I'm Sure I Speak For Many Others...

by Colin Shindler

  If any more four-letter words and obscenities are spewed-up into my home again, via the T.V. screen or Radio, I shall do everything I can to persuade my MP and others to have you dismissed from your post in the event of your failure to resign.

  Yours very seriously,

  T. L.

  Middlesex

  14 November 1965

  Dear Mr Wheldon,

  After seeing you on Television many times, I formed the opinion that you were a decent, honourable and fair minded intellectual. After reading your comment on last night[’s] discussion with Kenneth Tynan and Mary McCarthy, I now put you in the same class as the other sex mad intellectuals who infest and seem to control the B.B.C.

  I hope you have a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in your office or home, to refresh your memory, in case you have forgotten what this four letter word looks like in print.

  To let this stuff come into peoples [sic] home via Television, is absolutely revolting. You don’t need one censor at B.B.C. you need a dozen to stop this, and plays like Up The Junction. I nearly always look at B.B.C. to escape the stupid advertising on I.T.V., but after this latest filth offering, I feel like suffering the advertising to escape another outrage.

  Yours faithfully,

  A.C.L.

  Wimbourne, Dorset

  14 November 1965

  Dear Sir,

  Travelling in a bus on Saturday the language of two lads of about 14, forced me to administer a light cuff to the ear and the words, ‘Watch your language, you’re on public transport’. The reply ‘so what?’ was not unexpected, but my form of censorship was successful, and the four letter words ceased. I am unable to do the same to my television set when I am treated unexpectedly with the same word by a supposedly better educated man than myself. The types of lads I spoke to are just the sort who return from an evening pounding the streets and gaze at the screen and are relieved to think it is now the done thing to use such words. It is not long ago the use of the word Bloody was taboo on B.B.C. now hardly a play is complete without one or two. How long before other words are to become commonplace? Judging by the stupid nonsense talked by your freedom loving character on B.B.C.3 it won’t be long before we shall enjoy a programme of sexual intercourse in all positions I presume.

  Heaven knows I am not a prude nor even an ardent church goer, but surely the medium of television is debased by the lapses from good taste. If this is adult viewing then for heavens sake let us not condemn our teenagers. As a parent I find it difficult enough to guide my two youngsters without this rubbish coming up at unexpected moments. I think it’s time there was censorship for B.B.C. Television programmes and last week’s B.B.C.3 wouldn’t have got even an X certificate.

  Yours sincerely,

  J. L.

  Leicester

  14th November 1965

  Sir,

  I wish to record extreme disgust at Saturday night’s edition of BBC 3. The item about sexual intercourse on stage and subsequent use of an obscene word is completely beyond all bounds of taste and I cannot find any justification or excuse for the inclusion of such material in any programme, much less one intended for general viewing.

  If you incline to the view that the ‘Chatterley’ case has rendered such words respectable I contend that they are nevertheless obscene and would rightly render anyone using them in the streets liable to prosecution. In any case surely no one wishes to pretend that they like these words to come into everyday conversational usage. I regret that I can impose no penal sanction upon you to support my view.

  Certainly not Yours,

  J. Orton

  J. Orton from Leicester? Surely this couldn’t be the author of Loot and What the Butler Saw, born and raised in Leicester, in one of his prankster moods, could it?

  London N10

  16 November 1965

  To: Director of B.B.C.

  Dear Sir,

  You have my sincere sympathy over the ridiculous publicity given to the use of the word ‘Fuck’ in a serious discussion which gave no offence at all. If he had said ‘That four lettered word’ we should have all known what he meant but I presume no fuss would have been made! Is this not sheer hypocrisy?

  Yours faithfully

  F.M.

  Married with 2 children of 22 years and 15 years

  Southampton

  15 November 1965

  To: The Director General, B.B.C. Broadcasting House London W1

  Dear Sir,

  B.B.C.3 – Television

  I have never written to the B.B.C. before but I feel that perhaps one should write in this case from I hope the ‘other side’ in the four letter word episode on last Saturday’s B.B.C.3. I only hope that the B.B.C. will not take too much notice of all the old women of both sexes and all ages (to quote the Bishop of Southwark in another context) who object to a serious discussion and the perfectly natural use of a simple word. If infants or innocents stay up to listen and are shocked surely it will not do them any harm. The normal adult should be able at 11 p.m. to listen to a reasonable discussion and the use of a word in its proper place without the usual display of hysterics.

  An adult approach is something too seldom seen on Television let us have more of it. Let the old women have their ‘Sooty’ by all means but do not deprive the rest of us of adult programmes.

  My only complaint is that there is too much infantile rubbish shown and the adult programmes are getting fewer and fewer, even ‘Tonight’ has gone which used to be a glimmer of hope in the dullest of T.V. nights.

  Yours faithfully,

  R.J. Nicoll

  The above letter was read by a beleaguered BBC Secretariat official who passed it on to someone else to reply to it. Scrawled across the top was the relieved request ‘A nice word to this friend, please’

  Co. Wicklow, Ireland

  16 November 1965

  To: The Information Department B.B.C. London W1

  Dear Sir,

  I am a regular listener and viewer of your programmes, but unfortunately, I have recently been prevented from enjoying them by a bout of influenza that held me bedridden.

