought about what words to use and whether that might alienate people. Do you feel pressure from, say, family when you were growing up to talk a certain way? Or indeed, you pass that on to your children. Say, no, don't talk like that. Tone it down. I definitely do feel that because if I've ever on the radio, my parents always comment how broad I sound. And I have to explain that when I'm nervous, I go really broad. job interviews, it's been commented. And it's just a nerves thing.

And I'm going right back to being small because I'm feeling vulnerable because I'm on air. With my kids, it's interesting because they have less of an accent than me. And that's possible because of my husband who he was a brummy. He's a brummy in denial. He'll kill me for saying that. So he kind of watered down that. But I have encouraged both my children to play with dialects and to play with words and, you know, just saying casual stuff like, Fram, they said,

that was, you know, they're useless, like a wooden duck and put wooden dial, and, you know, just the words that we have in West Yorkshire, like, braying, or if you're not from around the area, we call somebody an off-cumbder. So these are words that my kids will know and they'll be familiar with from school, but I think that's just probably because I make quite a lot of effort to instill that in them. Christina Longdon, Diana Rackham, and Professor Rob Drummond, his new book, Manchester Voices, Accents, Dialects and Identities is out now. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, clean up,

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but only with the code clean at factormeals.ca. Factor, Canada's number one meal delivery service. Now in just under two weeks' time, young people across England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be getting their GCSE results. And while we celebrate those who excel, what about the young people who don't manage to get a grade four pass in their GCSE maths and English?

Just over a third of peoples, that's around 41% in maths and 29% in English, will not get the required grade four pass. Some 80% will then go on to fail a reset. Now, you need to pass both maths and English to go into any post-16 studying, whether that is A levels, T-levels or BTEC Level 3 qualifications. Well, listener Hannah G emailed the programme to say,

please let me come on to talk about how one in three children in England fail English and maths GCSE, and then are expected to reset, repeat, and try again. until they pass. She adds, but did you know that a solution exists, but it's hidden. Functional skills tests have a much higher pass rate, 60 to 80%, compared to resets which only have a 17 to 21% pass rate. Well, I spoke to Claire Green, who is the post-16 and skills policy specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders. And by Hannah G, who emailed us, she joined me in the studio with her son, Joe. I began by asking Hannah what it's like from a parents' perspective.

Jo was diagnosed as dyslexic age nine, and so he struggled with school, but he had consistently high effort grades. He also had a private tutor in the run-up to GCSEs, and in his mocks, he was getting threes and the occasional four. So I was really quite optimistic that a child with excellent school reports who tried hard would get the grade that they needed to move on in life. life. So yeah, I was quite optimistic when he sat them. And often when they get their, do their mocks, they often their grades do go up, don't they? Because they're working really

hard and things like that. So did you know what your options were when Joe wasn't able to get those grades initially? I knew that he would be able to re-sit. And the first thing I did was look at the reset pass rate. And I was amazed at how low it was. And then I thought, well, how many children actually passed UCSEs in the first place? And I couldn't believe that in all my time in education being heavily involved with schools, I didn't know that one in three would pass. And what really blew my mind was that only three in ten special educational needs children pass their English and maths compared to seven in ten non-special educational needs, which points to the problem being it's a system problem, not a child problem.

Joe, how were you feeling all through this? What effect was it having on you? The first time I failed. Yeah. It failed. I always think failed is. It's a really difficult. Yeah, but that's okay. You got a three, okay? You didn't fail. You got a three. Yeah, yeah. So how did you feel then knowing that resets were what was coming? I think I was quite optimistic for the first, like, one or two times for the reset. But then after it got to the third time, fourth time, I was sort of feeling a little bit like demoralised. I wasn't really feeling very confident because obviously if you do something once, you don't pass it.

And then you do it again, you don't pass it. Obviously, your self-esteem and stuff is going to go down. And what support were you getting in between? Were you getting extra hours of maths and English tuition? Yeah, yeah, I was getting extra hours of tuition, but I still don't think it was really enough. And so you're in this cycle, essentially, aren't you? The two of you, and the family as well. Joe's already said he's feeling quite demoralised.

As a parent, I can imagine, it's quite difficult for you. It's incredibly difficult because you're trying to motivate a child who believes they can't do it because they're being told by the system they can't. So when Joe came home and said, Mum, there's this thing called functional skills. I was like, oh, what's that? and he said it's a GCSE equivalent.

