In the city of London,
they're pulling out every stop
for the BBC's big anniversary.
The guest list for a huge banquet
includes major figures
in public life, from
the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Lord Mayor of London, to
dozens of BBC stars and executives.
And the person standing up to toast
the health of the BBC
is none other than
the Prime Minister.
How happy I am to be able to say
that the relations between
Number 10
and the BBC should be so good.
LAUGHTER
The playful ribbing at the
BBC's 50th anniversary
suggests it was assured
and confident
at the heart of
the Establishment.
I cannot help noticing how,
on every time, every occasion
in which the members of
the BBC come to Number 10,
how much they enjoy themselves.
LAUGHTER
It wasn't quite like that.
Behind the scenes,
it was often on the edge.
Programme making was precarious
and fraught with risk,
frequently a battle just to keep
the show on the road.
The whole fleet is lit up.
It's in fairy land.
The whole fleet is in fairy land.
I'm sorry. I was telling some people
to shut up talking.
What is it about a series
like this which is...?
Look, could I please...?
Look, I'll wrap this up in 60
seconds, if I can't make a point
without being heard.
For the time being...
Excuse me. Yes?
What is the matter?
I've never seen such disorder
in any studio.
I'm up.
I can't control myself at all.
What's going to happen now,
I'm not quite sure.
And if I suddenly disappear...
..you'll know that it's a very
successful icebreaker.
The pioneers developed broadcasting
and shaped the BBC
largely through trial and error,
seizing opportunities
and coping with accidents.
From special interviews filmed
for this project
over the last eight years,
it's clear they often operated
impulsively and under the radar.
You know, we were jack of all
trades, all seat of the pants stuff.
They certainly wouldn't
have been vetted upstairs.
I mean, that's how things
were done in those days.
You were totally left alone.
Absolutely.
Even the man at the top
had to start from scratch.
I didn't know what broadcasting was.
For much of the BBC's life,
it's been a process of
sometimes glorious,
sometimes painful discovery.
You are awful.
But I like you!
First of all, I must apologise
for my voice.
Since my last talk, I've had the
somewhat alarming experience,
common to most broadcast actors,
of hearing my own voice
on the Blattnerphone.
When I heard it on this curious
instrument, I was frankly horrified.
It struck me as being almost
the most unpleasant...
At the start, everything was new.
The British Broadcasting Company
began five years before
there were talkies in the cinema.
No wonder voices on the air
were a thrill.
What people of my generation
remember of the early days
of broadcasting, was the
sheer excitement of it.
And as a boy of ten, I can,
I could buy a crystal set.
Indeed I did at Woolworth's,
if I remember rightly, for sixpence,
and the rest of the apparatus
cost another sixpence.
And earphones, of course,
were extra.
This is 2LO calling.
Now, tonight you're going to hear
news and views of the theatre
by the BBC dramatic critic,
Mr Archibald Haddon.
HE WHISPERS: Careful not to rustle
the papers.
Hello, play goers.
It meant a very tall pole
in the garden,
connected with a long wire to my
bedroom windowsill,
and then a black box inside
of which was a crystal
and what was known
as a cat's whisker.
And you would twiddle
the cat's whisker
and eventually you got a voice.
The principle points to remember
are as follows.
One - you dance on the ball of your
foot and not on your toes. Two...
What year do you think
that would be?
Oh, goodness.
Well, it was still at the house
where I was born.
It was possibly about...
..1924.
This is London calling.
And here is Harry Graham,
who's going to tell you something
about his aunts.
And when you got it
and you put the headphones on,
the sound was absolutely clear.
It was so clear.
There was no interference, nothing.
It was just pure sound.
And one of the excitements
of those days was the prospect
of being struck dead on the spot...
LAUGHTER
..if lightning hit
your outdoor aerial.
Too hard. The ball's gone
over the line
about 30 yards from the Blackburn
goal. Still in square four.
Here's a great chance, he's shot.
Back in four again.
Ross Kemp has bundled Mercer,
and the ball into the net.
It's a goal to Blackburn Rovers
in well under a minute.
Jove, what a sensational start.
We were hearing just not voices,
but we were hearing cows mooing
and we were here hearing people
singing lovely songs,
wonderful music.
WOMAN SINGS
This is the National Programme
from London.
We begin this evening with a concert
by The Gershom Parkington Quintet
who will play Liebestraum,
Love Dream, by Liszt.
The radio pioneers were fired up by
a mission to educate and inform
as well as entertain.
People said, "This is good,
we'd like more of this"
because nobody knew anything
about music. You realise that?
Who went to concerts? Who went
to the opera in those days?
Only the people who could afford it,
the rich.
The poor people, the ordinary people
in the street,
never heard an opera in their lives,
never heard a symphony concert.
How should they? And then suddenly,
there it was in their ears.
So this was opening up
a new world to people.
The general education of the world
has been so changed by radio.
The fledgling BBC seized
the opportunity to shape this
previously inaccessible world.
Only five years in,
and now a public corporation,
it took over the Proms and then
set up the first salaried orchestra
in Britain - the BBC Symphony.
And this is the excitement,
that every time you were touching
something which had never
been touched before,
and everybody's excitement and
interest in life was lifted.
People began to know about,
you know, about gardening,
they'd never learned before,
about beekeeping, about agriculture,
about whatever you like,
they hadn't known.
Now they began to know.
The engines are on.
Four, three, two, one.
Zero.
We have commenced.
We have, we have lift off.
Four decades later, the pioneer
spirit was still very much alive.
At Christmas, 1968, people
were gripped by the coverage
of Apollo 8, the daring American
mission to send a manned spacecraft
around the back of the moon,
seven months before
the first moon landing.
The BBC carried it live in a mixture
of colour and black and white,
but there was no guarantee
of success.
This mission is loaded with what's
called life critical points.
Those are the points
during the mission when,
if anything goes wrong, a rocket
fires or fails to fire or misfires,
then the life of the astronaut
is put in danger.
We were in Alexandra Palace,
Patrick Moore and I,
and they went behind the moon.
And the thing is, you see, you go
behind the moon and for a period
of time you're out of radio contact.
During...
And each time they go round,
they pass through a 45 minute
communications blackout with Earth.
If anything goes wrong there,
nobody knows back on Earth
until they come out,
if anything's gone wrong.
After those ten orbits, they've got
to fire this rocket again
to take them back to Earth.
And if it fires wrongly, you come,
you re-emerge from behind the moon
or you crash into the moon, or you
re-emerge heading off into space.
If that rocket continues
to fail to fire, they'll stay there
and their oxygen will run out
on February the 24th.
So everybody was very excited
about what condition
they were in as they came round
into view again.
The essential moment came
on Christmas Eve
with viewers and presenters on the
edge of their seats.
No voice contact yet.
We're standing by.
At 10.36 this morning,
Apollo 8 went around the
far side of the moon
at just over 7,000 miles an hour
into a complete radio blackout.
And just before they were about
to re-emerge, the lights
suddenly went out in the studio,
and a voice in my ear said,
"You're off the air."
It was kind of urgent to know
whether they were coming back
or not.
Jackanory. Jackanory.
Jackanory. Jackanory.
THEME MUSIC PLAYS
And Patrick and I said,
"What on earth is going on?"
They're due to reappear
within a few minutes.
And then the lights came back
on again and the voice said,
"You're on the air."
Apollo Control Houston.
We're looking at engine data,
and it looks good.
The tank pressures look good.
We have not talked yet with
the crew, but we're standing by.
But we've got it. We've got it.
Apollo 8 now
in lunar orbit.
There's a cheer in this room.
This is Apollo Control Houston.
Switching now to the voice
of Jim Lovell.
Five. 60.5.
Good to hear your voice.
This is the satellite picture that
is now coming from Apollo 8.
And there is the moon.
I'll give you a shot of the horizon.
Roger.
I'll shift to the rendezvous window.
Roger, Bill.
STUDIO: This is through the
rendezvous window.
So they're pointing
straight at the moon.
Looks like we've got a real good
picture now.
Patrick Moore, what did
you think of that? Quite incredible.
One thing we've got to bear in mind,
I think,
they were magnificent pictures.
I'm not going to say they show us
more detail than we've got from the
orbiters, but they probably don't.
But don't forget that people
were actually seeing them direct
for the first time.
And we finished that show and went
to the control gallery and said,
"What happened?"
And the control gallery people said,
"We went off the air because we had
to be on the air for Jackanory.
"You were going to interrupt it."
And we said, "Oh."
And they said the phone rang
almost immediately and a voice said,
"This is the equerry to Her Majesty,
the Queen Mother,
"who says to tell you, quote, what
the...do you think you're doing?!
