THE remarkable story of a car with an imaginary ailment will be told in Monday’s Searchlight.

Many weeks of work have been spent gathering “on-the-spot” material about “The Repairs Muddle,” the title of the second programme in this dramatic fact-finding series.

Investigators have been touring the country to get an overall picture of the kind of thing that goes on, in what, they believe, is one of the biggest money-making businesses there is — the gold-mine of “crocks.”

They have been calling on firms specialising in the servicing of television receivers. They have been quizzing electrical dealers who carry out their own repairs. And they have been visiting garages to find out exactly what goes on behind the scenes

This is where the car came in. There was nothing really wrong with it. Just a rather unpleasant noise which a minor adjustment would quickly put right. It was taken round to a number of car repairers. Each was asked to say how much it would cost to put the trouble right.

The estimates they gave — which will be quoted in Monday’s programme — provide a revealing picture of a problem many motorists are up against when they take their car in for repair. There are no actors in Searchlight. The general public appear in this programme and have genuine complaints about such things as overcharging, bad servicing and wrong diagnosis.

But it won’t be just a catalogue of grouses. The investigators have gone into this subject thoroughly and will put forward suggestions which, with the cooperation of the public, could make the repairs racket a thing of the past.

Searchlight began a fortnight ago with a forthright inquiry called “Gambling with the Law.” Among the people it introduced, were former Home Secretary Chuter Ede, and ex-Scotland Yard chief, Sir Harold Scott.

Tackling difficult subjects requires people who are expert in the art of informing the public. Because of this, the responsibility for the preparation of the fortnightly Searchlight programmes has been given to one of the strongest teams ever assembled in the field of TV journalism.

The head of research is Sydney Elliott, whose long newspaper career has included three editorships. Producer is Tim Hewat, a former deputy editor of a national newspaper. Mike Woolier is programme director.

Writer of the series, and director of the film sequences, is John Haggarty, one of the best-known names in documentary films.

Introducing and narrating the programmes is Kenneth Allsop, journalist and author, who was the first editor of ABC’s The Book Man.

The interviewer is Elaine Grand, whose sympathetic and understanding handling of programmes of this kind, has been seen in earlier ITV inquiries.

In Searchlight, which seeks to throw fresh light on Britain in 1959, they have two main aims. One is to highlight outstanding British achievements. And the other is to expose things about which Britain ought to be ashamed.

This last task is the most difficult — but may well turn out to be the most rewarding. Already they have lined up some sensational and controversial subjects.

Mechanics make minor repairs to a couple of old cars. This is the kind of work Searchlight set out to investigate

“Our purpose,” they say, “is to find out what is wrong with society. We are looking for things that are unfair, unjust, unhealthy. We are out to attack intolerance and narrow-mindedness.

“There are grave social problems that are outside party politics which we think we have a duty to bring before the public. In doing so we shall have some pretty strong things to say.

“We are not out to distress people deliberately, but some of the things we shall be showing will shock them into realising the existence of human problems. which should be troubling the conscience of the nation.

“To get people arguing about these things—to introduce more sense into the running of our affairs — they are the most important things Searchlight hopes to achieve.”

The post ‘Crocks’ of gold appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

YOU are a TV producer. You have to pick a team for a discussion programme. What kind of men do you look for? There is only one answer: one-armed men!

It is no good picking someone who, when asked his opinion, says, “Well, on the one hand, you can take this view. On the other hand, you can take that. There is much to be said for both sides.”

Of course there is — about nearly every disputed idea on earth, from votes for women to the eight-ball over. But two-armed men are a bore in a TV argument.

For a lively discussion programme you need one-armed men; men who refuse to squat on the fence and who come down with a bang on one side or the other.

That is what you get in Who Goes Next?

You have seen the programme on Monday evenings, I dare say: three men marooned in separate hutches, like rabbits; each required to supply 30-second answers to questions about current events. There is no time for waffling.

The questions are framed by the producer. His name is Milton Shulman. He Canadian, a theatre critic who looks rather like a well-dressed sleepwalker.

But this is misleading. For he is a connoisseur of wrangling. He takes a genuine pleasure in pandemonium. So he concocts questions to make his team disagree.

His regular performers are Richard Crossman, Labour MP, Peter Thornycroft, Tory MP, and Malcolm Muggeridge: three kinds of one-armed men.

Crossman is 52, son of a High Court judge, a public school and University Socialist (he went to Winchester, like Stafford Cripps and Hugh Gaitskell) and a natural partisan. I doubt if he knows the meaning of the word “neutral.” If Crossman saw two flies having a race across a windowpane, he would instantly back one of them to win.

Crossman is a believer. Muggeridge is a disbeliever. He disbelieves in all sorts of things. Show him two flies racing across a window-pane and how would he react? I would expect him to say that they are overrated animals, that the idea of a race between them is absurd and that the whole thing is a put-up job.

