I'm Sure I Speak For Many Others...
Page 17
22 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 refer to my letter dated 10th February and would be pleased to receive a reply to the queries posted in the letter.
Much of the heat engendered has passed but there are still a number whose concern remains and I am anxious to resolve this matter as soon as possible. Accordingly, I look forward to the courtesy of your early reply.
Yours sincerely
C. C.
Mayor
Mayor’s Parlour, Town Hall, Blackpool
2 March 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 acknowledge the letter dated 27th February under the signature of your Chief Assistant which replies to my letter dated 10th February.
It is disappointing to find that you decline to furnish the information requested and particularly when I realise that approximately one month has elapsed since I first expressed myself to you on this matter.
I cannot escape the feeling that in view of the very close and, I think, friendly relations which have existed between our two Corporations from the days of the earliest outside broadcasts my representations upon a matter which seemed by its lack of balance and fairness to jeopardise the livelihood of so many might have been received in a more co-operative and productive way. However, there does not now seem any point in pursuing the matter and I will close our correspondence by expressing the hope that our first complaint to the B.B.C. will prove to be the last.
Yours sincerely,
C. C.
Mayor
Goldsmiths’ Hall, Foster Lane, London EC2
31 October 1961
To: H. Carleton Greene Esq. OBE, BBC Portland Place, W1
Dear Mr. Greene,
I am a great admirer of the B.B.C. but I cannot stand the treatment ‘Tonight’ gives us. All I beg of you is that it learns some administrative manners. Otherwise people like myself will really give preferential treatment to I.T.V., whose various organs still, thank goodness, think it natural to take trouble over their performers.
In April I brought back some jewels from Lisbon, was told ‘Tonight’ would like to see them, took them to the studio, was told they were no good for TV, was then kept waiting two hours in an uncomfortable hall, until the promised car arrived. No apologies, no explanations.
Last week ‘Tonight’ asked for seven jewels to be sent to the studio, sent a Ford car with a non-uniformed driver with a chit of paper purporting to establish his suitability to take this £100,000 load. We refused. Eventually two security men turned up; we sent two silversmiths and the jewels arrived too late for the programme. No explanations, no apologies either then or later. I enclose our account for the half day which the two skilled men gave to ‘Tonight’.
All I want to record is indignation that the power which ‘Tonight’ has so cleverly built for itself should allow the programme to behave like arrogant barbarians.
With all good wishes,
G. H.
Domestic Refrigeration Development Committee, London W1
12 January 1962
To: The Director General British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting House, Portland Place London W1
Dear Sir,
The members of my Committee which comprises the leading manufacturers in the domestic refrigeration industry in this country – I attach a list – are most disturbed at the strong bias shown in the programme on discount trading which took place in ‘Tonight’ on Wednesday January 3rd. Although I saw this programme at the time, I have waited until obtaining a transcript before writing to you.
The domestic refrigeration industry attaches great importance to the maintenance of prices and regard this as of value and benefit to the public. They are quite ready and, indeed, anxious to explain the reasons for their views. It does not seem at all right that the BBC with its highly authoritative position should allow a programme to come down so heavily on one side and to arrange the programme so that in fact no other outcome could reasonably be expected. I hope there can soon be another programme on this subject. This Committee would be very glad to provide an effective exponent of price maintenance.
I shall look forward to hearing from you on this in order that I can report as soon as possible to my Committee.
Yours faithfully
C. C.
The Medical Protection Society, London W1
19 November 1962
To: the Director General, B.B.C. Broadcasting House W1
Dear Sir,
Programme ‘Tonight’ on 6th November 1962
At a recent meeting of the Council of this Society, attention was drawn to an interview between Mr. Kenneth Allsop and Dr. Byrne which was included in the programme ‘Tonight’, broadcast in the London area at 6.50pm on the 6th November 1962.
The main result of the broadcast interview was clearly to draw attention to the occurrence of errors in surgical operations causing injury to patients, with particular reference to operations performed upon the wrong patient or on the wrong side, limb or digit of a patient. The whole tone and content of the interview appeared to imply that errors were frequent. In fact, they are extremely rare.
The impression was created that surgeons and their teams are unreasonably careless in the precautions taken to avoid such mishaps. The impression left with the viewer was that it was common for a patient to have the wrong finger amputated and for several swabs to be left in the body of a patient. It is extremely unlikely that any such mishap will occur. The result of this item was to undermine the confidence of the public in the medical and nursing professions and to cause anxiety to those viewers who were themselves or had relatives about to undergo surgical treatment.
The Council hope that the Corporation will recognise the damaging effect on morale which this kind of programme can produce.
