Did you have elocution lessons ?

But Joanna, many well educated people speak in local dialects and foreign accents.

It is a good job Pam Ayers didn’t have elocution lessons. Her poems would not be the same without being spoken in her local Berkshire accent.

Never had elocution lessons from a professional. At about 4 I was failing to say my "r"s properly. My mother took up teaching me. I can still remember chanting the line "Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran." and I learned to say "r". My mother spoke without a local accent. Her sister married a farm worker and my cousins had much broader accents. I was warned that I was never to speak like them.
One of the most valuable lessons I had was at college when we learned to project our voices. I can still speak to a whole hall full of people, without using a microphone and be heard, and do it without straining my voice.

"Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran."

how do you say that with a Scouse accent, please - lol

Greenfinch

It is a good job Pam Ayers didn’t have elocution lessons. Her poems would not be the same without being spoken in her local Berkshire accent.

My father was from Berkshire/Oxfordshire and he didn't have much of an accent. He must have lost it along the way because his sister had a strong local accent as she had stayed in the area..

Up in the North East its 'Shut yer mush!' too.

Callistemon I wonder how much Pam’s accent is acquired. She spoke on her programme about the Cotswolds tonight of her Vale of the White Horse accent. I am the same age as her and went to school in Faringdon at the same time(different schools) but I have no accent at all and neither did most of my contemporaries.

We're only just catching up with tonight's episode Greenfinch.

I remember asking my aunt why she pronounced words a certain way (I must have been about seven - how embarrassing ) so she definitely had an accent.

I certainly did - my poor mother was horrified at the Essex accent we children were picking up! - though what she expected bringing us up in Essex I do not know.

"The goldfish in the bowl goes Oh, Oh, Oh" - how could I forget it!

My poor mother hated the fact that my friends failed to pronounce the H at the beginning of my name, and her true low point was when a group of lads were playing marbles outside our house and one of them shouted excitedly: "I i i" - think about it!

Some dialects and some local accents are low status, for historical reasons. That is why parents and schools sometimes discourage these dialects and accents. This form of snobbery is slowly changing to more enlightened views and educational practises.

We had “speech trading” in the fifties. We learned to project our voices, to breathe correctly, to sound our vowels correctly. It included reading aloud plays etc. Then we had an examination set by the Central School ofSpeech and Drama. I still have two certificates somewhere in the depths of the past. We had to act out a passage of drama, recite a poem, talk uninterrupted to the examiners on something they suggested. If you didn’t know much about the suggestion the trick was to keep going even if you didn’t know much about it.

Speech training not trading ?

Fleurpepper

"Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran."

how do you say that with a Scouse accent, please - lol

Fleurpepper I was the other side of the Pennines!
One of the things I was taught about how not to speak was
What's the matter?
Pigs in t'water.
Not only was the "the" removed-a major sin- but water was pronounced "watter" to rhyme with "matter"
Lucy Beaumont does a lovely bit of teaching the audience how to speak "Hull"
Say Mamma. audience repeats Say Mia repeat-Say Mamma Mia-repeat
You've now learned to say "Mother I've arrived" with a Hull accent

Grammar school taught me how to speak without a specialist elocution teacher because the teachers spoke well. Richard Hoggart's 'The uses of literacy' is very interesting on how working class children learnt a different register at grammar schools and pre-dates Bragg's book.

When I went to work in the West Midlands, the char lady and the engineers used to love coming to my office to teach me how to 'speak proper like what they did

“Char lady” (sic) ' - OMG how patronising!
For anybody who may be unfamiliar with this unreconstructed designation
Charwoman Occupation
Description
A charwoman is an old-fashioned occupational term , referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service.

My goodness, that post was from September last year!

Well, Margaret, that was her name- was just lovely. She came to my office to introduce herself and say she was always in the Cantine if I needed anything. She told me she was the 'char' lady, because she made the 'cha'. SHE taught me the word, and so many more from the Potteries, as well as expressions, with the local accent. And invited me to her home for 'tea', and was so lovely. I can assure you she never ever found me condescending. Neither did all my other colleagues.

But you scrolled back pages to find this post. Not sure if this is hilarious, and something else?

I had elocution lessons in my first year at grammar school because I had developed a stammer. They made no difference. But I was bullied in the playground at both the primary and grammar school for 'talking posh'! I spoke in the RP accent my mother had acquired after being elocuted out of her 'sarf London' dialect at her own grammar school You can't win.

An interesting thread - I’d not noticed it till its revival.

I was brought up in North East England and if anyone going to my grammar had elocution lessons it must have been on the quiet. I was a miner’s daughter and can’t imagine any of the middle class girls there daring to mock our accents.

When I moved down to West Yorkshire years later though these classes seemed to have been a “thing”, and I was really surprised at how many women had had them at 10 or 11 (not men though ).

I missed out on the deportment lessons at my grammar, which were discontinued the year before I started. Apparently there were competitions and the winners got to wear special “girdles” (cloth belts).

My mum did as her mum.Nan wanted her to be a "lady' to get a "good husband".

So we didn't get lessons, as mum thwarted Nan's plan.

But of course mum did speak home counties/lite (she never stopped talking....) so we picked up a lot but not barth and parth. I still have my home town accent (Hull) and you can spot it where I say, "telefern" not telephone.

Oh, and another example, "ner shew" means "no snow".

correct - "ner snew" means "no snow".

Having elocution lessons can certainly benefit if applying for certain jobs. It was encouraged years ago but in reality people with big families could not afford them. I don’t think they were a priority in inner city state schools or even smaller urban schools.
The closest I got to speaking (accent free) was repeating the lines when audio typing at secretarial college. It was nice precise spoken English but it wasn’t going to alter my Liverpool accent. I never did have the ambition to be a housekeeper either.

In the 1950’s we had “speech lessons” at school. They were introduced during our last three years in school. We were taught by an older actress and were enjoyable. We were taught how to breathe correctly, throw our voices and recite and read with expression. We were also given the opportunity to pass some exams which were judged by a group from the Central School of Speech and drama. For this we had to read from a book we knew and which the judges selected a page, we then had to act a short part from( remember I was Queen Victoria in one). Read a poem such as For the Fallen and then had to engage in conversation with one of the judges. The secret was to keep going even if you knew little about the subject selected by the judge. It was fun and really useful in later life when I became a teacher.

Sorry. I had forgotten I had posted before.

Also our school was in central London.