Summary
Why does inheritance arouse such powerful emotions? Family, death and money make for gripping stories - just ask Tolstoy, Austen or Dickens - but our attitudes also reflect the way we feel about society, the state, and even ourselves.
Discussions tend to dissolve into rows about levels of tax but in this programme Jo Fidgen explores the values and intuitions that underpin our strength of feeling.
Producer: Joe Kent.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for downloading analysis from the BBC. |
| 0:03.2 | This week Joe Fijon explores our ideas about inheritance. |
| 0:07.9 | What is it about inheritance that arouses such powerful emotions. |
| 0:13.0 | Let me introduce you to Joy Mutter, a writer who lives in Oldham. |
| 0:18.0 | Fifteen years ago, her father died. |
| 0:21.0 | When I went to his funeral and when the coffin was wheeled past me I didn't feel a thing. |
| 0:27.0 | It was kind of relief I must admit in the sense. |
| 0:30.0 | I know it's bad to say that, but I thought he can't hurt me anymore I thought. |
| 0:35.0 | Joy had always had a terrible relationship with her father and had no expectation of |
| 0:40.4 | inheriting from him. No none at at all, not the slightest thing, because he had never |
| 0:47.5 | given me or my siblings anything to speak of. Then this happened. |
| 0:57.0 | My mother phoned me up and she said I don't know how to tell you about this but your father didn't even mention you in the |
| 1:05.4 | will everything goes to your brother and sister. |
| 1:08.8 | At the time I was totally and utterly shocked. |
| 1:13.2 | I thought why. |
| 1:14.9 | You know, I knew that he didn't like me, |
| 1:17.0 | but to not even be mentioned in the will |
| 1:20.6 | that I didn't exist. The effect was so strong that I came out in psoriasis, which I've never |
| 1:28.6 | had before or since, and I kind of joked about and said that is my inheritance from him is psoriasis. |
| 1:37.0 | If you didn't think he was going to leave you anything, why did it upset you so much when he didn't? |
| 1:43.0 | Because it was the unfairness of it. |
| 1:47.0 | Because I was a child of his as much as the other two. |
... |
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