And so we went back on the air
and there you were.
Gentlemen, all in all,
an extraordinary and satisfying
morning, wouldn't you say?
Marvellous. I think that's the
understatement of the year
or, in fact, the understatement
of any century.
The man who led the BBC pioneers
in the '20s and set its course
for the first 15 years was
an imposing Scotsman, John Reith.
His influence still guides
the BBC today.
Of course, one was struck
immediately by his great height,
which I think was six feet seven.
I remember how impressed I was by
this enormously tall, giant.
Piercing eyes and this awful wound
on his face
where he was shot during the w*r.
This great scar right across his
cheek here, red and deep.
And I sort of felt, if you
saw him on a dark night,
you'd be rather frightened.
But he was, he had a friendly look.
He didn't frighten me.
Reith was appointed general
manager of the brand-new BBC
at the end of 1922.
He and four colleagues were to
set up a national radio service
to absorb the tiny amateur outfits
that had been springing up.
Reith was an engineer by training
from Stonehaven near Aberdeen.
I didn't know what broadcasting was.
How do you mean you didn't know
what it was?
I literally didn't know
what broadcasting was.
The advertisement was attractive.
I thought it was the sort of thing
I wanted, and I applied.
So I was off after the job
of Director of Programmes,
believe it or not.
I knew as much about making
a programme as a caterpillar,
you know. Ridiculous!
Did you really have qualifications
at that time for this job,
do you think? Oh.
I have qualifications
for managing
I thought almost anything.
Is that all right? Fine, yes!
There it was, suddenly upon us.
And we had to take hold
of this strange tiger, you know,
and start pulling it by the tail
to see what would happen.
From the start,
they found it a struggle.
Some vested interests saw
broadcasting as a threat
to their survival.
Of course, it created the most
terrible difficulties.
What were the sportspeople
going to do for their audiences?
They'd all be sitting at home.
What were the parsons going to do
for a congregation?
Nobody would come, you see.
Of course, it didn't work out
like that at all,
but that's what people thought.
So we at once,
for the first few days,
ran into the most
tremendous antagonism.
"No, you can't come and broadcast
our cricket match.
"You can't come and broadcast
our religious service.
"We won't let you into
our theatre." You know.
This was the attitude and
all this had to be overcome.
The more expensive wireless
receivers were less risky
than crystal sets.
Valve radios with speakers made
broadcasts a shared experience.
We had a wireless set
and it was the first
one in the road,
and people came around
to listen to it things from it.
What sort of wireless set was it?
A big box thing with a battery
that had to be recharged
at the local garage.
And it was so heavy that only my
father could take it there.
To the children, I would
like to send a special message.
Always remember George V,
"Are you listening, children?
"This is the King speaking to you."
The King is speaking to you.
So I sat up straight.
# Here's looking at you... #
Only seven years in, the BBC began
experimenting with television.
And in November 1936, at the North
London studios of Alexandra Palace,
it launched what was called a
regular high definition television
channel, the first such
domestic service in the world.
Test runs had culminated
in a variety show
devised by a radio producer, which
was captured by cinema newsreels.
I thought,
"Well, we must have a new song."
So I got hold of Ronnie Hill,
a review writer,
and he immediately came up with the
song, Here's Looking at You.
And now you're going to see
and hear someone you know well,
Miss Helen McKay.
And I thought,
"By jove, there's a title.
"That's just exactly
what we're all thinking."
And this got us away.
# Here's looking at you
# From out of the blue... #
The test broadcast caught the
imagination of a young radio critic.
Grace Wyndham Goldie, who would go
on to become one of television's
principal pioneers,
went to watch it,
ignoring her editor's objections.
He said, "Look," very crossly,
"television is going to be
"of no importance
in your lifetime or mine,
"and I don't want you
wasting your time on it."
# This wonderful age
# When all the world is a stage... #
Now, the production, of course,
was terrible, reception was awful,
and I was convinced it was going
to become one of the most important
influences that had ever
been created.
Now, what is it that television
can do that nothing else can?
In my view, it's a very simple
and obvious one,
but it's worth reiterating.
It can let you see things
at a distance
at the moment when
they are happening.
Now, this is peculiar to television.
That is what makes television
pre-eminent.
# This wonderful age... #
But back in 1936, there was no sign
that Sir John Reith saw it that way.
Do you remember him taking
any interest in television starting?
Did he? Yes. Not very much.
No, the BBC didn't, you know.
That was really one
of the shortcomings.
The senior people mistrusted
television.
They were so in love
with sound radio
that they couldn't see the future.
He hated it.
He once told me later on, I mean,
since I've retired,
talking about he said,
"You know, I was always
afraid of television."
I mean, nobody could imagine
Reith was afraid of anything.
Reith was far more preoccupied
with the developing
constitutional crisis.
As 1936 drew to a close,
King Edward VIII looked likely
to abdicate.
Reith spotted an opportunity
for the BBC to play a pivotal role.
I told our people to wire up
the King's own personal premises
in Windsor Castle.
It came to the notice
of the civil service.
And I will rung.
"Is it true you're wiring up
Windsor Castle?"
I said, yes.
"What for?"
I said, it's against anything
that might happen.
"But it can't happen without
our knowledge and approval."
No, I know. What about it?
Well, then I knew, of course,
it was approved.
For the King's abdication broadcast,
Reith decided that he himself
should introduce him,
no longer King
and not yet the Duke of Windsor.
He was in close contact with the
Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin
and Reith's go between was his new
19-year-old secretary.
Of course, that was one of
the most thrilling bits
of my young life at that time.
He dictated what he was
going to say, which I typed,
and then he said,
"Now, I want you to ring for a cab
"and I want you to take this
yourself to Number 10 Downing Street
"and give it to Mr Baldwin
into his hand."
And so I did that accordingly,
and found it quite thrilling,
and stuck to my g*ns until I was
taken into Mr Baldwin's presence
when I said, "This is from Sir John
Reith," and then left.
Driving over to Windsor that night,
I just...
..I felt, here am I going to make
an announcement on the wireless,
which is going to be listened
to millions and millions of people
all over the world.
The most tremendous broadcast
possibly that had ever been made
by any country,
the abdication of a monarch.
This is the marvellous thing
about the BBC, of course,
that it was at the centre
of every crisis.
There was a table and I said,
"I will sit down on this chair, if
you would just stand beside me, sir.
"I shall, immediately
after I announce you,
"I will slip out to the left
and you slip into the right."
This is Windsor Castle.
His Royal Highness, Prince Edward.
LOUD THUMP
In following me into the chair,
he happened to give an awful kick
to the table leg.
THUMP
The newspaper said that John
Reith was so disgusted with the King
that he kicked, he slammed
the door when he went out.
Which was totally wrong, of course.
At long last,
I am able to say
a few words of my own.
A few hours ago,
I discharged my last duty
as King and Emperor.
John Reith kept a scrapbook because
he was extremely vain, bless him.
He loved anything in the newspapers
about himself
and about the BBC, and little
photographs and things, you see,
where he'd been.
And he said, "Would you put
them in my scrapbook?"
And so I stuck them all in just
as I would when I had a scrapbook
as a child, you know,
the way it pleased me.
And he was furious, absolutely.
He said, "Look, did you not
think of looking
"at the beginning of the book
and seeing how it was done?"
"You just found a new page,
you put all this in.
"Couldn't you see that?
"Take them all out,
and put them together
"and then put them all back
in the proper way."
So I went out the room,
went to the ladies loo
and burst into tears.
Reith revelled in being
at the centre of a crisis,
but his successors weren't
always as sure-handed.
Friday, November the 22nd, 1963
was a day when BBC television
almost came off the rails.
As shocking news began to emerge
from Dallas in Texas,
there was no template for handling
such a fast moving story.
It was a matter of more or less
making it up as they went along.
Most of the key decision makers
at the studios in Lime Grove,
Alexandra Palace and Television
Centre were out of reach.
The week was winding down and it was
the night of the television awards
and a lot of people had gone
to the Dorchester Hotel.
And so Rob Dougall and Kenneth
Kendall and everybody concerned
with the presentation of television
news therefore were there.
So a few people left in Lime Grove.
Tonight was going out.
THEME MUSIC
Good evening.
When news came through of
the assassination attempt
on President Kennedy,
Cliff gave that on the air
and then the programme closed down.
This is BBC Television.
The newsroom at Alexandra Palace
was on alert
as further reports came in.
John Roberts was reading
the news that evening
a standby newsreader from
New Zealand, a good chap,
but not very used to
the operation at all.
