Beyond The Cringe #2 w/ Carla Easton, Arusa Qureshi & Mark McG
Great podcast on sexism in Scottish music and media and the history of girl bands …
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As I listened to the two articulate and insightful interviewees, I was pleased that they spoke uninhibitedly in their local accents.
Then Into my mind flashed a memory of the young Helen Liddell who subsequently became a member of Tony Blair’s cabinet and later a member of the House of Lords. She was a young economics reporter on BBC Scotland and she spoke clearly and informedly in he Coatbridge accent. The letters pages of the Scottish newspapers were filled with expressions of outrage that such a ghastly voice should be allowed on the airwaves! It was the Scottish cringe writ large, with seasoning of incomers from the South complaint that it was ‘incomprehensible’.
Fairly rapidly, Ms Liddell was moved away from appearing in programmes.
She moved on on to other things, such as working for Robert Maxwell and eventually into Parliament. However, she did modify her accent significantly, although it was still clearly Scottish. Given her Labour Party allegiance there will be many readers of this site who have no love for her, but, nonetheless, she was a talented working class woman.
Sadly, as her career advanced her diction changed and LIDD-ell, evolved into Lid-DELL.
Happily, we have moved beyond that, although the ‘Scottish’ Labour Party is still disdainful of any taint of Scottishness. Interestingly, the Welsh First Minister in a recent interview said that Welsh Labour will always emphasise its Welshness. She added, specifically, that this was different from the stance of Labour in Scotland.