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Radio 4 Extra,01 Sep 2016,28 mins

The Rebellious Tongues of the North

The Matter of the North

Available for over a year

Episode Four is the story of rebellion and dissent in the north - and the way northern dialect is beginning to be marginalised and even mocked. Melvyn Bragg begins at Clifford's Tower in York, site of a Norman fortress built to keep the north under control. It was also the site centuries later, where Robert Aske - one of the leaders of The Pilgrimage of Grace (a great Catholic Rebellion) was executed. It's in York that St Margaret Clitherow was tortured to death. Melvyn goes to Riveaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire and finds evidence that the monks were on the brink of producing high quality cast iron and even blast furnaces. If the Reformation hadn't happened could the Industrial Revolution have begun here hundreds of years earlier? Melvyn examines how the south is coming to view the north - and its dialect. There is an idea that northern kinds of English are less prestigious. An idea that persists. Melvyn discusses this with Joan Bakewell. The poet Simon Armitage celebrates the speech patterns of the medieval poetic masterpiece 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and Melvyn meets Dame Judi Dench who remembers her time performing the York Mystery Plays. Contributors Jonnie Robinson, British Library Joan Bakewell Simon Armitage Judi Dench Toby Gordon Natalie McCaul, Yorkshire Museum Dr Sarah Bastow, University of Huddersfield Susan Harrison, English Heritage Prof Andy Wood, Durham University Producer: Faith Lawrence.

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