A series of messages were handed
in to him, little sheets of paper,
the president had been shot at.
The president had been removed
to hospital.
In the scramble for information,
the BBC had one major advantage.
At Caversham, near Reading,
it had a listening service
where round the clock, staff
monitored short wave broadcasts
from other countries.
Monitoring service?
Yes, they're on the air.
This is the Voice of America
broadcasting worldwide.
Then came a message from the
Voice of America, who announced
that the president was dead.
President Kennedy is dead.
The president of the United States
was shot down by an assassin's
b*llet, and he...
Newsroom, please. Urgent.
Normal practice was to hold back
a news story
until it had been corroborated
by a second source.
Hold it everybody in the studio,
will you. Change coming up.
John White, who was the editor
for the day,
had to make the terrible decision of
whether he would actually announce
on the air for the BBC, which is
meant to be the fount of absolutely
reliability, of course,
that the president was dead.
And he decided that if the
Voice of America said so,
then it must be true.
With little else to go on,
BBC television was paralysed.
For 19 minutes, it ran the station
ident of a revolving globe
with three terse news flashes from
the unfamiliar figure
of John Roberts, who said,
"According to the Voice of America,
President Kennedy is dead."
I remember reeling with shock.
And it was a straightforward
announcement and they said,
"We'll be bringing you more later."
And I went up to the point where
the au pair was bathing my daughter,
and said, "Kennedy's dead."
And I remember her sort of
collapsing on the chair.
And I said, "I think we both
need a strong drink."
And I went and poured two whiskies.
And we were shaking.
We were shaking with
the shock of it.
Presentation certainly didn't know
what to do next.
I mean, they did the appalling
thing, actually, eventually,
after 15 minutes of putting on a
comedy programme with Harry Worth.
JAUNTY THEME MUSIC
APPLAUSE
I mean, it was one of the worst
nights in the history of the BBC.
Latest news and pictures
from America, over to the newsroom.
The death of John F Kennedy
happened in Dallas at 12.25pm.
In our time, 6.25pm this evening.
Gradually, they began to improvise.
It was effectively the BBC's first
stuttering attempt at rolling news
in those far off days without
the internet or mobile phones.
Hello, Leonard? Hello, yes?
Yes, OK, You can go ahead, then.
Righto. Well, as long as you realise
all I've got in front of me
is a pile of tape,
which I'm just ripping off
the printer
with a phone ringing as well.
Hello, London,
this is Leonard Parkin
calling Radio Newsreel from
Washington. President Kennedy...
She had entered the hospital,
cradling her husband's head
and weeping.
Reporters said
she was not hysterical.
We have, I hope, the line open
to Washington
and to our correspondent there,
Leonard Parkin.
Leonard, can you hear me?
Yes, I can. Hello.
What's going on in Washington now?
Getting pictures across the Atlantic
was a laborious process.
Satellite broadcasting
was in its infancy,
but only when the Telstar satellite
was within range.
That evening, it wasn't.
His brother, Robert, the US Attorney
General, was told in Washington.
In America, there was an immediate
sense of horror and shock.
Flags at half mast, the United
Nations in grieved tribute
as this first film shows,
just received over
the transatlantic cable.
If you filmed something
in the United Nations
that was sent picture by picture
by telefilm
via cable under the Atlantic.
Within an hour of sending
picture by picture,
you could have transmitted
about two minutes of film.
Two or three minutes ago,
over the link from America,
we received some of the first
pictures of the confusion, crisis
and emergency that followed
President Kennedy's sh**ting.
An event that put...
At the Alexandra Palace end,
there was a similar machine,
so they would take the film
out of the machine, develop it,
which they could do in about
ten minutes, and could be on the air
within possibly three or four hours.
In the bottom of the car, President
Kennedy was bleeding to death,
supported by his wife as his special
guard drove frenziedly to hospital.
Behind them was turmoil.
Ahead of them, within half an hour,
were the last rites and the death
of the president.
Programmes tonight
have been rearranged.
The newsroom didn't have
the resources or capacity to run
all evening, which left BBC
executives scratching their heads.
My programme was about
Benjamin Britten.
It's his birthday, the 22nd
November, St Cecilia's day.
So I went up and they were running
this Harry Worth comedy still,
I could see it on the screen.
It was the most surrealistic to have
President Kennedy's image
on one player and comedy
and another.
And they said,
"What's in your programme?"
So I told them, film of Aldeburgh
and bit of orchestra.
And then we're going to finish
with a film from the w*r Requiem.
"Requiem," they said. "Perfect.
Right, that show stays in."
MUSIC: w*r Requiem
by Benjamin Britten
His Benjamin Britten film gave the
Panorama team time to get its act
together for a late night tribute
to President Kennedy.
I suppose I was the most senior
person around the place,
and I decided that what was needed
was a programme with the
Prime Minister, the Leader of
the Opposition, that was Jo Grimond.
Friday night, you try
and find the politicians.
Alec Hume, who was then the Prime
Minister, was on his way to spend
the weekend with the Duke of Norfolk
and was in the car
speeding down to Arundel.
And we got an AA man
to stop the Prime Minister's car
and tell him that it was important
that he phoned Downing Street.
No telephones in those days.
He phoned Downing Street
and was told the news,
and decided to go back to London
and to appear on television.
He was in his country clothes,
he felt that he couldn't
appear like that on television,
went to Downing Street,
changed into a suit, black tie,
went to Broadcasting House
and got stuck in the lift
ten minutes
before the broadcast.
There are times in life
when mind and heart stand still,
and one such is now.
And all of you will have felt,
as I did,
that everything in one
cried out in protest.
Wilson, the Leader of the
Opposition, was in North Wales.
He was the first one we actually
managed to get hold of,
and Wilson said,
"Where do you want me?"
And we sent him to Manchester.
I was addressing a large meeting,
and when it was announced
all the people in the hall let out
an involuntary gasp of horror.
Jo Grimond was at the Oxford Union
speaking there and got a hold of him
and had to interrupt the debate.
And I sent a car down to pick
her up.
There will be quite ordinary people
this evening who will feel this
as a totally unexpected
personal tragedy,
as though one of their relations
had been k*lled.
I think it was a coup to get
that Friday, that night,
to get those three
leading people together.
They spoke,
they'd all had met Kennedy,
they all spoke well of him.
And it was a programme
of some significance.
# A shot rang out
# Like a sudden shout
# And heaven held its breath
# For the dreams
of a multitude of men
# Rode with him to his death
# Lord, rode with him
to his death. #
Within 24 hours, the cast
of That Was The Week That Was
switched from its
normal satire to salute.
And that was amazing for
that capacity to respond.
People have said, "Oh, it looks
a bit mawkish."
I should think it would.
But I mean, at the time, it was
exactly what people needed.
Suddenly over there in Washington
was this amazing...
They spoke from the heart. I doubt
if their scripts were vetted,
they certainly wouldn't have been
vetted upstairs.
Behind the trappings of the image
was the first Western politician...
Producers in those days
were trusted to get the tone right,
and that was very important.
It was a sort of consolation
of some kind.
The tragedy of John Kennedy's death
is not that the liberal movements
of history that he led will cease.
It is that their focus
may become blurred
and that the gathering momentum
may be lost.
That is the aftermath
of Dallas, November 22.
DOCTOR WHO THEME TUNE
That Saturday, the world felt
unstable and out of control.
If the audience was worried
and frightened,
the first episode of a
new children's serial
going out the same evening, was
hardly likely to calm nerves.
The day before, its young director
had signed off the first episode
for transmission before
joining other BBC people
at the awards evening
in central London.
That night was a significant night
because it was when Kennedy
was k*lled.
I first heard about it when
I was going to an awards ceremony
and I was in a state of shock
and I thought,
"What's this going to do to us?"
I thought it would be cancelled,
but it wasn't.
And I didn't quite know
how the whole thing
would be received.
I mean, let's face it, here was a
programme for children initially,
competing with the biggest
news story in the world.
There's only one way in and out
of this yard.
I should be here when you get back.
I want to see your faces
when you try to explain
away your behaviour to a policeman.
Nevertheless, we're going
to find one. Come on, Barbara.
What are you doing out there?
She is in there.
Barbara!
Waris Hussein was a 26-year-old
Cambridge graduate
and the only Asian drama director
in television.
The BBC had gambled on him after the
original director pulled out.
The first director had thought
it was a load of rubbish
and walked off it and in
a dudgeon he said,
"I'm not going to work
on this sh*t," and left.
So what, they had no choice.
They had a programme scheduled,
but they had no director.
