To: K. Adam Esq. C.B.E. B.B.C. Television Centre, Wood Lane, London W12
Dear Mr. Adam,
I am writing on behalf of the Central Watch and Social Problems Committee of the Mothers’ Union to ask whether you have a programme in mind on the moral issue of venereal disease.
The programme on Monday, September 7th at 9.45pm was extremely interesting but it was clearly stated that it was concerned only with the medical side, and my Committee felt that a programme on the moral issues involved would be immensely valuable and would make a greater impact on television than on radio.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. R.P.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RADIO SWEARING
Although the majority of letters in this book concern television programmes, the files in the BBC’s Written Archive date back to the start of the wireless service. People got just as exercised about things they didn’t like on the radio as they were later to do about television. Consistently, it appears that they objected vociferously to what they called swearing. Some of the words they objected to will certainly come as a surprise to present day readers, but then they would probably have come as a bit of a surprise to the outraged correspondents in the 1960s as well, which just goes to prove that each era interprets what it regards as offensive or obscene in its own way. The correspondents who believed radio and television unleashed a torrent of vile words into their living rooms would presumably have thought it faintly ridiculous that Victorians would cover up the legs of teir dining room tables for fear of arousing lustful feelings.
Since 1945 there has been an unmistakable coarsening of the English language in everyday speech. Words which would then have been largely the province of male only environments are now to be heard in public, read in novels and seen in profusion on the internet, spoken and written by both genders. The words to which the correspondents took exception in the 1960s, to say nothing of the 1940s, have lost their power to shock but what follows is a series of letters from an earlier time when such words were regarded with the utmost seriousness. One has only to think of the trouble David Selznick had in persuading the Hays Office in 1939 to let him use the notorious last line of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind. It would be as well to bear this mind when reading what looks to us to be an absurd over-reaction to what was heard on the wireless.
Egham, Surrey
13 December 1943
To: The Director, B.B.C.
Dear Sir,
I protest with all vigour against the language put over the air in the play ‘They went singing’ of yesterday afternoon. A former objection of mine was ignored and I presume went into the w.p.b. as a letter from a crank. Coming in from Sunday School my ears were assailed with ‘bloodys’, ‘damns’, ‘what the hell’, ‘blasts’ and God’s holy name being used in a most irreverent manner.
If an author or producer cannot make a play really alive without using objectionable words they can scarcely be worth the expense of the B.B.C. engaging them – a decent minded, clean thinking author if he has any real ability can beget vitality without this language. Proper minded women and innocent children ought not to have the unloveliness [sic] of men’s adjectives polluting their ears and minds.
Why not go the whole hog and allow ‘funny’ men of the stage [to] tell their smutty stories and filthy suggestions over the air – there will always be plenty who enjoy jokes and language that savour of the cesspool. ‘Keep it clean’ is now a stock joke but the times badly need clean thinking, clean talking and clean living. What with this kind of stuff and with the infernal din of jazz-bands, the mawkish sentimentality of crooners and the distressing noises of ‘harmonists’ and swing music one hesitates to switch on the wireless at all.
I am, Sir, yours very truly,
(Rev.) A.C.T.
Ashtead, Surrey
23 March 1944
To: The Director of Religious Broadcasting, B.B.C. London
Dear Sir,
I wish to protest most strongly against the increasing use of the expression ‘Oh Lord’ by juvenile characters in Children’s Hour (e.g. ‘Moonlight Castle’ today). We have unfortunately become used to the taking of God’s name in vain in the general programmes, but quite apart from the disregard of the third commandment and the contempt which generally follows undue familiarity with the Holy Name, the effect on a young mind must be most perplexing when prayers follow which commence with the same expression!
Will you in the interests of the rising generation please see that this letter reaches the quarter controlling Children’s Hour and will you add your protest?
Yours truly,
R.S.
London
17 April 1944
To: The Director General, B.B.C.
Dear Sir,
Desert Highway by J.B. Priestley
I wish to express my profound disapproval of the amount of common swearing as broadcast in the above on Saturday night 15th inst.
As the guardian of public morals and the potential champion of cultural ‘uplift’ I consider the Corporation has in this case signally failed, and has done a serious disservice to the community.
Yours faithfully,
F. A. S.
Guildford, Surrey
23rd May 1945
Sir,
Where are the B.B.C.’s censors? We do not care for the language that was inflicted on us on Tuesday night in ‘The Battle of Britain’. Don’t retort, ‘You need not listen if you don’t want to’. We did not know it was coming. It was bawled out with nearly enough violence to wreck the loud speaker. We switched off immediately fearing the depths of profanity to which the feature might sink as the excitement increased.
All decent minded people find coarse language offensive, and Christians object most strenuously to the blasphemous use of the name of Jesus Christ.
I remain,
Yours faithfully,
(Mrs.) R.E.S.
Dewsbury, Yorkshire
22 May 1945
To: The Religious Director B.B.C.