Yours faithfully,
A. F.
Northern Ireland Tourist Board, Royal Avenue, Belfast
14 November 1959
To: Sir Ian Jacob K.B.E. British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting House, London W1
Dear Sir Ian,
Last Friday the 9th, in the ‘To Night’ programme there was a feature about Belfast given by Mr. Alan Whicker which has caused the very greatest resentment here. In my capacity as Chairman of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board I and my colleagues felt the programme to have been most damaging to Northern Ireland.
Only one side of the story was given. Great stress was laid on the fact that our Police carried revolvers however it was because of the activities of the IRA. The public houses are open from 10am to 10pm. A comparison should have been made with other countries. It was remarked that during the last war conscription did not apply here. No mention was made of the large numbers that joined the Forces. Great emphasis was made that Betting Shops were filled with unemployed persons but the number of employed due to new factories is greater now than it has ever been. The last point I would make is with regard to some of the photography. Pictures of City Hall, Stormont, etc. appear to have been taken on a foggy day.
Mr. Alan Whicker had a tremendous amount of information at his disposal from the BBC, the Government of Northern Ireland and the Tourist Board that he ignored completely.
The Controller of Northern Ireland Broadcasting has made a public apology on the local T.V. news programme but the least that can be done is that an apology is made on the National Programme.
Yours sincerely
H.J.W.
South African Embassy, Trafalgar Square, London WC2
19 November 1963
To: Mr. H. Carleton Green, Director General, BBC, London W1<
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Sir,
I must lodge a protest against the gross partiality displayed against South Africa in the programme ‘Tonight’ on 18th November 1963, when, against photographs of violence and squalor in South Africa, glowing extracts from articles that had appeared that morning in The Daily Express were read in an attempt to discredit both South Africa and The Express.
To judge from details of dress in some of the pictures, several must have been taken up to 30 years ago; and yet the B.B.C. allowed itself to present them as depicting South Africa today.
I would be the last to claim that squalor and violence do not occur in South Africa, as indeed they occur in every country where there are disparate peoples with different levels of development living side by side. But to present this as the daily face of South Africa is not only superficial but it gives offence to truth as well.
Differences of opinion on whether our policy of parallelism is the final solution to our political problems may be honestly held. But until our critics advance a workable alternative, mere facile sneers and jibes are hardly the weapons that become a serious organisation such as the B.B.C.
Yours faithfully,
M. C. L.
Paxton Road, Chiswick, London W4
17 November 1966
To: The Controller of Programmes, B.B.C.2 Television, TV Centre, Wood Lane, W12
Dear Sir,
I watched with much displeasure your ‘Man Alive’ programme last night entitled ‘A Roof Over Your Head – Part 4. Try Buying It’. I am myself a member of the Estate Profession and am sick to death of continually seeing it pulled to pieces by B.B.C. Television. There are good and bad in all professions and it’s about time the B.B.C. realised that there are good Estate Agents.
Perhaps you are not aware that there are four main Professional Bodies whose members have to abide by a code of conduct and this code has been drawn up to protect the public. The only person who ever seems to have his say on these programmes is Mr Roy Brookes who is not a qualified Estate Agent but started his career as an Advertising Agent. He has made his name purely from his advertisements in the Sunday papers and not on his professional merit.
The entire programme gave the impression that all Estate Agents are rogues without any suggestion whatsoever that reliable firms were to be found. I would suggest that next time you are arranging a programme on this subject you contact one of the recognised Bodies for advice before slandering the entire profession.
Yours faithfully,
D.A.F.
St. Benedict’s Hospital, London SW17
4 August 1967
To: D. Attenborough, Governor B.B.C.2. (TV) Kensington House, Richmond Way, London W14
Dear Mr. Attenborough,
‘Man Alive’ Programme August 2nd 1967 Life Sentence I – Pamela
I am sorry to say that I have a very serious complaint to make to you about a statement made in the introduction to this programme. ‘The beginning of another day in St. Benedict’s Hospital, Tooting; a geriatric hospital where the old are sent to die and sometimes the young to live’.
The statement is completely untrue and gives an utterly false and misleading impression of the hospital to the general public. It also falsely implies that Pamela La Fane’s plight is far worse than it actually is. This is NOT a hospital for the dying. This is a geriatric hospital i.e. a hospital for the diagnosis, and medical treatment of anyone of pensionable age. [Presenter] Jeremy James may not realise the dreadful damage he has done to my work to help the elderly. The simple people believe what they [see] in black and white and will in future be [too] frightened to come into St. Benedict’s (their relatives will have the same unfounded feelings) and I shall have great difficulty in persuading them to come in for treatment and reassuring them that they are not going to die. Jeremy James may not realise that he may have undone the hard work of many years by doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and medical social workers.
Secondly, I wish to complain most seriously that the name of the hospital was spoken on the programme without the producer having asked permission. Had we been asked we should certainly not have granted it since it had nothing to do with the programme. I was deeply shocked and I consider Mr. James to be a most irresponsible young man.
Yours sincerely,
J.S.W. M.D. M.R.C.P.