So what did they do?
They looked around and saw
this eager young Indian
hanging around
waiting for a job offer.
Doctor Who was the brainchild
of Sydney Newman,
the Canadian who'd been brought in
to take risks and shake up
BBC drama, which he regarded
as absolutely asleep.
The idea of Doctor Who was,
it was basically
a senile old man of 720 years
or 60 years of age
who had to escape from a
distant planet in a spaceship.
And the spaceship had the capacity
to go forward and backward in time.
And he wanted radical thinking.
And Doctor Who in some ways was,
if you think about it.
Who else would come up with a
telephone box that hummed,
and if you open the doors into
a vast space which turns out to be
a spaceship?
That takes imagination.
Newman hired a young woman producer
to work with Hussein -
Verity Lambert.
I used to say to her,
in a jokey way,
"Sydney, you and I are
the Three Musketeers."
We were all outsiders,
and I think that was important.
The very first script
was about a quest for fire
among prehistoric people.
And this was Sydney's idea
of starting from scratch.
Zero? That's not right.
I'm afraid this yearometer is not
calculating properly.
Scratch was the word because actors
had to wear flea bitten skins
as costumes
and speak in strange dialogue.
When will Za make fire come
from his hands?
When Orb decides it.
Orb is for strong man.
I said, "Verity, what are
we going to do with all this?"
She said, "We're going to
have it to make it work."
The creature has opened its eyes.
I said, "But we can't
be laughed at."
I was terrified being laughed at.
And this going along with my
background, as you can imagine...
..was something
to be dealt with.
And one absolute rule I laid down
was there'd be no bug eyed monsters,
none of these creepy crawly things
from outer space,
the usual nonsense of
science fiction stuff.
SHE GASPS
And then she came out with his Dalek
business,
and I was livid with anger.
Verity said, "You're going to have
to put up with bug eyed monsters,
"Sydney, if you like it or not."
Because they'd already written
them in, you see.
She said, "But honest, Sydney,
they are not bug eyed monsters.
"They were once living creatures
with brains
"and their brains had become so
large their bodies had atrophied
"and they needed the metal casing
to support the brain."
You will move ahead of us
and follow my directions.
This way.
There is the wisdom of being a great
head of drama group.
I didn't want any bug eyed monsters
and it was the Daleks
that really made Doctor Who.
Fire!
Britain had moved on since
Reid's departure
from Broadcasting House in 1938.
So had the BBC.
It was in a more challenging mood.
You're married, aren't you?
That's why you can't take me home.
How'd you guess?
You're sort of soft.
Marriage makes men softer.
When I saw you sitting there,
I began to sizzle.
The weekly Wednesday Play embraced
1960s culture, with escapist fantasy
replaced by contemporary reality.
You're a lovely girl.
Lovely.
My own attitude is a very liberal
one about matters of sex.
And the first play was
Nell Dunn's Up The Junction,
which had the ab*rtion scene
of the girl who had become
pregnant out of wedlock.
And that caused a great furore.
Yorkie, are you a communist?
Well, who do you think that is then?
Winston Churchill?
It was a high-risk strategy
for an audience
used to prim classic drama.
But Newman had the unwavering
support of his boss,
the seventh director general,
Hugh Carleton Greene.
Yorkie!
When Hugh Greene arrived
and threw open the windows
from the third floor
of Broadcasting House,
the BBC had entered its modern age.
He was the brother of the novelist
Graham Greene,
and his influence in and beyond the
BBC was as great as that of Reith.
Both were fearless giants,
but Greene was very different
from his Presbyterian predecessor.
In those days,
the job wasn't advertised.
There was no candidature.
He went to see Sir Arthur fforde
who was then the chairman of the BBC
at home, and Hugh was only asked one
question by Arthur fforde,
"Are you a Catholic
like your brother?"
So I told him that Graham
was a convert.
I'd been brought up a member
of the Church of England,
and I would describe my position as
being that of a respectful agnostic.
He said, "Well, in that case,
the job is yours."
But it's always struck me as odd
that the BBC,
in a supposedly Christian country,
should prefer an agnostic
as Director General
to a Roman Catholic.
You called him DG. Very clear, you
didn't call him Hugh or anything,
or Sir Hugh. It was DG.
DG this, DG that, blah blah blah.
When he came to the
board of management,
the board of management stood up.
And he towered... I mean, I'm quite
tall, but he towered over me.
A real glint in his eyes.
I mean, he enjoyed life.
But he could be as tough as nails.
He didn't fit the bill then,
as a Director General should look,
let's say.
Well, not as they used to look,
I'd better say.
He enjoyed putting a pin
into a bit of pomposity
when he had a chance to do so.
Well, he looked rather goofy,
actually, didn't he?
You know, slightly prominent
front teeth.
He was always untidy and
he always had this long coat,
which was too long, and the hem
was always coming down,
dragging at the side,
and he'd always got a button off
on the thing.
And I used to think...
I wasn't really like that,
but, you know,
I used to think, you know,
it's not the way to be, you know.
What's Mrs Greene doing?
Why doesn't she sew the button on?
And he didn't care. He didn't mind.
And I think, on reflection,
I just wonder if that wasn't
a bit deliberate.
I think he had a somewhat
deceptive reputation,
which he encouraged,
which was that he was beholden
to no man
and that the BBC was a very
independent body
and he would not brook anybody
interfering.
It wasn't quite true.
I mean, he was a very,
very political animal.
And while he was, it suited his
public reputation to say
that he wasn't, say, paying any
regard to the politicians
at the time, he knew when he had to.
# That was the week that was
# It's over, let it go
# We're pleased to write it off
# But not as pleased as one
or two prime ministers we know... #
Under Greene, the satirical show
That Was The Week That Was
was ground-breakingly
provocative each Saturday night.
# Macmillan's been reading
Lord Denning in bed
# He'd have found it much livelier
with a trollop instead... #
The Profumo scandal consuming
the Macmillan government
was grist to its mill.
Let no-one judged her too harshly.
She was only 21.
Let no-one judge her to harshly.
She is only 36, 23, 36.
I saw the pilots that the BBC
had made
before they transmitted
that series.
And it was, it was so amazing...
..that I actually put off
my wedding date
so that I could do the
first six of those shows.
Ned Sherrin had access directly
to the Director General.
And for an executive producer to
have access to the Director General
on a Saturday morning
was quite something.
But that was Hugh Greene.
That Was The Week
lived under his patronage.
Do you come here often?
Only in the mating seasons.
On Monday, Mr Ernest Marples
answered questions on the subject
of the Channel Tunnel.
This was originally mooted
in the days of Napoleon.
Now we're in the days of Marples
and we still haven't got
a firm decision.
Well, Napoleon was before my time
and there wasn't even
a Tory government then.
He's wrong, of course.
LAUGHTER
It was the Tory government and the
prime minister was Addington.
It was awfully clever.
And really when you think of it,
Millicent Martin, lovely c*ck,
pretty, awfully nice girl,
with Levin.
I mean, Levin, the intellectual.
You see what I mean?
But it seemed to gel.
Whatever your intentions, whatever
the bill's intentions, has in fact
encouraged and stimulated
colour prejudice in this.
I don't agree. I don't think there
is a colour prejudice.
What about the chant? I think this
is the most tolerant country
in regard to racial relations.
Your act is making it less so,
and so are people like you.
I don't think so.
Everybody was absolutely appalled,
rocking backwards in amazement
that such stuff could be
put on air.
It's a very unworthy accusation
to make.
Your attitude is unworthy,
Mr Pannell. Oh, you think so?
I do indeed.
Especially from the BBC.
So straight-laced.
# Thank God we're Englishmen
and not Common Market scum
# Oh, why should we be pally
with the wogs who start at Calais?
# Old de Gaulle may be ten feet tall
and think he's Napoleon
# But the French wash
every three days on bidets
# They Herren folk
are a standing joke
# With their short and hairy knees
# And the poor old Dutch
do nothing much
# But smell very faintly of cheese
# An Italian beau always says hello
# With a squeeze of finger
and thumb... #
Thank you!
# So thank God we're Englishmen
# And not Common Market
Not Common Market
# Not Common Market scum. #
We got all the flak in the office
for it, and trying to justify
this sketch on that sketch and
you used to view it and everything,
and think, "Oh, crikey, that'll do
it. We'll get so-and-so on this."
For all his delight
in puncturing pomposity,
Hugh Greene knew how to retreat
when he felt the political heat
was too intense.
When push came to shove,
he decided the moment
had come to stop.
I think it was almost craven of him
to close it down only after two
seasons. It was such a shame.