And I thought, again, I've been involved with the school. No, how has no one ever told me this? And so I looked into it and discovered that the pass rate for functional skills, which are a GCSE equivalent, according to the government, and according to Ofquil, and they're regulated by Ofquil, 55% of children pass maths and 63% pass English, which is very different to the reset pass rate, extremely different. And the reason being, it's a more applied format.

Explain to us what's the... the difference between, say, a GCSE maths question and a functional skills test maths question? GCSE maths can be very abstract, so it includes things like simultaneous, quadratic equations, Pythagoras theorem, etc. So it can be very abstract. Functional skills is focused on applied maths.

So ratios, percentages, fractions, things that we need every day of our lives. Do you think this is having a long-term impact on you now, Joe? Not anymore, but in the time that I was doing my maths in English, like, regularly. every time that there was a reset, like paper available. I think, yeah, it was demoralising at the time. I don't think once I passed it, it wasn't as bad. I wonder as well, why do you think, Hannah,

people aren't being told about functional skills, like parents who are in your situation? Why is it not regularly being offered by schools or colleges or sixth forms? Schools hands are tied because of league tables and funding restrictions. It's out of school's hands, really, because of the government legislation around those things. It's quite complicated, which is why I started. the fair exams campaign, so we've got our petition live. Ideally, what we're asking for

is for the government to integrate functional skills into GCSE up to a grade four so that more children pass because resists cost us £338 million a year. So if we have more children passing the first time, they would leave more confident, they'd have higher self-esteem, they could move on to level three courses and become much more employable. Let's bring in Claire Green, who is post-16 and Skills Policy Specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders. I know, Claire, you've been a teacher, you've been head of sick form for more than 20 years, and of course also your role at the Association of School and College Leaders. When young people don't manage to get that grade four pass in English and maths,

I know that you've called it the forgotten third. What do we know about these young people? Are there patterns as who they are? Could these be people that are recognised earlier in the system and identified and supported? Yeah, absolutely. So the forgotten third term itself comes from a report that we commissioned in 2018, which was to look into, you know, why do we have a situation where a third of young people every year fail to meet this government-imposed benchmark of a grade four in their English and maths. And what we see within that third of young people, and it is always roughly a third of young people every year who don't meet the benchmark.

We see more young people with special educational needs and disabilities in that cohort. and we also see more disadvantaged young people within that cohort. And as you said, I was a head of sick form for a long time. And so I've personally supported students who are in that position and having to then do this sort of, we call it the treadmill of GCSE resets. And they are, as Joe has explained, it's really demoralising for both the students and the family supporting. But it's also really hard education staff who are supporting the students as well

because often, you know, the young people are so, they feel like failures. I know Joe said, I failed, you know, you didn't fail, but young people feel like they are failures in this situation. And that's a third of young people feeling like they're a failure every year. And their schools are having to say, no, you need to go to this retake lesson. And it's the last thing that they want to do, you know, on their timetable. So I've been in the position where I've escorted students to those lessons. They don't want to go or when it's the exam, they might not turn up for the exam.

I mean, there's a cost. clearly to young people and their families, as we heard from Hannah and Joe. But there's a cost to the government here. It costs millions and millions of pounds every year to go through the resets cycle. So is there a better way? Is the functional skills test a better approach in your view? So it does cost a lot of money, and that's because there are funding regulations around post-16 where now you have to actually plan for 100 hours of teaching for English and maths.

And, you know, we're in a recruitment and retention crisis. It's really difficult particularly to get maths teachers. And so we're having to put on all of these additional lessons. when only then 20% of those young people go on to actually achieve the grade four by the end of their post 16. Do we think functional skills is a better solution? I think it's a better solution to what we've got right now. But the Association of School and College Leaders, and in that forgotten third report that I mentioned previously, we actually put forward an alternative suggestion, which is we agree with Hannah and Joe that there needs to be a pre-16 solution to this.

We don't see why young people have to fail before something kicks in. but our view is that the functional skills qualification now is sort of associated with that idea of not achieving the GCSE. It's sort of seen as a backup option. So what we would like to see is a new qualification, a kind of universal passport style qualification where there's a set of standards that we would expect young people to achieve in literacy and in numeracy by the time they leave secondary education. And once they've kind of met those standards, they've got the benchmark. so that becomes the benchmark rather than having the arbitrary grade four for everybody. And I like to add to that that exactly we're campaigning for something similar in the way that we want functional skills integrated into GCSEs

because change takes so long and young people are in a neat crisis and a mental health crisis. So we are asking the government to do something they can implement immediately because functional skills already exist. So they could quickly offer them from year 10. But on our manifesto, what we're asking for them is to be integrated into GCSEs to make exams fairer, not easier. Of course, we have heard from the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, more of a focus on technical education. Does that sound like a good approach?