  It thus came about that I missed last Saturday’s programme in which, so I am informed, Mr. Tynan uttered his celebrated four-letter word.

  An awful lot has since been written and said on the subject, but I alas remain completely in the dark. I still don’t know what the word was.

  Would you please enlighten me?

  Yours sincerely,

  Dr. A.J. P.

  Please note that the B.B.C. did not succumb to the temptation to write back with two words, the first being the word in question, the second being ‘off’.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TONIGHT AND MAN ALIVE

  These two programmes were staples of the BBC schedules from the first appearance of Tonight in February 1957 till the last appearance of Man Alive in 1981.

  Tonight was the current affairs magazine programme which was transmitted each weekday evening between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., initially filling the gap left by the Toddlers’ Truce, the time when parents could persuade children upstairs to bed by telling them that television had finished for the day. ITV, when it started, took advantage of the BBC’s temporary disappearance to grab the audience and hang on to them for the rest of the night.

  Tonight boasted an array of talent from the urbane, unflappable main presenter Cliff Michelmore to other featured presenters who included Derek Hart, Fyfe Robertson, Julian Pettifer, Chris Brasher, Polly Elwes, Brian Redhead and the peripatetic Alan Whicker. Behind the camera were young directors like Jack Gold and Ned Sherrin. The executives included the future Director General Alasdair Milne and the future Controller of BBC1, Donald Baverstock. Because it was live it could respond to breaking news, as it did most famously on 22 November 1963 when the viewers of Tonight became almost the first British people to learn of the assassination of President Kennedy.

  Tonight was fast, fresh and amusing, an enormous contrast to the stately pace at which BBC tele
vision had traditionally moved. The programme’s success advanced the careers of most of its staff and the result was an exercise in empire-building which included The Great War, an outstanding 26-part series about the 1914–1918 war which was timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of its outbreak. The essence of Tonight was its ability to mix the light-hearted with the serious, best evidenced by the topical calypsos sung by Cy Grant, the first black actor to appear regularly on British television, with words frequently written by Bernard Levin. When Sherrin moved from Tonight to originate TW3, he took with him many of the elements that had made Tonight such a success, including the idea of the calypsos now sung by Lance Percival.

  Man Alive was the umbrella title for the series of innovative individual documentaries which were edited by Desmond Wilcox. If Tonight was essentially a light-hearted series with occasional moments of seriousness, Man Alive produced essentially serious documentaries with occasional moments of levity. Shortly after the series began, the born-again Christian Malcolm Muggeridge made a film about the Playboy Club called Lift Up Your Skirt, a clear reference to the morning radio slot Lift Up Your Hearts.

  Sex was only one of the subjects that Man Alive attempted to cover that would appeal to the audience as being innovative, but it frequently did so in a sensational manner which reflected the fact that Wilcox had worked for the Daily Mirror before moving into television. He knew that sex, class and religion were subjects that fascinated most people but that, although television had mostly steered clear of such topics, those such as the satire programmes that had approached them had frequently made their producers and performers if not rich, then at least famous. Wilcox hired programme makers who gave the Man Alive strand class, while never forgetting that his job was the acquisition of ratings. He made a winning success of it. The film which perhaps was the strand’s greatest triumph was Gale is Dead, the story of 19-year-old Gale Parsons, who died a drug addict on 11 February 1970 during the making of the film. She had been brought up in no fewer than 14 institutions and was convinced that she mattered to no one.

  Both Man Alive and Tonight poked their cameras into places where none had gone before but of course such intrusion came at a price – as the BBC’s correspondents were quick to point out.

  The Royal Scots Greys, Catterick Camp, Yorkshire

  27 June 1958

  To: Sir Ian Jacob, KBE, CB., British Broadcasting Corporation, LONDON

  Dear Sir,

  I refer to last Monday’s Television programme entitled ‘Tonight’, in which a Darlington factory girl named Pat Brennan was interviewed by Cliff Michelmore on her meeting with the Duke of Kent at my regiment’s All Ranks Dance. Miss Brennan claimed to have danced with Prince Edward and to have taught him to ‘jive’.

  On arrival at the dance, Prince Edward was accosted by three young women who opened the conversation by asking for his autograph. His Royal Highness, as a host, offered the girls a drink and out of courtesy danced once with Miss Brennan. That was the end of the incident except that all three girls subsequently proved rather difficult to shake off. [T]hese girls had been commissioned to get a story by some disreputable newspaper reporters who were lurking outside the dance-hall and who had naturally been refused admission.

  Prince Edward and incidentally my regiment repeatedly suffer from the attentions of gossip-writing journalists whose puerile tittle-tattle invariably has a defamatory slant. The damage done by this sort of unwelcome gossip is less when it is confined to those newspapers which are known for their sensationalism and lack of integrity: it is far greater when such gossip is publicised by an authoritative organisation like the British Broadcasting Corporation. The programme to which I refer was in my opinion indiscreet, in poor taste and showed complete lack of consideration and respect for a member of the Royal Family.

  Yours sincerely

  A.W.D.