Oh, I don't think any of us
could have continued much longer
with TW3, the strain
was really too much.
He was more...
Devious is an unpleasant word,
loaded.
But I mean, he was more...
..scheming and sensitive and clever
at maintaining the BBC's position,
piloting a way through the rapids.
Greene knew he still had to honour
the BBC's role
as national broadcaster.
After all, he joined it early
in the Second World w*r,
when, with the infant television
service in hibernation,
all ears relied on the wireless
for authority and reassurance.
You can imagine what a
bitter blow it is to me
that all my long struggle to win
peace has failed.
My father called us in. We
were playing and he said,
"Come in, there's something very
serious and important
"the Prime Minister
is going to say."
There is no chance of expecting
that this man will ever give up
his practice of using
force to gain his will.
He can only be stopped by force.
I sat down on the stairs
and listened to it.
I can remember it.
Remember thinking, all my boy
friends are going to have to go.
He said, we're at w*r with Germany.
And my father, who had survived
the First World w*r,
said, "About time too."
I turned and saw my father crying
with tears down his cheeks,
and he was not a demonstrative man.
And I had never seen my father
cry before in my life.
It is evil things that we shall
be fighting against.
Brute force, bad faith, injustice,
oppression and persecution.
And against them, I am certain
that the right will prevail.
The BBC felt its wartime role
was to strengthen civilian morale.
We always used to listen
to JB Priestley.
Here at Dunkirk is
another English epic.
It was the Nine O'Clock News,
and then we had the Postscript.
And to my mind, what was most
characteristically English about it
so typical of us, so absurd, and
yet so grand and gallant that you
hardly know whether to laugh
or to cry when you read about them,
was the part played in the difficult
and dangerous embarkation,
not by the warships, magnificent
though they were,
but by the little pleasure steamers.
Priestley talked about the little
boats and little ships who had gone,
that had gone out and
brought everybody back.
Now, you wouldn't have known
about that
if you'd just listened to the news.
I was his studio manager
on many occasions.
Sometimes I had to say,
"Oh, Mr Priestley, I hope you
wouldn't mind, but..."
And he'd look at me and say,
"What is it now, laddie?
"What is it now?"
And somehow, the way he said it,
his manner,
it was sort of reassuring and you
felt you knew what was going on.
And our great-grandchildren,
when they learn how we began this
w*r by snatching glory out of defeat
and then swept on to victory,
may also learn how the little
holiday steamers made an excursion
to hell and came back glorious.
And looking around now,
I can hear machine g*nf*re,
but I can't see our Spitfires.
EXPLOSIONS IN BACKGROUND
They must be somewhere there.
Oh, here's one coming down now.
There's one coming down in flames.
Somebody's hit a German and he's
coming down this long streak.
He's coming down,
completely out of control.
A long streak of smoke.
The man's bailed out by parachute.
The pilot's bailed out by parachute.
He's a Junkers 87, and he's going
slap into the sea
and there he goes. Smash.
Well, the BBC had its
great time during the w*r,
and its link with the public
unquestionably still dates back
to what the BBC did during the w*r,
what the BBC w*r correspondents
did during the w*r.
Broadcasting House
took some b*mb damage,
but it didn't interrupt
its morale boosting work.
Hello, folks. This is Tommy
Handley. Can I do you now, sir?
I became the spot effect boy for
ITMA - It's That Man Again.
Spot effects were effects you did
on the spot in the studio.
Rattle, rattle of a handle,
open a door.
Mrs Mop, "Can I do you now, sir?"
After Tommy Handley
had said to Mrs Mop,
"Yes, thank you, Mrs Mop,
as soon as possible.
"DSYG."
"What's that, sir?"
"Don't show your garters."
Slam the door.
I was doing the door
and the slamming
and I had to be so careful
that I didn't laugh.
And then there was
Sandy MacPherson at the organ.
And he was on for hours.
Very patriotic chap.
And I do recall one journalist wrote
in the paper after the b*mb
had dropped to the BBC, they said,
"Oh, for goodness' sake, why didn't
they do it while Sandy MacPherson
"was playing the organ?"
Here is the midnight news.
And this is Alvar Liddell
reading it.
It held the nation together
during the w*r.
And I can remember feeling
that as a child,
yes, we are going to win.
And Alvar Liddell went
to the extraordinary extent
of saying, "Here is the news
and damn good news it is, too!"
Today was the most costly
of the German airports...
The BBC was the monarchy,
it was the country,
it was the purpose,
and it was speaking to us.
It was God's word.
A raid was launched in the early
hours of today on the Dieppe area
of enemy-occupied France.
God's word had its limits.
Sometimes the need to be reassuring
trumped accuracy.
The operation is still in progress.
But reports say that all
objectives were achieved.
It gave us an uncensored,
or so we thought,
uncensored picture
of how the w*r was going.
And one believed what the BBC
was saying
about the w*r was correct.
Oh, I think so.
Whether they were or not,
I don't know.
But we believed them implicitly.
Nobody suggested that the BBC
was distorting the truth in any way.
Of course, they were a bit.
It's only many years afterwards that
one found that there was censorship
and stuff was kept under wraps
and that we weren't told everything
that was going on.
It eventually became clear
that the Dieppe raid
had been a costly failure,
and the bullish on the spot report
of Frank Gillard misleading.
Wave after wave of our fighters
and bombers came out,
received their orders from the
headquarter ship
and then went in
to support the men on the land.
We could see them strafing
the coastal defences,
destroying communications and making
low level attacks on the enemy.
Bodies were being washed
back towards us.
We hauled wounded men out of the
water and rescued them,
pull them up onto our craft.
You know, my uniform was stained
with the blood of other people.
Caked with it.
We never truly got ashore in Dieppe.
We took over 5,000 men that morning,
and late that afternoon,
we returned with only 1,250.
We left the remainder behind us -
k*lled, wounded or prisoners of w*r.
And 1,000 of them were k*lled,
and the sea ran red with blood.
As a combined operation,
this raid was an all time model.
The Canadian commander who planned
the operation said at the end
of the day, "I'm afraid this
will go down in history
"as one of the greatest military
disasters of all time."
And he was absolutely right.
The report that one was allowed
to go on the air with,
you know, concerned almost entirely
the air action that was going on
above our heads the whole time.
And that was the only thing
I could talk about, really.
Everything else was heavily,
heavily censored.
And that is why I feel ashamed now
when I think back to the event
that I was not able to tell the true
story of Dieppe to people.
And I read in BBC Literature about
my memorable report from Dieppe.
To me, it's memorable
in all the wrong ways.
It's memorable with shame
and disgrace
that I was there as the BBC's
one and only eyewitness,
and I couldn't tell that story
as I ought to have told it.
A cast iron ball
of three pounds weight
fired from open sights.
This is round shot.
This is what it does.
20 years later in peacetime,
grim b*ttlefield reality
was the watchword for
an experimental drama documentary.
Alastair MacInnes. Age - 20.
Right leg severed below knee joint.
In recreating the 18th century
Battle of Culloden,
the young director Peter Watkins
set out to show the truth.
And it hurt.
Malcolm Angus Chisholm. Age - 24.
Disembowelled.
SCREAMING AND SHOUTING
Ian MacDonald. Age - 13.
Shock.
He achieved a different level
of reality by using amateurs
rather than recognised actors.
He wanted to have people
being tired and so on.
He'd made these all these chaps
walk 23 miles,
lawyers and schoolmasters
and God knows what from Inverness.
And of course they were clapped out.
And it isn't surprising
they look tired.
He wanted the uniforms to look
as if they were used,
and so they were all hired
from great wardrobes that he,
with his own hands,
split these things,
put knives through them.
There was something absolutely
enchanting about this.
I mean, he really did it right.
He was he was a boy and a half.
Watkins then moved on
to The w*r Game.
AIR RAID SIREN WAILS
SHOUTING
With similar techniques, he showed
what might happen in Britain
after a nuclear attack.
This family couldn't afford
to build themselves a refuge.
This could be the way the
last two minutes of peace
in Britain would look.
The BBC decided initially
to run with it.
It was because he had shown
such talent that he was given
a great deal of rope
in making this programme,
even though one knew that it was
going to be very questionable,
whether in the end
one could show it.
THEY GRUNT
THEY SHRIEK
At this distance, the heatwave
is sufficient
to cause melting
of the upturned eyeball,
third-degree burning of the skin
and ignition of furniture.
THEY SCREAM
The government, Harold Wilson
was in power,
and he had a majority of two.
And, er...so, er...
it was a political hot potato
for the BBC
to make a programme suggesting
that CND,
er...some kind of pacifist position,
was the right position to be in.
