TV & RADIO
Professor Mary Beard tells us about a show that celebrates two educational trailblazers – and challenges her trolls
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Amo Amas Amusical RADIO Radio 4 Scheduled for New Year’s Eve
For generations of British schoolchildren, the name Benjamin Hall Kennedy was synonymous with his Revised Latin Primer. With its mnemonic verses used to help pupils fix the rules of Latin grammar, it was a standard textbook in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was also written largely by Kennedy’s daughters, Marion and Julia.
And this, as Professor Mary Beard explains, matters, not just because their contributions long went unacknowledged, but because the book dates from an era when there was huge opposition to women getting degrees, something the sisters would have seen at first hand because their father was a professor at Trinity College, Cambridge. “They lived through these appalling riots [by male undergraduates] against women getting degrees, against the idea that women should have full and proper access to higher education,” Beard says.
Both women played an important role in extending higher education to women. Julia was “a self-taught linguist” at Girton College, Cambridge, while Marion, who was more of a campaigner than her sister, helped to set up Newham College. Both were also suffragists.
Today, we like to think of ourselves as more enlightened than a century ago, but the social media trolling that Beard has experienced suggests otherwise. “There’s the same problem about women not getting recognised for the jobs they’re doing, and women’s achievements being bypassed and going out under the name of their menfolk,” she adds.
To pull these strands together – the sisters’ work and lives, the battle for women to take degrees and the parallels with modern-day sexism – Amo Amas Amusical has an unusual format. Notably, it contains new music by composer Emily Levy, performed as live in the BBC Radio Theatre. The music includes pieces that incorporate “foul” and “dreadful” online abuse directed at Beard, albeit the abuse is used in a disguised fashion. “In order to get it there, we’ve had it translated into Latin, so our own two fingers have gone up at the trolls,” says Beard.
The show also features a contribution from Christopher Stray who first uncovered the Kennedys’ story. Taken overall, in Beard’s estimation, this is “high-fibre” entertainment that makes for “a grand extravaganza of connections and fun”.
“There’s the same problem today about women not getting recognised for the jobs they’re doing”