  Nuneaton

  22 October 1957

  To: Sir Ian Jacob, K.B.E., C.B., The Director-General, B.B.C., Broadcasting House, LONDON W1

  Dear Sir,

  Television Broadcast about Nuneaton in ‘Tonight’ 14th October

  As you may be aware, such strong exception has been taken, both here in Nuneaton and throughout the country, to this broadcast that His Worship the Mayor, Councillor R. Wilkinson, convened a special meeting of the Borough Council and it was unanimously decided to ask you to receive a deputation led by the Mayor.

  It has, no doubt, been reported to you that the Mayor protested vigorously to Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith when he called upon him the day after the original broadcast and you will have had the opportunity of gauging the extent of the local feeling from the second programme which, it was understood, was arranged to portray Nuneaton’s reaction. For your further information, I enclose some of the local newspapers in which reference to the programme was made. I assume you have seen the report of the Council Meeting in ‘The Times’ this morning. I enclose a copy of the report and I have a complete recording of the meeting last night which can be available.

  I hope, Sir, that these papers will give you some idea of the widespread indignation and the very real feeling of resentment that exists here and I hope you will feel able to receive His Worship the Mayor and his deputation. The monthly meeting of the Council will be held on Wednesday of next week so that if you could ask your secretary to telephone me regarding an appointment before then it would be much appreciated.

  Yours faithfully,

  A.A.C.

  Nuneaton

  13 November 1957

  To: Mrs. G. Windham [Wyndham] Goldie [Head of BBC News & Current Affairs] Lime Grove Television Studios, London W1

  Dear Mrs. Windham Goldie,

  On return to Nuneaton last evening, I reported upon the conversations we had during luncheon yesterday to the Committee which has been appointed by the Council to deal with Sir Ian’s offer to send cameras here again with the object of presenting another portrayal of the town.

  I reported that you had agreed to give us roughly 10 minutes on ‘Tonight’ and that we had agreed that the programme might contain extracts from [the first] film. So far as this suggestion was concerned, the Committee was not prepared to acquiesce at all. They still feel that the film as originally shown and the commentary were not only bad taste but deliberately defamatory and most objectionable and on no account do they wish any further extracts from it to be shown again.

  They have, therefore, instructed me to prepare for their approval a general idea of the theme to be followed and I shall be writing to you again about this. In the meantime, I should be pleased to hear from you as to when you think this programme might be produced.

  I also mentioned that you had invited me to be present at the editing of the film and the commentary and the Committee were most insistent that I should accept this offer.

  Kind regards,

  Yours sincerely,

  A. A. C.

  Town Clerk

  Mayor’s Parlour, Town Hall, Blackpool

  29 January 1962

  To: H. Carleton Greene Esq. O.B.E. Director General, THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION, London W1

  Dear Mr. Carleton Greene,

  ‘TONIGHT’ – Thursday 25th January 1962

  Consequent upon the number of complaints received and the very strong feelings of resentment engendered I write to register the strongest possible protest against the content of the Alan Whicker contribution in the TONIGHT programme on Thursday last.

  It is considered that the programme was guilty of a serious and calculated slander upon that conscientious and hard working body of people comprising the proprietors of the Blackpool boarding houses.

  The burden of the complaints is:- that the programme allowed several persons to describe ‘Blackpool landladies’, collectively and without reservation, as ‘robbers’ and to utter every other insult imaginable; that improper language was used; that the programme seemed intent upon reviving an outdated music hall joke at the expense of the proprietors of hotels
and boarding houses; that it is remarkable in the extreme that Alan Whicker was able to find assembled in one room so many with such unhappy memories of Blackpool landladies without there being present a single person with an opposite experience.

  I cannot recall any other matter which has aroused such strong feelings of resentment and injustice among the residents of Blackpool. I shall be grateful to hear if you have any proposals to offer by way of reparation and if you can please supply me with the name and address of the Club in which the interviews were conducted and the names and addresses of the persons interviewed.

  Yours faithfully,

  (Alderman) C.C. J.P.

  Mayor

  Mayor’s Parlour, Town Hall, Blackpool

  10 February 1962

  To: H. Carleton Greene Esq. O.B.E. Director General, THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W1

  Dear Mr. Carleton Greene,

  ‘TONIGHT’ – Thursday 25th January 1962

  I thank you for your letter dated 7th February which reached me only this morning.

  I am sorry to tell you that I cannot find your letter a satisfactory reply to the criticisms and complaints which I outlined to you and I know it will not pacify the many who continue to smart under the affront of the programme. Accordingly I must consider what further steps I may take. Meantime, I shall be grateful if as requested in my earlier letter you will be good enough to supply me with the name and address of the Club in which the interviews were filmed and the names and addresses of the persons who were interviewed.

  I was very surprised to read in your letter that my letter to you had been published in the press. Many requests for a copy of my communication were received but these were refused. Inevitably there were many press references to the letter but I have no knowledge of the letter itself being published. Can you please let me know in which newspaper the letter was published?

  Yours sincerely,

  C. C.

  Mayor

  Mayor’s Parlour, Town Hall, Blackpool