SHOUTING AND SCREAMING
I've desperately tried,
with the w*r game,
not to hammer the point
in any way at all
about the ethics of possessing,
or not possessing the b*mb.
I was trying to combat
lack of public knowledge.
I was very impressed.
Brilliantly made!
But what stuck in my gullet,
in the aftermath part of the story,
there was a sequence in which
he'd got hundreds of people
lying down along pavements
in Rochester.
Brilliantly filmed!
The ones who were dying
constituted a terrible nuisance,
putting it in the most,
er...nasty way,
because how...?
You couldn't handle them.
And, er...there was chaos
in the aftermath, you see.
And so, what he had were policemen
dragging, er...and being helped
to drag, the dying
from the street into an enclosure,
and then a policeman
was taking a loaded p*stol out,
and then he was sh**ting,
k*lling the dying.
FAINT COUGHING AND WAILING
g*nsh*t
Now, I accepted
that you would have to do something
about that abominable problem,
but I simply did not believe
that anybody would get policemen
to do it.
Because if...if...if society
is...is...
is in a nightmare state of chaos,
what you must have is confidence
in such order and authority remains.
And I was sure
that was going to be done.
They'd have got doctors or nurses,
or even nuns, so to speak.
Anything other than the police.
And this was, as it were,
an anti-police statement.
No-one's allowed in here!
Go on, clear off!
And Watkins went through the roof,
and said that this was censorship
and so on.
There was an enormous row,
and he refused point-blank.
Wheldon referred it up to the
Director General Sir Hugh Greene,
who'd already broken with precedent
by asking for advice from his new
nonexecutive chairman,
Lord Norman Brook.
Recently, secretary to the Cabinet.
He then broke with precedent himself
by inviting some of his old
Whitehall colleagues
to Television Centre
to watch a preview of the film.
Thereby compromising
the BBC's independence.
In the face of growing hunger riots,
it is very possible
that dwindling supplies of food
would finally be kept as a form
of bonus,
for only those who still perform
the precarious maintenance
of law and order.
The Defence Ministry felt that the
government would be revealed
as having taken quite inadequate,
um...precautions
against the possibility
of, er...this kind of attack.
This is a government food-control
centre.
What Wheldon and Watkins didn't know
was that ten years earlier,
the BBC reached a secret agreement
with the Churchill government
not to broadcast programmes
showing the effects of nuclear w*r
without consulting the government.
The civil servant who'd brokered
that agreement was Norman Brook,
as Cabinet Secretary.
So it wasn't a surprise that shortly
before transmission,
the BBC pulled The w*r Game
from the schedules.
The decision was not made
against my wish.
In fact, I think that I was
more shocked by the programme
than Norman Brook was.
And the basis for the decision
was not a political one.
FAINT COUGHING AND SOBBING
It was because I could not face
the responsibility
of putting on the air a programme
which was so shocking
that old people living alone,
for instance,
or people who were
somewhat disordered,
might be so much upset by it
that they could go out of their flat
and throw themselves under a bus.
# Stille Nacht...#
But the ultimate decision
may not have been made
by either Norman Brook or Greene.
Not by the BBC at all.
They never owned up
to the full truth.
This previously-unbroadcast
interview
suggests there was effectively
an unprecedented veto
by the Labour Government,
as was its right
under the BBC's licence
and agreement.
Frank Soskice,
who was the Home Secretary,
ordered me to ban the programme
from being broadcast by the BBC.
And I was only the...the...the...his
master's voice.
I had nothing to do with it.
But, er...Soskice was responsible
for civil defence,
and it was argued
that this would lead to panic.
And so, I had to send a directive
saying, "You must not broadcast it".
The BBC's overriding duty
really ought to have been
to broadcast it
come hell or high water,
as a duty to the public.
I simply thought that it was
a slice of truth
which ought to have been televised.
When you remember all that was said
about the Russians jamming the BBC,
the British government
jammed the BBC on The w*r Game.
We censored our own organisation.
And with that, we end
our programme for the night.
Now we'll bid you goodnight,
and the next Tonight will be
tomorrow night. Goodnight.
Much of the maverick spirit
of the '50s and '60s
emanated from Lime Grove Studios.
Willy Cave, you're my best friend,
you are.
One minute you said it would last!
Four minutes, he goes...
This haphazard outpost
in Shepherd's Bush,
the old Gaumont Film studios
and some terraced houses,
was conveniently far from
headquarters at Broadcasting House.
Lime Grove was, in many ways,
disgusting.
I loved Lime Grove.
It was where I first sort of got
bitten by the television bug.
It was a real slum.
There weren't any limes that
I can remember, and it wasn't
grove-like at all.
They were shabby little Victorian
cottages, most of them.
One lavatory and one bathroom,
and there were some people
sitting in the bathroom,
and that was their office.
All our offices had basins
and mirrors,
because they'd been star dressing
rooms before the w*r, I think.
If there was a building
more perfectly designed
to create an atmosphere
of paranoid rivalry,
not all of which was bad,
it was Lime Grove.
Nobody ever told another person
what they were doing.
Or if they did, they misled them.
Little revolutionary groups, really.
I mean, sitting in what was
the converted kitchen
of a small cottage.
And not converted terribly well.
They'd got a ground-floor corridor
with some wood-panelled rooms,
but the rest was just a network
of tiny rooms.
And the access to the studio
was down the fire escape.
Nobody who worked there ever
knew where everything was.
Everybody was always lost.
"Do you know where Panorama is?"
"I think it's down there.
It's up those stairs.
"Where's the cutting room?"
"I think it's over there." "Ah!"
And I remember some very illustrious
figure from an American channel,
a really important American channel,
enormously beautifully-groomed
and suited and so on.
And taking him up this fire escape
to the studio and he said,
"Is...is this the BBC?!
"Is THIS the BBC?!"
You know the sort of modern thing
where you show all the pipes
and things?
This wasn't showing the pipes,
it was just the pipes were there.
Everywhere were pipes!
But you met everybody in the place.
And I remember very clearly walking
along the corridor in Lime Grove
one evening
and there was Orson Welles
coming towards me!
And Orson was, you know, pretty big,
and his shoulders sort of
touched the wall.
That's how narrow the place was.
And hopping behind him
came Huw Wheldon.
Duncan Sands, who had a gammy leg,
arrived half an hour early,
and I had no idea
what to do with him!
So I took him to my office,
which was...
And he had a gammy leg. It was
up there, downstairs, round about.
And I was reprimanded
for bringing him into my office,
cos it was a back kitchen!
I got stuck in the lift once
with President Kenyatta of Kenya
and Marshal Ayub Khan of Pakistan,
stuck in the lift together.
"Have you met...?"
The producers,
Sherrin, Baverstock, Peacock,
Wheldon,
were totally in command.
And in a way,
the management of the BBC
had no way of getting at them.
Which was why they hated Lime Grove,
because it was seen as an empire.
And it was doing
the most powerful broadcasting.
It was just the place
for the first television address
by a British prime minister.
That was in August 1956,
after Egypt had nationalised
the Suez Canal
and Sir Anthony Eden
had already become friendly
with a Lime Grove producer.
A young David Attenborough,
who, er...
was then not the sort of national
treasure that he is now,
David was then a producer
in talks department,
and, um...he was assigned
by Leonard Miall
to become the producer
for Eden's broadcasts.
And got to know Eden so well,
he used to play tennis with Eden.
Off we went to Chequers.
HE CHUCKLES
And after tea, um...Anthony said,
"What about...? Would you like
a game of tennis at all?"
I said, "Oh, yes. How kind, sir.
Thank you very much."
"Right," he said,
"well, just go and get changed".
So I went upstairs,
and, um...and my bag,
I thought was in my room.
Um...the bag was empty
and there was no tennis gear.
And I'd got nothing to change
into it.
Where it had gone, I had no idea.
And while I was worrying about this,
I was hearing the bong and ping,
and I looked out, and there was
the Prime Minister playing tennis,
practising his serve
in a very professional way.
And I was standing in my underpants,
desperately wondering
what I was going to do!
So I opened the door and looked out
and said, "Hello? Anyone?"
And his parliamentary
private secretary
stuck his head out and said,
"Is there a problem?"
I said, "Yes! My...
I, um...haven't got any gear!"
And he said, "Oh, well,
they've probably taken it away
"to press it or something,
"because it may have been
newly-ironed or something,
"but I've got gear, so borrow mine".
So I said, "Thank you so much."
Ping! I hurriedly put it on.