Yet Muggeridge is an ex-partisan. His father was a Labour MP, and he himself was once a Socialist. At the age of 30 (he is now 56) he went to Russia. His close-up view of Communism made him write a book called “Winter in Moscow” — a funny, brilliant, bitter study in disillusion. Since then he has travelled across the political spectrum to the point of becoming deputy editor of a Tory newspaper. Now, he is in no man’s land.

If Peter Thorneycroft, the third man in the team, saw those two flies having a race, he would look up the stud book, decide which of them should win on form and back it, simply as an intellectual exercise.

He is a complicated Tory. At a guess, I would say that his heart is on the Left and his mind on the Right. This mixture makes him puzzling to orthodox politicians. He is very able, with a streak of what the Irish call devilment.

He became an MP at 29, a Cabinet Minister at 42, Chancellor of the Exchequer at 48. In 1958, after 12 months as Chancellor, he walked out following a dispute about Government expenditure. Now 50, he has a crowded past and a speculative future.

There is one really big difference between him and his team mates: he has helped to govern this country. He has sat in cabinets, bargained with foreign Powers, learned at first hand how men are ruled.

Widely as they vary in temperament, outlook and cast of personality, the three have something in common. All of them shrink from the stock phrase, the catchword, the formula that means nothing but sounds impressive. They all have muscular minds.

Moreover, all of them. I am sure, agree that there is one phrase in the English language which is more majestic than any other. If the Recording Angel wants to capture their attention on the day the world ends, he need not bother about his trumpet. He need only say: “For the sake of argument.”

At those words, Crossman, Muggeridge and Thomeycroft will instantly start up, forsake everything else, and join in.

The post Wanted: One-armed men! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A PHONE rings in the Northern Newscast office at the Granada TV Centre in Manchester. News editor David Plowright answers it, then turns to reporter Terry Dobson and says: “Four feet snow drifts on the Snake Pass. Take the radiophone car — and hurry!”

Dobson grabs his overcoat; rushes to the waiting car. The engine of the black saloon is ticking over as he slides into the seat beside the driver. Off towards the hills — and another eyewitness story.

Granada’s car was the first in the North to be fitted with the new telephone equipment. It has given on-the-spot communication in remote country districts where telephones are rare.

As the car races along slush-covered roads, Dobson makes his first call to base. “Car A102 calling exchange … car A102 calling exchange.”

Twenty miles away on Winter Hill, only a stone’s throw from the ITA transmitter, stands the GPO receiving station through which Dobson’s call passes to the new Peterloo exchange in Manchester.

Dobson, in the car, and Plowright, in the office, discuss how the story shall be treated. Then Dobson relaxes as the long climb to the snow-clad moors begins.

Another hazard lies ahead — patches of fog close in on the narrow road that twists over the Snake Pass. The car edges cautiously round hairpin bends, bumping along over rutted snow, dodging drifts which in places have hidden the low stone walls marking the roadside.

Suddenly the headlights of a stationary lorry are seen. The car stops and Dobson steps out — into a knee-deep snowdrift. The lorry driver tells him of hold-ups on his run from Sheffield. Back into the car goes Dobson to report progress — by phone.

Farther along the road are more lorries. Some are moving; some have been stuck for hours. Film cameraman Steve Stephens records the battle against the weather as lorry men help each other to dig their vehicles free from snow.

As we watch, Dobson tells me: “This is the sort of story we get right through the winter. The weather is always news.”

Dobson phones his story from the car. This way it can be quickly assessed against other news pouring in.

The typewriters of copy typists Barbara McDonald and Freda Roberts are chattering out more reports from the towns and villages bounded by Carlisle and Middlesbrough to the North and Barmouth and Grantham to the South.

Every correspondent is pinpointed on Plowright’s wall map by flags names and telephone numbers for and easy reference.

On another wall is a chart into 20-year old newsroom secretary Anne Beaty sticks coloured pins denoting the number of times cities and towns have been mentioned in the bulletins week.

“This gives us a picture at a glance of the newsiest spots in our area and the places which might yield good, off-beat stories,” said Plowright.

“We are a team which goes into people’s homes every night to tell them in a simple, but vigorous, manner what has been happening.

“The news we aim at is not all death and disaster. We try to keep a balance by using the lighter, more human items, the stories with a touch of glamour or oddity them.

“We concentrate on getting material which has not appeared in the evening newspapers so that we have a fresh and lively bulletin.

“That is why, each night, we present a tailpiece to the news that is unusual or amusing. These are items which lend themselves to a brief, humorous comment from the newscaster.

“We work to a five o’clock deadline for film and are proud that we have given pictures of an event which has taken only 45 minutes earlier.

