ANOTHER VOICE
One more triumph for devils and sorrow for angels
AUBERON WAUGH
Friday, which was marked in England by the publication of Professor Brian Cox's
final report to the National Curriculum Council on the teaching of English in state schools, found me in Paris, where I had been invited to participate in Bernard
Pivot's miraculous literary programme on French television, called Apostrophes. It is
miraculous not only because it sells so many books, but because despite being entirely literary — with no breaks for song or dance or 'modern art' — it is one of the most popular programmes on French tele- vision, regularly notching up an audience of ten or fifteen million.
Greater minds than mine have puzzled over the question of why British television cannot produce an equivalent. Apos- trophes goes out live at 9.30 in the evening every Friday, and is enjoyed by people in all walks of life. One explanation offered is that the French are a more literary nation, but they actually read, per capita, rather fewer books than we do; although the programme discusses highbrow books our Julian Barnes was a great success on it not long ago, discussing Flaubert's Parrot — it also covers the field. On Friday, we had a senior Academician to tell us about his theory of comedy, but we also discussed Frederick Forsyth, a rather dodgy Amer- ican author who has written an account of Jacqueline Onassis's love life and a novel about the Rockefeller dynasty centring on the moment of Nelson Rockefeller's death in the bed of a lady who was not his wife. All the books — they included Work Suspended and some minor writings of Evelyn Waugh, which is why I was there were discussed seriously and appreciative- ly, without a hint of condescension. The purpose of discussion was not so much to evaluate as to explain what the book was about and to communicate enjoyment. The simple discovery of Apostrophes is that writers and publishers plugging their wares make better television than a panel of critics and 'experts' trying to evaluate them. It also has an entirely beneficial effect on writers to send them out into the market place in this way. But first it would be necessary to find an English equivalent of Bernard Pivot to be interested and involved in every book discussed. So far television has come up with Melvyn Bragg who, despite his many qualities, is too much involved in WEA-style campaigns to transform the lives of the working classes by introducing them to Modern Art, the ghastly television 'personality' Clive James, or the totally pointless Robert Robinson. Perhaps Nicholas Shakespeare would fill the ticket, but his manner is a trifle superior for the nation's class sensiti- vities. If I were a television mogul I think I would give Bryan Appleyard a try. I do not know if he is any good on television, but he writes exactly as Pivot speaks, in a clear, intelligent, unaffected language, anxious only to arrive at a writer's essential pur- pose. His latest book, Pleasures of Peace: Art and Imagination in Post-war Britain (Faber, £12.99) is quite outstandingly the best in its field since Enemies of Promise I would say, a good deal better.
No doubt it is class antagonism which explains the failure of any British literary programme to appeal to a wide audience — not just the antipathy which our social classes quite rightly feel towards each other, and which I am almost alone in welcoming as a creative and wholesome force in English society, but the resent- ment fuelled by intellectual and education- al status. Perhaps it is only in England that the intelligentsia must patronise and con- descend, must forever be asserting its superiority. Hence, perhaps, the deadly cult of the highbrow, even the survival of the Modern Movement, with the curious side-effect that American grocery founda- tions continue to pay millions of dollars to Lord Gowrie for obvious rubbish.
But that is another subject. To return from celebrating the vitality of the state of letters in France to Professor Cox's report on the teaching of English in state schools was a dismal home-coming. No doubt Cox was appointed in recognition of his Black Papers on Education, but they appeared nearly 20 years ago, and since 1976 he has been based in Manchester, listening to the gentle, whingeing noises of its poor.
It is a miserable, patronising, class- ridden document of which the whole coun- try should be ashamed. Perhaps the pass was sold as soon as his committee adopted the formula of 'Standard English' to de- scribe correct or educated English. Although the word 'standard' describes, among other things, the accepted or approved example against which others are judged, it also has other, less favourable connotations, as in 'standardised', to mean homogenised, bereft of distinguishing characteristics. Similarly, the car industry, uses 'standard' to mean 'without optional extras' and British Rail uses 'standard class' to mean 'third class'.
It is this deliberate ambiguity, or sloppy use of language, which enables Cox to define standard or correct English as 'the native language of certain social groups' and embark on a blindingly irrelevant sentimental journey in defence of local dialects, pleading that kiddies must not be made ashamed of their accents or pecu- liarities of speech. Non-standard English should not be seen as distortion, he argues. Expressions like 'we was' and 'they never saw nobody' should be seen as 'objects of interest and value' which are 'unlikely to be misunderstood'.
Oddly enough my wife was once buying steak and kidney from a Hungerford butcher with whom she had had difficulties in the past. 'And 1 don't want no kidneys,' she said sternly. 'Oh, you don't want no kidneys,' he said, and removed the only kidney in the dish.
Perhaps this sloppy talk is not often misunderstood, but I am not sure how often it is understood, either. I have the impression that large numbers of fellow- citizens communicate with each other on a level of half-comprehension which often descends to total incomprehension. But bad spoken language is no more than a symptom of the inability to construct a logical English sentence: it is the inability of so many English teachers to write grammatically which is the main problem.
Red Guard 'anti-elitism' still flourishes in the Department of Education, and it is a crying shame that the one report which the Government hoped would cleanse those particular Augean stables should emerge as a rehearsal of all the idiotic 1960s dogma which has created the present situation of illiterate teachers and inarticulate pupils. On a hunch, I telephoned Professor Cox on Sunday with a list of intelligent ques- tions to discover whether he spoke with a Yorkshire accent. He was out, possibly walking or playing squash. I am afraid he should stay out. He has no part to play in the Blue Guard Cultural Revolution.
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