And of course, Philip was actually
a tall chap, but also pretty...
He won't mind me saying so, stout.
So I had these floppy clothes on.
Could barely... I had to walk
almost with my legs apart
to keep the trousers
from falling down.
Not surprisingly, I decided
tactfully that it would be better
if the Prime Minister
won most of those games,
which wasn't difficult at all!
Eden was a terrible broadcaster.
I mean, he had no idea
how to do the thing.
Now, the BBC didn't treat him
very well. He came to Lime Grove,
he was given the smallest studio
possible, the presentation studio.
And it was the beginning of
politicians as celebs, really.
There was a small crowd
had gathered.
How they knew he was coming,
I don't know, but they did.
And people were offering him
pieces of paper to sign.
I thought this was dreadful.
You know, this is a serious
politi...statesman,
and you're asking
for their signature?!
But Eden was not
in the least abashed.
Um... "Collect them
and I'll sign them afterwards".
So the head commissioner of
Lime Grove, a man called Mr Stacey.
Mr Stacey gathered
all these things up.
And Eden did his broadcast...
The Right Honourable
Sir Anthony Eden KG, MC, MP.
Good evening.
The Suez Canal is a name
familiar to everyone.
I've come to talk to you tonight
about what's happened there
in the last few days,
and what it means to us.
The lights were very, very hot
and it really, really disturbed him.
And he was really cross afterwards
and he said,
"I'll never go there again!"
Because, you know, they were awful!
And we then, after, went down
to the hospitality room
and had a few drinks,
and I told him how wonderful it was
and so on,
and then he left.
But just before he was leaving,
he said,
"What happened to those papers?
"Those papers, the signature?
I'll sign them now."
So I fished them out
and I gave them to him
and he signed, "Anthony Eden".
And I came to one that was
really just a crumpled hotel bill,
as far as I could see,
with a bit of jam on it.
And I thought,
"I am not going to give
"the Prime Minister of this country
a piece of paper like that".
So I dropped it
behind the sideboard.
And Eden pushed off,
and there was the crowd
and he went out and waved
and drove away.
And we went back to
the hospitality room,
as is the way at these things,
in order to see whether there were
any dregs left in any of the drinks
so we could actually relax
after our part in the proceedings,
when there was a knock on the door
and Mr Stacey came in and he said,
"Excuse me, sir,
but we've got a bit of a problem.
"A gentleman outside said
he sent in a piece of paper
"which is a hotel bill,
and it hasn't come out.
"And he needs it because he doesn't
know the name of his hotel
"and he doesn't know where
he's staying, you see."
So I said, "I know where it is".
And I went down and I cobbled
on the floor
and found this filthy piece of paper
and gave it to Mr Stacey.
And Stacey said,
"It's not signed, sir".
And I said, "No".
He said, "Oh, righto"
So he got out a pencil,
he wrote, "Sir Anthony Eden".
He said, "That'll be all right",
and off he went!
Prime ministers could see television
was now the dominant medium.
But at Broadcasting House,
radio remained on its throne.
Even there, under the noses
of management,
a Lime Grove style
individualism took hold.
Producers seized
their opportunities.
FEMALE: And, er...
I got on with this chap,
and of course, er..
I come to have this baby.
Which, you know, I didn't want.
And I was working at the time,
and he was a married man.
I was working on a programme
that nobody ever noticed,
and that was an advantage
in that we could get away with
more or less anything.
And I think on the whole, we did.
Can you just describe it to me?
Well, she inserts the syringe
inside of you, and she...
There...there's like an end on the
syringe where you squeeze, you know,
and she squeezes this.
And of course, the other end
of the syringe
has to be actually in your womb,
apparently.
Woman's Hour was, in fact,
one of the most pioneering
programmes of the age
because it tackled
all sorts of subjects
that couldn't be done
on the evening programmes,
which were being much more
carefully monitored.
I was banging my head against
the wall at the finish with pain.
It was terrible.
I mean, we were just little women.
"Let them get on with it."
It was a male-dominated
organisation,
in spite of the fact that there were
some very successful women
and some very talented women.
But they were regarded
in a slightly different light,
and I was well aware of that.
From the start, John Reith appointed
key women to head departments.
He was absolutely blind
as far as gender was concerned,
in promotion of women to jobs.
If you look back at the history
of sound radio,
you'll find extremely influential
women
at the very top of BBC radio.
Hilda Matheson was the BBC's
first director of talks in 1927,
and went on to found
the Week in Westminster programme
on the Home Service.
Mary Somerville was in charge
of schools broadcasting,
and was later promoted to
a controller.
Mary Adams joined
as adult education officer,
and became the first woman producer
in television.
One thing I think that television
has already done,
particularly in schools programmes,
is to educate the child in feelings.
After all, this is a different
emphasis,
and I believe that television
can do that extremely well.
As head of talks, she brought
David Attenborough into the BBC.
She knew everybody, you know.
And she...she hardly ever spoke
about people with their surnames,
so that you had to guess.
I mean, Mary would ring you up
and say, "David, I want a word".
And I would go up and she would say,
"Julian suggests that we should do
such and such".
And you had to know that that was
Julian Huxley,
the most distinguished biologist
at the time.
The BBC had always been an
equal-opportunities organisation,
and this meant equal pay.
And there were some very enlightened
people, both men and women,
in the BBC's early and growing days.
But after the w*r, it became harder
for young women
to join production
or technical departments.
Men had come back from the w*r
and had to be found jobs,
and they were preferred
to the women, on the whole.
The idea was that you should be
unobtrusive.
You didn't, um...you didn't
flounce about.
Some people were interviewed
for general traineeship.
My friend Claire Tomalin received
a standard letter
that women were not eligible
for that particular role,
so her application
couldn't go forward.
She subsequently became one of the
greatest biographers of our day.
And what is interesting is, she
accepted that. We all accepted that.
We went, "Oh, yes, of course,
it's not for women,
"because women don't do management".
When I joined the BBC in 1960
as a general trainee,
there were 12 of us.
That is the first time that
a BBC general trainee was a woman.
She was a scientist.
First time they had a scientist.
That was also the first time
that a trainee
didn't come from Oxbridge.
So that's the 1960s.
Yes, all right, then. Thank you.
On screen, professional women
were given pride of place
in a new twice-weekly soap opera,
Compact.
That's right. Thank you.
Unlike Coronation Street,
which began on ITV a year earlier,
this was a predominantly
middle-class serial
set in a fashion magazine
which was edited by a woman.
No, no, no, no, no!
The weekly cliff-hanger is terribly
important for circulation figures.
I'd say to the leading lady,
I'd like you to walk from your desk
to the filing cabinet.
And that would give me
some sort of camera movement.
And camera movement was something
that I was very keen on,
because I watched films.
It was so funny.
"Oh", she said, I would never go
to the filing cabinet myself.
"I'd get my assistant to do it."
But Mark, remember,
it is only a stopgap.
You'd better go on looking
for that cereal, hadn't you? Hmm?
I don't know whether they wanted
it to be something
that was ground-breaking.
To be honest, it fell into the trap
of romantic love stories.
And the girls were always young
and attractive,
and the men were sort
of square-jawed and interesting,
but the cliches were there.
So anything that was breakthrough
about having a female editor
was not really considered
in any serious way.
He's sending his accountant
around tomorrow to explain things.
What the hell does that mean?
Didn't he drop any hints? No.
But I get the impression it can only
mean one thing - trouble!
The paramount female editor
behind the scenes in television
was that young columnist who'd first
seen its potential before the w*r.
She was denied the top job
in talks and current affairs
until just before she retired.
But nonetheless,
she ruled the roost.
# Here's looking at you...#
Grace Wymondham Goldie
was a brilliant,
fearsome, terrifying force.
She was always impeccably dressed.
Usually wearing a suit.
Quite often had a hat on.
Bird-like, but rather more like
an eagle than a robin.
Very bossy. Well, she looked as if
she perhaps had been
opening a local bazaar or something.
She was a woman of iron whim.
She treated people appallingly,
particularly the women.
I mean, her secretary was the most
downtrodden person on Earth!
When you talk about suffering fools,
she didn't suffer fools at all.
She did listen to Hugh Greene,
but that was the only man
she bothered about.
I was very scared of her.
She didn't like me either.
She wanted political interviewing
to be serious.
She was passionate about it.
She said,
"I have a thought in my bath
"and in two weeks,
it's a national institution".
But that was actually true!
Cue!
Now, here outside
the Southampton Guild Hall,
we are waiting for the results
of two constituencies...
One of Goldie's innovations
was to turn general election results
into a TV event.
The results are ready.