My dear Sir,
I am not easily shocked having been in the last war and being one of your contemporaries at Knutsford: but I have just listened to the broadcast ‘Now it can be told’ – a most interesting talk but entirely spoiled for me by a blasphemous quotation half way through. The speaker quoted a New Zealand pilot and the words used began with the expression, ‘Christ Almighty’ and included the not very desirable word ‘bloody’. It was the kind of broadcast that would attract a large number of children listeners and I think you will agree that the work of a parish priest in his instructions is going to be demolished if this kind of thing is permitted. I am wondering whether the script was submitted for inspection and, if it was, what is the attitude of the B.B.C. towards this usage?
I would be glad if you would use your influence in this matter if you are unable to take the matter up let me know to whom to write. The matter should not be allowed to pass without protest otherwise both of us had better shut up shop.
Yours faithfully,
G. S.
[P.S.] The broadcast would have lost nothing of its effectiveness had the objectionable words been excluded.
Debenham, Suffolk
15 November 1945
Dear Sir,
I was really disgusted at the swear words used in the play on Monday evening @ 8 o’clock.
We are trying to plan a better world. Can we do so where the young listen to such words as ‘Damn’ and ‘Blast’? These words were frequently used in the play. I know of families who will not have the wireless in their homes because of the children.
I am a widow, having lost a young son, an officer. My late husband was a schoolmaster also a Justice of the Peace.
I sincerely hope and pray that the wireless create[s] a higher atmosphere.
Yours faithfully,
K. P.
Moss Side, Manchester
Saturday night May 1946
Dear Sir,
Why do you allow those actors a
nd actresses to blaspheme God’s name? The play has only just begun and they have used God’s name already half a dozen times.
Well, I have just had to turn it off. I daren’t listen any longer and sometimes I enjoy the Saturday play.
Do you realise that allowing people to broadcast who blaspheme even if it is only a play is enough to keep the world in the state it is in to-day and worse, yes and even to cause atom bombs to be used and the world destroyed.
It doesn’t make the play or the acting more effective, it spoils it right away and lowers it and especially when it is never said in our homes.
Then the young ones hear it and a lot of them don’t go to Sunday School so they will get used to it. The responsibility rests on you. Do not allow it for their sake and yours and also for the world at large.
Yours sincerely,
E. S.
P.S. You might think that it doesn’t matter, that it is only a small thing, that there are worse things going on in the world, but every little wrong counts and would rebound again, arousing more and more troubles and haven’t we had enough? I think of those who have died that we might live. At any rate you can stop that and that will be one wrong put right.
College Place, Southampton
17 January 1947
To: The B.B.C. London
Dear Sirs,
Re Childrens Hour.
The final words in the Children [sic] Hour last evening consisted of, be damned to it.
Will you please justify such language, words of this description are never heard in many houses, one of which is mine, and I very strongly resent this being brought in via the wireless.
Re other Programmes, may I also point out to you that if similar language to that used in some of the other programmes was used in certain Public Places the Police if present would have to take action.
Yours faithfully,
E.S.P.
Drapers, Tailors & Outfitters
Sheffield 3
2 November 1947
To: The Director of Plays etc. B.B.C.
Dear Sir,
A word of congratulation on the ‘Plays and Dramas’ you are giving to us, and the very fine themes contained in most of them but this is not the principal reason of this letter. My object is to strongly protest against such good plays etc. being completely ruined by the foul and offensive language which is used in some of them and the very limit being reached on October 24th at 9-15pm in the ‘Home Service’, when ‘After All’ was being given. I arrived home after this play had commenced, but quickly picked up the theme only to have the whole thing spoiled by the very offensive language used at the ‘climax’ of the Play.
As a Layman of the Methodist Church and a Leader of Young People, and incidentally an advocate of them listening to these plays I trust my protest may be the means of obliterating this offensive language, and our young people listening only to the very best of language.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Yours Sincerely,
G. P.
Goole, Yorkshire
6 December 1947
To: The Director of Dramatic Programmes, The B.B.C. London
Dear Sir,
On Saturday night I turned on the Home Service Programme two or three times between 9/45 and 10/45pm, and on each occasion I was greeted with a torrent of blasphemy, damnation and bad language that offended my ears.
On looking at the programme given in my newspaper, I find the production was called ‘Touchwood’, and I assume it was either a play or a story. I shall be much obliged if you will inform me whether it comes under the heading of ‘Culture’ or ‘Amusement’. If the former it should possess some edifying qualities, and I shall be glad to know what these are, and the type of mind that is supposed to benefit from them. If the latter, there is always a class that seems to enjoy any turgid stream of sex and profanity that is poured out, but surely the bulk of your listeners are not of this type and is it necessary to lower the standard of broadcasting to satisfy the craving of this class of the community?