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely something that we welcome at the Association of School and College Leaders. We think there should be broader options available for young people from 14, so that we've got pathways for all sorts of learners. and we don't have a third of young people kind of left behind and then not able to progress potentially to the courses that they want to do. And that's kind of the situation that Joe found himself in. And I've seen that numerous times with young people that I've taught previously where because they've got to take the GCSE retake in post-16,

that means it might be timetabled at the same time as another course that they want to do. And so therefore they can't choose that other course because they've got to go to the retake lessons because it's compulsory. And the school has no saying that the young person, has no say in that and we don't think that's right. The government's recently announced this idea of a stepping stone qualification in English and maths. Just explain what that is, who would take that and whether you think, in your view, that would work. Yeah, so currently functional skills is available for students who are retaking if they've got a grade two or lower on their GCSE.

In future, what the government is saying, anybody who's got a grade two or lower, they will instead of doing functional skills. Functional skills may still exist for some students, but they're saying the majority instead will do this level one, stepping stone qualification. Now, if you've got a grade two or one in your GCSE, that is actually equivalent to a level one pass technically. So at the Association of School and College Leaders, we just think making young people do another level one for a year before they even get the opportunity to retake their GCSE.

So they're still going to have to resit, but it's delayed. The following year. So actually, it's almost delaying the problem and exacerbating it because, you know, I know it's really difficult to get students to go to retake lessons. will you be able to get young people to go to level one less than before they even get the opportunity to retake? Exactly that. It's utterly demotivating when all your peers are moving on that you are then stuck in this cycle of having to resit. We need to address this issue before they reach failure.

It's like having a lifeboat on a ship but hiding it under the deck. There's no point. Hannah G, and Joe and also Claire Green there. Now, a Department of Education spokesperson said, our reforms let young people continue to study these subjects and work towards these vital qualifications alongside their other studies so that they unlock opportunities for education, training and work.

In addition, we're introducing new stepping stone qualifications which will help more students in further education build the foundational literacy and numeracy skills they need to thrive in life and work and ensure they continue to make progress in English and maths in 16 to 19 education. Now this next suggestion comes from a listener called Helena, who didn't want to come on air. But she wrote to us saying this, I am a big fan of Woman's Hour.

And I wanted to run this by you. It seems like a bit of frivolity, maybe, but it's blooming annoying. And I started to wonder if there is something psychological behind it. The noise men make when there is, well, no need to make a noise at all. The coughing, the sniffing, the a-hring as they get up and down. The belching, the farting, etc. It seems to get worse as they get older, or is it that women become less tolerant? Women seem to be silent in a room, but their other half is constantly making some sort of noise.

Well, some of you're listening might be shouting at the radio saying, you know exactly what Helena means, others might disagree. So we wanted to discuss this concept of men's noises with two people who have different takes. Kylie was joined by broadcaster and journalist Janet Street Porter. Janet has a new tour starting this September called Still Off the Leash. at 80, which is described as a rant against growing old gracefully. Also with her was the author and journalist Tim Dowling. Now, Tim writes a regular column for The Guardian on everything from his dog's social media presence to his thinning hair.

Kylie began by asking Tim, is it fair to say that men make more noise than women? Yeah, I can only say yes to that. I absolutely do. And it's got worse as I've got older, certainly. And I want to say, what's your excuse? Well, my first excuse would be it's entirely involuntary. About 10 years ago, I started making this noise, this kind of, I guess, pained, puffsful exertion

every time I got out of a chair. And there was a corresponding sort of gasp of relief when I sat back down. And I tried to train myself out of it because I thought, you know, this is adding years to you. But I couldn't. It was just, it was too satisfying. Janet, do you agree that men do this more than women?

It would be so easy to say, yes, but I'm kind of halfway here because I've got to admit that I make more noise as I've got older and I'm not saying that all women do but this woman does

and I first noticed it after I had a knee replacement and then I could not get out of a chair without letting everybody within 15 feet know by going up and then it's so hard to get as Tim probably confirmed that

once you start doing uh as you get out it's quite hard to stop yourself it's one of those habits is probably as bad as smoking so then once you've got away with uh i'm afraid it kind of grows a bit from there and actually in my show i do a whole thing about um farting now i used to say that it was men who farted men who thought that they could do it and it was okay and you know we've all been in a lift with someone who's done one of those silent but deadly ones. But men feel that it's perfectly okay to kind of let one officer go out of the room and think, no, you know, oh, well, that was just a squeaky door. But I've got to admit to you and Tim and to woman's our listeners that I fart more as I've

got older and I don't know why. And I think one of the reasons is that I'm so concerned and I'm obsessed with wanting to live to be 100 that I've adopted is such a healthy diet. I'm forever reading it. Palses, eat grains, eat vegetables, less meat, more fish. And my body has just become like a chemical factory. Obviously, you know, we're not going to talk about the science behind this in any way. I don't think there is any science.

