Prunella Scales

This is exactly what happened in the suburbs of Leicester in the 70s- when Asian immigrants from Uganda arrived after being kicked out by Iddi Amin. The council decided to bus some of the children to schools outside the inner City, to 'dilute' the %- and many English parents took their kids out of those schools to send them to private education. It was tragic to watch.

Mind you, those Ugandan Asians very soon did very well, moved out to those suburbs, and sent their own children to the same private schools - it was very interesting...

My dad, his older sister and younger brother were evacuated from Battersea (a slum area in London at that time and not the lovely, desirable place it is now) to a village in Buckinghamshire and it was like being moved to Mars as far as he was concerned but he said it was he best time of his life. He was lucky with the family the boys were placed with, his sister less lucky. However, the villagers weren't happy with these scruffy kids and wouldn't let them go to the school. So much for all being in it together, eh?

I know someone who did part of the filming for that programme. Apparently she is in the early stages of Altzheimer's poor woman.

She and Timothy West have talked about that publicly.

TAB12, I saw that programme as well, and felt rather disappointed in her when she said that.

Surely Prunella Scales and her brother were also children at the time and had little, if any, choice in the matter. I can't see why the decision made by her mother should make her disappointing.

I thought that too absent - not her fault at all.

I agree, absent

Yes. Perhaps my words were wrong, there. Maybe, on looking back, when I think of the expression on her face it may have been that she questioned her mother's decision.

We should not judge the past by current standards. Class divisions were strong then and these things happened.

My mother was Irish and when she was a child she remembered seeing signs on boarding houses saying 'No children, no Irish, no dogs'. That's how it was then.

I wonder what we do now that will be considered equally unacceptable in 2080?

I don't think it would have been a decision based solely on class differences, although, no doubt, that played a part. Conditions in the East End at that time were appalling and brutal – come on, lots of you watched Call the Midwife. Unemployment, criminality and drunkeness were rife and children from such a background would have seemed like a different species. They often had fleas and lice, probably internal parasites too. On top of that, they were inexplicably torn away from their families and everything familiar to live in a rural place that must have seemed completely alien to them, often with hosts who were far less than hospitable, and many developed severe behavioural problems, from bedwetting to aggression, that in those days went pretty much unrecognised and unhelped. Prunella Scales' mother just wanted to care for her own children in the best way that she could under the circumstances.

Perhaps it is that experience as a child that made her be more left of centre politically..a rejection of her mother's rather conservative (little 'c' ) attitudes. She also supports and is /was patron of a children's charity for orphans (not sure if it is UK based or overseas). She and Timothy West often support various social causes.

She was reciting the times tables (or whatever) in the manner of the teacher from London who had come with the evacuee children and was imitating the teacher's very strong London accent. I thought it was quite surprisingly snobby and quite unpleasant. However, I will take your word for it that she and her husband support various social causes, Penstemmon.

She's an actress. Imitating accents is what they do.

Prunella Scales does have a very 'Received English' accent and sometimes people interpret that as snobby. I had a colleague who sounded incredibly 'posh'. She said it was a huge burden!

Oh dear - this seems very flimsy grounds for criticising an otherwise interesting programme and indeed for criticising Prunella Scales. I'm with merlot when she says - imitating accents (or voices) that's what actors do. Can't share your sense of moral outrage I fear, TAB12 - next time just sit back and enjoy the programme.

I agree - why try to make some sort of class divide issue out of this? Inverted snobbery springs to mind...

Umm, don't think it was Tab12 making the class divide point, I thought it was Prunella?

Or is it me

I was referring to your post of 21.52 rosequartz.

And others' comments, I must make clear.

I think it's called 'life' isn't it?

There will always be this sort of thing happen, it might have sounded snobbish and it probably was but it doesn't make it wrong of her parents to do what they did for their family, they were just lucky enough financially to do it.

My Nan and Gramph had 13 children, my mum being the oldest girl. They lived in Somerset and took on 3 extra kids from London during the war. They were all different in their ways and one of them did come complete with 'nits' and he was apparently a little bugger all the time he was with them, he turned out to be the one who never forgot them!

So Prunella never got to know what it was like to 'top to toe' in a bed or mix with much with other kids of another 'class' but I think to those who have posted on the T.V Forum about the series all have felt she is warm, friendly person and yes a bit posh but what does it matter?

Good post POGS. it's not her fault she is 'posh'!

I agree with Pentsemmon talking 'posh' is difficult to live with. I would love to have a Devonshire/Somerset accent, but my father continually hounded me with 'sound your 'T's' 'H's' 'There is a 'G' at the end of the word, until I decided it was the easier option to do what I was told.

Now I find I am accepted for who I am but throughout my young life it was awful. People would laugh at my 'posh voice' and even worse copy it; sneer at it. I have a sympathy with Prunella Scales. My husband says 'I have the voice for radio' (sadly and the face...) but really I just don't have an accent

Every English speaker has an accent, even those who use what used to be called received pronunciation.