I am,
Yours faithfully,
W. H. W.
Forest of Dean Miners’ Association
17 February 1932
To: Sir John Reith
Dear Sir,
I am quite sure that many listeners were deeply offended by the derogatory expression made about the Right Hon. Mr. D. Lloyd George on Monday night by one of the Vaudeville Artists.
Mr. Lloyd George was described as a ‘Welsher’. As you know, this terms refers to bookmakers who run away from a racecourse without settling or paying their bets.
I wish to protest against the use of the microphone to libel anyone, whoever he is.
I would point out that Mr. Herbert Smith, former president of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, was sued for using the same expression and was made to pay £2000 damages.
I am writing the B.B.C. and Mr. Lloyd George also.
Yours faithfully,
J. W.
CHAPTER EIGHT
RADIO SATIRE
The common belief is that political satire began on the BBC in November 1962 with the first broadcast of That Was the Week That Was. In fact, it is possible to find letters complaining about the political bias of the BBC in its comedy programmes dating back to the 1940s.
Given the landslide result of the 1945 general election in which Labour was returned to power with 393 seats compared to the Conservatives’ 197, it appeared that the country was firmly behind the new administration. The post-war Labour government might have been elected in a summer of peace and amidst deep and widespread hope for the future, but Britain had emerged from World War II with its economy almost in ruins. Initially, at least, it was determined to keep hold of the Empire but the economic implications of its upkeep and the political reality of the growth of nationalism soon made that impossible.
Meanwhile there were shortages and rationing, a devaluation of sterling, a desperate export drive, demobbed men struggling to fit back into their family lives after six years of total war and, in 1946–7, one of the worst winters that ever blighted this island. The problem here was that there was not enough fuel and the population just froze. Any government facing such social, economic and political turmoil would soon find itself beleaguered as the Socialist Utopia failed to materialise.
As it was in so many cases, the BBC found itself in the firing line even though it frequently went to enormous lengths to remain politically impartial. In 1949, Ealing Studios made a very funny and pointed film about life under the post-war Labour government called Passport to Pimlico, which imagined what life in one district of south west London might be like devoid of the petty regulations that so afflicted the everyday lives of the British population, but it seems unlikely that Michael Balcon, the executive in charge of production there, would have been subject to the complaints that arrived in a steady stream at Broadcasting House. People who find offence in their own living rooms are much more likely to take up the cudgels than people who go to the cinema or read books.
Compared to what we remember of Spitting Image, Harry Enfield and Ben Elton, the comic barbs aimed at the Labour government in the late 1940s were fired with a pop gun but they were sufficient to get a number of Labour supporters very worked up indeed. One of them, writing from Stanmore in Middlesex, was understandably cross about a joke that was broadcast when the polls were still open. It was from the man who was, within days, to become the new prime minister.
Stanmore, Middlesex
14 July 1945
To: The Director, British Broadcasting Corporation
Dear Mr. Hailey,
I have had a letter drawing my attention to a B.B.C. item on Sunday last, July 8th. It stated that Richard Murdoch, in Will Fyffe’s programme at 2 o’clock, sang words to the effect ‘If we change to Attlee, we might lose the Japanese war’.
This would appear to me to be inexcusable, considering that the Election was still being contested in the 24 Northern constituencies, and I sha
ll be obliged if you will enquire into the matter, and let me have your observations.
Yours sincerely,
C.R. Attlee
St. Pancras Labour Party
25 April 1946
To: The Director General, B.B.C., Portland Place, W.1
Dear Sir,
I was surprised on tuning in at 12.55pm today to discover two comedians in ‘Workers’ Playtime’ singing a song of which the gist was the following:- ‘I want to be a refugee from England, that little piece of land where I am not free.’ There was another passage suggesting that they in common with most people are ‘overtaxed and underfed’ and an even more surprising couplet stating that ‘If they cannot run England without Churchill they will have to do without me.’
There have been a number of instances recently of subtle anti-Labour and pro-Conservative propaganda, particularly in the alleged funny series of B.B.C. programmes, but so far nothing quite so blatant as this.
I should be glad if you would let me know what action, if any, you propose to take on this matter.
Yours faithfully,
E. C.
Monmouth
7 April 1946
To: Peter Freeman Esq., M.P., House of Commons
Dear Sir,
I should like to call your attention to what, in my humble opinion, is cheap propaganda against the Labour Government, put over the air in a very subtle way. I am referring to the broadcast of two comics. The last turn in Music Hall on Saturday night Apl. 6th. This sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Radio comics are allowed to crack cheap jokes at the expense of the Government and to insult the feeling of thousands who [are] suffering through the conditions in which we find a large number of people today.
I wonder if the [Conservative] opposition had been in power, would they allow it to go on unchecked?
We hear very little reference to the opposition, in broadcasts of this kind, by cheap so-called radio comics. To put it mildly, it is damned rotten, that this sort of propaganda should be allowed to be used against the men who represent the Labour Party, who have the unthankful job of squaring up the biggest mess the country has seen.
I'm Sure I Speak For Many Others... Page 9