Sutton Coldfield
28 February 1968
To: Mr David Attenborough Director of BBC2, Broadcasting House, London
Dear Sir,
Re Programme MAN ALIVE, Tuesday 27 February – 9.5pm.
Too often, unfortunately, whenever programmes concerning immigrants in this country are produced the majority of spokesmen seem to be uneducated persons. This has the effect of creating the impression that the immigrant groups have only uneducated people within them.
The behaviour of Mr. Egbune and the rubbish uttered by Frankie X do nothing for the course [cause?] of racial relations or for the respect of the none-white [sic] immigrants in this country.
In the future it would be of greater benefit for the promotion of harmonious relationships if more intelligent – even if forthright and dogmatic – persons would be invited to appear. I feel that Tuesday night’s programme did nothing but caused disgust and contempt both to the immigrants and to the hosts of this country.
Yours faithfully
C. R.
United Daughters of the Confederacy, Lexington, Kentucky
1 April 1968
To: The Honorable Managing Director, British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting House, London, England
Dear Sir,
Some very disturbing and dissappointing [sic] reports have been received from contacts in the British Isles and gleaned from reviews in the Radio Times and the Daily Telegraph of the program entitled ‘Daughters of America’ on the MAN ALIVE hour.
Apparently the information gathered in the United States by the team led by Mr Adam Clapham, Director, Features and Science Programmes during September and October of last year has not been used in the manner which we were led to believe it was being assembled.
Mr Clapham called at our business office and headquarters building in Richmond, Virginia, and indicated that the United Daughters of the Confederacy was chosen because they wished to have a patriotic organization represented in their review of women’s work in this country and that we had been selected because the United Daughters of the Confederacy had no political overtones concerning itself only with the cultural side of life.
Reports from the British press and personal reports from England to me indicate that in your broadcast the United Daughters of the Confederacy were more or less ridiculed, and maligned; and the broadcast, instead of emphasising the cultural contributions of the UDC really downgraded the fine contributions they have made during their entire history. The broadcast fails to point out the patriotism of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Particularly do I deplore the fact that your commentator, Mr Desmond Wilcox, chose to focus his lens on one of our older members who was totally unaccustomed to television interviewing and completely nonplussed. This was a most ungentlemanly and discourteous act and a total violation of the privileges granted the team. They had been advised time and time again that I, as President General, was to be interviewed and quoted.
Because of the failure of your organisation to use the material collected through the generosity of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for the furtherance of cultural activities among the English women and because of the manner in which it has been used, this is to ask that the film be withdrawn from your library and destroyed.
This letter is being written with the approval of our legal advisors.
Yours very truly
A.N.H.
CHAPTER FOURTEEEN
GRANGE HILL
Grange Hill provoked more correspondence than any other programme on children’s television. It did so because it portrayed school life more realistically than anything that had been see
n on television to date.
The first popular school series was Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School which ran from 1952 until 1961 and was adapted from the stories written by Frank Richards and which had started to appear in the boys’ comic The Magnet some years before the outbreak of World War I. Girls’ school stories by Angela Brazil sold well as books but in those chauvinistic days obviously not well enough to be adapted for television. The popular Enid Blyton St. Clare’s books only appeared as a bizarre Japanese anime series in which the characters sounded as if they were voiced by Americans trying to speak with English accents. There were occasional adaptations of classic stories like Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and Jimmy Edwards was a popular cane-wielding headmaster in the Frank Muir and Denis Norden sitcom Whack-O!, but all these school stories were set in public schools, far removed from the experience of most of the children who watched television. It wasn’t just that there was a hole in the market which Grange Hill filled. It was that life in a comprehensive school had not previously been considered suitable material for children’s television.
The instinctive horrified reaction to the series indicates why it took Phil Redmond so long to sell his concept for Grange Hill, which had acquired rejections from every company between 1975 and 1977 before Anna Home at the BBC finally took the plunge. She proved to be an outstanding Executive Producer, championing the series in the face of hostile criticism. The series showed as a matter of routine the petty thefts, bullying, skiving off lessons, vandalism and smoking which the children would have known all about but their parents would have preferred not to have seen portrayed as a fact of daily school life. However, as the following selection of letters makes clear, the series was much admired by adults as well as children who recognised it immediately as an honest reflection of their lives.
Grange Hill ran for thirty years from 1978 to 2008, but its major impact was felt in its first few series. The parents who wrote in to complain were usually middle-class mothers who did not wish their children to be ‘infected’ by Grange Hill, although the very real distress felt by women who thought menstruation not a fit topic for children’s television came from all social classes. As we have seen in other chapters, by and large people who write in want to complain. Not many admirers of a television show take the time and trouble to express their appreciation in this way unless it is something remarkable like the Royal Family film. The fact that Grange Hill lasted for as long as it did is a tribute to its enduring relevance.