You know, we are inspired by a listener's comments on this. And Helena specifically said, you know, she says that, you know, men seem to make this more than women and women make no noise at all. Janet, do you think there's a reason why women might hold it in in public space? Oh, I've tried so hard. I really, really try. I think women's default position is not to draw attention to themselves and it certainly was mine. Every time that I got out of the car and I did a little bit of a fart as I got up, I pretend the car door was squeaking. and I think that men have this thing where they want to occupy the space. And I think I get what your listener has said,

that men have a tendency when they go into a space to kind of own it. It's unconscious. It's not deliberate. It's a kind of dominant thing. So if they load the dishwasher, they do it more noisily. If they're cooking, there's more clonking and clanking. And that goes to as far as their bodily functions. too. I mean, I'm not blaming men. I just think it's a kind of default thing.

What do you think about that, Tim? I don't know. Sometimes I think I just do it because my dad did it, you know, and you get to a certain age and you just behave the way your dad did at that age. And he had a range of noises for everything from exasperation to mild confusion, disgust. And, you know, when he'd bang his thumb with a hammer, he had just all, no words involved, all non-verbal, just noises. And I've sort of picked them up, and they are very, I think they're very handy. But I think he also, I'm very self-conscious person, but as you get older, you just forget to be self-conscious. You just, you lose track of things. We've had a comment about that, actually. Adel from Wakefield says, I refuse to hide my need to break wind when I'm at home in

front of my partner. I see it as part of equality and feminism. He started breaking wind first and would either say nothing or laugh about it. So I decided life's too short to hold it in. I don't think he finds it very ladylike, but hey, that smells like a double standard to me, she says. Brilliant comment. This is interesting, isn't it? This theory, Janet, of being ladylike. And I wonder whether there's this

element of being desirable to a partner. You know, there's this idea, I guess, that our bodies should be potentially desirable, not distasteful, to the opposite sex. Well, men don't seem to have that, do that? Because I'm

sure that Tim will agree with me that as men get older, they adopt this very weird thing, which is dressing like toddlers. So as a man ages, he wears the baggy shorts to the knee with many pockets and the loose t-shirt and the funny hat with a peak. And it's almost like men, as their bodies are getting older and more blobby around the middle, they actually regress to toddler stage, whereas women still have this default thing where we still want to look decent.

I mean, we're not, I'm not using the word attractive. I'm saying decent, acceptable, and primarily for other women, it's got to be said. A good comment here says, I don't think it's more acceptable for men to cough, fart, burp, etc. But it links to the man spreading thing. You were referencing that, Janet. Women are conditioned and shamed from a young age to stay quiet and be as small as possible, which makes us more inclined to stay quiet all the time. Does this mean we should make these sounds?

More? No, it means men should make them less. It's not pleasant sitting next to anyone burping and farting, irrelevant of gender. What do you make of that, Tim? I can see that that's not pleasant. What can I say? My wife uses her words when she is exasperated or angry, and she takes up plenty of space in the room when she's upset with things. I agree.

I mean, I think everybody ought to rein themselves and in public the best they can. But as I said before, I think as you get older, these things tend to slip your mind. So, Janet, is this something then that we should just kind of be proud of and, you know, accept that our bodies make certain noises and women should just go for it? I wonder what it would feel like to have that in our society. I think our society as a whole has got much noisier. I mean, if you travel on public transport,

nobody feels the slightest bit embarrassed about carrying on quite intimate conversations on their speakerphones, and people all speak more loudly. So I think society has got noisier. But, I mean, I'm going on to all. My show celebrates the fact that a very loud, noisy person, and I'm not ageing gracefully. I'm aging disgracefully. And I'm trying to encourage my audience to do the same.

Janet Street, Porter and Tim Dowling there. And if you want to see Janet's upcoming tour, still off the leash at 80, it kicks off. in Sevenoaks this September. Well, that's all for today on Monday's Woman's Hour. A treat for you. Tamzin Althwaite joins Nula McGovern to talk about her latest role as the iconic Beverly

in Mike Lee's ferocious black comedy, Abigail's party. They'll be discussing suburban life, social class, materialism, and sexual tension in 1970s, England. Do have a lovely weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Do join us again next time.