Tapescripts

T. 1

The family of Carlos IV

In the spring of 1800, the court painter, Francisco de Goya was commissioned by the Spanish King Carlos IV, direct ancestor of King Juan Carlos, to paint a portrait of the royal family. First on the left is Prince Carlos, the King's second son, and next to him is his older brother Prince Fernando, who was the heir to the throne. The old woman just behind Prince Fernando is Maria Josefa, the King's sister. Next to Maria Josefa is a young woman whose face we cannot see because she is looking away, and she is the 'mystery person' in this painting.

The young girl next to the mystery woman is Princess Maria Isabel, the King's youngest daughter. She went on to marry her cousin, and had twelve children. Next to her is the Queen, Maria Luisa. Goya made her the central figure in the painting because she had a very strong personality, and she completely dominated her husband the King. The little boy with the Queen is her youngest son, prince Francisco.

The King's brother is standing behind him, and on his right, although you can only actually see part of her head, is the King's eldest daughter Carlota. Her parents arranged a marriage for her when she was only ten years old. She was an ambitious girl and eventually became Queen of Portugal. The final group of three figures shows the Queen's brother, Don Luis de Parma, his wife, Maria Luisa and their first child, a baby boy. In fact, Maria Luisa was not only Don Luis's wife, she was also his niece, as she was the King's second daughter.

The royal family didn't all pose together for the painting - it would have taken too long. Instead Goya made individual studies of each family member and later used them to create this work. The painting took him two years to complete, and it was the last royal portrait he ever painted.

T. 2

When I was at school

Speaker 1 From the age of about seven till I was 16 I went to an all girls' school in North London, in Highgate, which was really good fun, but it was a bit of a shame that it was all girls. Then when I was 16 I went to a boarding school in the countryside, which in fact was a boys' boarding school, that took girls in the sixth form, and I really enjoyed it. I was quite rebellious at school but I was never too bad, I wasn't expelled or suspended or anything but I just sort of stood up for what I believed in. School was a fun experience, it's many years of your life but I look back at it with quite fond memories.

Speaker 2 I was raised on Enid Blyton books and Enid Blyton's very preoccupied with school life and there's a whole range of books all about boarding school and I desperately, desperately wanted to go and eventually my parents sent me, not because I'd forced them to but because they were in the Forces and so they needed somewhere for me to be based. So I had all these amazing expectations about it and when I got there it just wasn't like it at all, it was like prison, it was just the most miserable archaic horrible place, and I'll never forget my first night there and I'd been taught how brave I had to be and that, you know, you mustn't cry and you had to be grown up and respectful of everybody else and cheerful and be a generally good girl and I remember lying in my bed in the dormitory and there were ten of us in there, and getting into bed and lying there and suddenly being overwhelmed with homesickness, just, just feeling terrible and starting to cry but trying to cry really quietly because it wasn't the done thin.

T. 3

Workplace

Presenter 1: Welcome to Workplace and in today’s programme we’re looking at the results of two recently published surveys, which both deal with the same topics – happiness at work. John, tell us about the first survey.

Presenter 2: Well, this was done by the human resource consultancy, who interviewed more than 1000 workers, and established a top ten of the factors which make people happy at work. The most important factor for the majority of the people interviewed was having friendly, supportive colleagues. In fact, 73% of people interviewed put their relationship with colleagues at being the key factor contributing to happiness at work, which is a very high percentage. The second most important factor was having work that enjoyable per se, that is people actually liking what they do. The two least important factors were having your achievements recognized, and rather sportingly, earning a competitive salary.

Presenter 1: So were not mainly motivated by money?

Presenter 2: Apparently, not.

Presenter 1: Any other important information in the survey?

Presenter 2: Yes, for example 25% of the working people interviewed described themselves as 2 “very happy at work”. However 20% of employees described themselves as being unhappy.

Presenter 1: That’s quite a lot of unhappy people at work every day.

Presenter 2: It is, isn’t it? And there were several more interesting conclusions revealed by the survey. First of all, small is beautiful: people definitely prefer working for smaller organizations or companies with less than 100 staff. We also find out that, generally speaking, women were happier in their work than men.

Presenter 1: Yes, was a miserable bunch, aren’t we?

Presenter 2: And workers on part-time contracts, who only work four or five hours a day, are happier than those who work full time. The researchers concluded that this is probably due to a better work-life balance.

Presenter 1: Are bosses happier than their employees?

Presenter 2: Yes, perhaps, not surprisingly, the higher people go in a company, the happier they are. So senior managers enjoy their jobs more than people working under them.

Presenter 1: Does the period of time you spend with the same company affect how happy you are?

Presenter 2: Well, according to the survey, happiness declines the longer people stay with the same company or organization. The most contented people were those who’d been with a company for less than two years, and the least contented were those who’d been in the same place of work for more than ten years.

T. 4