We've interrupted because we've just
heard Billericay has won the race.
We'll go straight there now
for the first result.
And here's the result!
Here is the result.
Edward Lucas Gardner, 29,000...
With Richard Dimbleby in the chair
all through the night,
more results were declared
in the small hours,
rather than being held over
to the next day.
All thanks to Goldie.
Well, it's the biggest ever yet,
as far as election results
are concerned.
On this occasion, we're using
57 television cameras.
As we feel that this is
a service to the public,
we shouldn't stop
just when we fancy it,
but we should go on giving them
results
while they're still coming out.
There was a very striking Liberal,
though, 16.2%. The result...
To interrupt you, the result's
ready in Exeter. Let's go.
CHEERING AND WHISTLING
One live programme dreamt up by
Goldie was historic.
The concept, even today,
would be ambitious and daring.
But in 1954, with often fragile
communications,
it was an opportunity ripe
for an accident.
On the occasion of the 80th birthday
of the Right Honourable
Sir Winston Churchill,
Knight of the Most Noble
Order of the Garter,
Prime Minister
and First Lord of the Treasury,
Member of the Order of...
She did get Churchill on the air
for his 80th birthday programme.
Churchill had never
been on television before.
Grace decided
they must do something.
FANFARE
She came up with
this very bright idea
that she would collect about 14
of Churchill's intimates
into a studio in Lime Grove,
in Shepherd's Bush.
And she would ask them
to address Churchill
by way of a camera.
There was a camera in front of them,
like there is in front of me now,
and they would be asked
to talk to this camera.
First General Lord Ismay.
Good evening, Prime Minister.
I'm so proud to be the first
to speak tonight.
Now, Churchill was asked
to be in Downing Street.
..As having been the head
of your military staff
throughout the w*r years.
And the theory was that
he would look at this programme,
and he would be in a chair
in Downing Street
with a television set
in front of him, looking at it.
And now, over to the other side
of the world, Australia.
Here is one who was prime minister
of his country
when the w*r broke out, Bob Menzies.
Now prime minister of Australia
again.
Although the great majority
of Australians have never seen you,
you are something very close
and intimate in our lives.
I wonder if you know, sir,
how much you're loved
and venerated throughout Europe?
Here is a great European,
Monsieur Spaak of Belgium.
Dear Sir Winston,
the image brought to you
this evening
is the expression of thankfulness
of a world
that would have died but for you.
Some of the tributes
had been collected on film,
and some were live.
God bless you, sir.
Grace Wyndham Goldie had sent
one of her producers, Huw Wheldon,
on ahead to brief Churchill
about his live contribution.
I'd never seen Churchill. Never.
And so, I went down to
Downing Street for this event,
and everything was OK there.
The camera was there, ready to...
For him to talk to if he wanted
to when they'd finished.
The television set was there.
We had to put one in, by the way.
There wasn't a television
in Downing Street.
It was a happy chancer
that the Prime Minister of Ceylon
has just been on a visit to this
country, Sir John Kotelawala.
There are times we have disagreed
with you,
and even disliked your views
and your policies,
but we esteem you highly.
This programme was going to start
at eight.
Well, about 20 to eight,
the old chap, quite suddenly,
with Clemmie, his wife, came in.
And I was shocked. I had no idea
that he would look so old.
I mean, he looked...he
looked...primeval!
And his skin was like parchment
and leathery.
And he was very, very slow.
All the children,
people said, "Hello, Daddy",
and all this kind of thing.
He paid no attention to any of them,
but shuffled across to one of
the two chairs and sat down,
you can hardly say in the wrong one,
but there's no question of
getting him up once he was down!
Planked himself down there, and
Clemmie planked herself next to him.
And, er...the set, the television
set was on, and the news was on.
And he looked at this thing.
And he said, in an extremely frail,
broken voice, he said,
"Is this the programme?"
And, um...Clemmie said,
"No, Winston, this is the news!"
I then said, and I saw
what Clemmie had done,
that I had to address him
in a kind of reverential bellow.
So I said, "No, sir,
this is the preceding programme!
"And at 8:00, they will be talking
to you from Shepherd's Bush!
"Lord Ismay and a group of friends
will be talking to you here, sir!"
And he said, "Ismay is in Paris".
And I said, "No, sir!
"We have brought him
over to Shepherd's Bush!"
CHOIR SING
Prime Minister, there are still
an awful lot of people
who want to greet you.
And there's just time
for a few friends
to drink your health.
In all sincerity and affection,
Sir Winston,
I wish you very many happy returns
of the day.
And, sir, there is PC Coleman,
who has looked after us
for a long time,
and is still looking after us.
Your very good health, sir.
CHOIR SING
"When it's all finished, sir,"
I said,
"if you want to say anything back
to them, you'll be able to do so.
"All you have to do, I'll give you
a signal when they're finished,
"and it's just a question of
turning to the camera, sir.
"And, er...and you can then
talk to them.
"If you talk to the camera,
they'll be able to see you."
And he paid no attention. None.
So I had no idea. So I nipped off.
The programme, by then,
was on the verge of starting.
I rang Grace up. She was in
the control gallery, of course.
It was live.
Everything was live in those days.
And it had to be life, anyway.
She was in the control gallery in
Lime Grove, and I rang her and said,
"I've no idea whether
he's going to talk or not".
And she was... "No idea," she said,
"he must talk!"
And I said, "Well, I..."
"He may, but I can't tell."
But she was very, very cross.
I said, "Cross or no,
you'd better have the trumpet..."
We'd got trumpets all laid on and
flags to finish the thing up with.
And I said, "You'd better have them
laid on for a quick cue".
During the programme, Grace
Wyndham Goldie in the control room
at Lime Grove could see the old man,
as she put it,
"staring blankly at his TV set
"without any visible response".
She began to lose heart,
until the tribute from the daughter
of the First World w*r
Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.
Very dear, Winston,
only a minute or two in which to try
and tell you all I feel today.
It was a lovely programme, and
Violet Bonham Carter was marvellous.
We have agreed and disagreed,
argued and laughed and fought
and hoped
but never feared.
Because with you, no-one
could be afraid of anything.
Courage - that is your greatest gift
to those who know you.
At that moment, Goldie saw
Churchill react at last.
"The ancient head", she said,
"moved slowly from side to side,
"and tears rolled down
the leathery cheeks.
"Only we in the gallery saw
this incredibly moving spectacle,
"and could breathe
a sigh of relief."
Good health, sir.
Prime Minister, happy days.
ALL: Happy days.
I knew the moment had come for me
to try and give him a signal.
And it was exactly as if I had
come round a little bend
in a little country road and run
into a lorry with headlights on,
because he was glaring at me.
And so, I nervously made
this signal,
and it was just as if
he was switched on.
Life was in the old thing.
And out came this enormous voice,
no longer broken or fragile.
"I have been surprised and
astounded," and all this stuff.
I have been entranced...
..by the...
thrilling panorama...
..you have presented to me...
..of so many of
my most cherished friends...
..who have been given an opportunity
of expressing their feelings
of kindness to me,
and the memories that they have.
I'm fortunate, indeed...
..to have met these men and women...
..and to have worked with them
in the years of struggle
through which we have passed.
These huge Gibbonesque paragraphs
came out of him,
and they were first-rate,
beautifully composed,
properly finished,
manly and meaningful.
I'm grateful that modern science
has enabled me, upon my birthday,
to receive in this amazing manner
their friendly greetings
and good wishes.
Goodnight.
Goodnight.
And I thought,
"This is... I mean, wonderful!"
And I waited until the credits
were beginning to run,
and then I rushed up to him, of
course, to say that was magnificent,
but he'd switched off.
His family came up,
"Daddy, that was..."
But he paid no attention to them.
None. None at all.
He said to his broken-off voice
to Clemmie, he said, er...
"I hadn't had time to prepare".
And she said,
"You were very good, Winston".
And he shuffled off
like an old tortoise,
shuffled off to the door.
And then, just before opening it,
he looked round,
switched on once more,
didn't look at me,
but looked at his family and said,
"I'm going to have a bath!"
Grace managed to get him to talk,
and that was his only ever
television appearance, really.
That's quite something.
Oh, it was quite a coup. Live!
Welcome to our World! Where we serve you cookies to ensure you get the best viewing experience on our site.
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
01x01 - Accident and Opportunity
Watch/Buy Amazon
Participants in the BBC's early history describe the challenges and triumphs of its first fifty years, as it evolved into the corporation of today.
Participants in the BBC's early history describe the challenges and triumphs of its first fifty years, as it evolved into the corporation of today.