“News stories, of course, can be accepted right up to time we go on the air.”

Keeping Northern viewers in the news picture is a tough but exciting job that has taken Dobson and his colleague, Don Kerr, thousands of miles, often in trying conditions.

Dobson and Kerr write the stories the and the film commentaries needed for the six-minute bulletin. “We always write more than are actually needed so that we can pick out the best just before we go on the air,” Dobson told me.

He has checked through the reel of film shot by Stephens on the Snake Pass and decided, in consultation with film editor Dick Thomas, the sequence and running time.

In the newsroom, urgency increases as programme time nears. Newscaster Brian Trueman arrives just as Plowright is shuffling through a wad of stories for a suitable news tailpiece.

The room is now full of people. Final checks and changes are made. Trueman sits in the tiny studio. A red light flashes … and another Northern Newscast begins.

The post Car A102 speeds the news appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

When 15-year-old John Bratley went for his first trip on a Grimsby trawler a Granada team went with him. Deckie Learner on Wednesday tells the story of John’s tough, 22-day journey to the Arctic Circle and back with an £8,000 haul of fish. John’s 33-year-old mother MAVIS BRATLEY tells here the story of the Grimsby wives and mothers who wait and worry

I REMEMBER it so well … it was a Tuesday. Television cameramen were busy in the docks filming my 15-year-old John off on his first trawler trip to the Arctic.

But I had lived it all before. My mind went back to when I was a 17-year-old bride watching my husband sail away. This time it was my son.

As I stood on the docks. I remembered the wave of loneliness that swamped over me every time I watched my husband’s trawler diminish into a speck on that unrelenting North Sea. Was all this to happen again?

Surely I should be used to it by now. I was born into a Grimsby fishing family. When I was 14 I was a fish worker. Three years later I married my trawlerman.

I was 17 and from the moment I was married I knew what it was to be lonely.

I saw my husband for three short days every three weeks. Like thousands of other Grimsby wives I lay awake at night listening to the wind howling round the docks, worrying and waiting for the boats to come in.

Then would come the great day. My husband would be home. For three days we painted the town red. Then came that waiting again.

This went on year after year. We had four children, but they saw their father for only six weeks a year. It was a life I had to accept, for the sea was in my husband’s blood. Twice he tried to give it up, but each time he went back.

Last year, ill-health forced him to take a shore job, and for the first time we were together as a family all the time in Carnforth Crescent, Grimsby. At long last my husband was with me and the children.

My dream didn’t last long. For recently, my only son John, said: “I want to go to sea.”

My sleepless nights and days of waiting were about to start again.

One hope I had was that John would go through three weeks of seasickness wishing he had never set eyes on a trawler. Then he would go back to the safe barrow boy’s job he held in the docks.

He had never been on a boat in his life, but had grown to love the sea through hearing his father talk about it. He knew how I felt about it—he also knew I wouldn’t stop him going. He was found a job as deckie learner on board the 800-ton Ross Renown.

But I had five weeks’ grace. John had to go to Grimsby’s nautical school. It was here that he was chosen for a documentary film about life on a trawler.

I was still hoping. I didn’t believe John was really going until he came home with his brand new fisherman’s kit. I didn’t dare tell him how worried I was.

Then came the day. The cameramen lined up to film the farewell. I couldn’t remember half the things I wanted to tell him. He was upset and hurried out without looking back … Another part of my heart had gone out into the North Sea.

The weather at home was terrible. Storms, heavy rains and gale-force winds – I kept waking up at night thinking about him. It was as if the clock had been turned back.

I tried hard to stop myself thinking about the things I knew could happen to the boats out there. I just kept thinking he would be cold and tired and homesick.

I kept saying: “He will be home safe and sound and so fed up that he will never want to go to sea again.”

Then came a letter from John’s firm. I imagined all sorts of things. But it said that John would be home in a couple of days. I waited hopefully to hear that he was a one-trip sailor.

But as soon as he came home I could see he was itching to get back. He had almost grown up overnight. And he hadn’t been seasick!

But I do feel proud of the way he has settled into a tough job.

When he is older I will tell him: “Give up the sea when you marry. Don’t make your wife suffer the life I had to. A woman wasn’t made to watch the sea and wait.”

I’ll tell my daughters, Jean, who is 14, Janet, 10, and seven-year-old Sharon: “Don’t marry a fisherman. It is not worth it for three days’ happiness a month.”

FOOTNOTE. There is a focal point in our home. My husband Arthur and I often glance at the calendar. There is a red ring round the date of John’s next homecoming.

The post The Cruel Wait appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Tuesday’s final programme in the action stills series Camera in Action, deals with fashion photography from Victorian times to the present day. And you’ll be seeing pictures by Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Cecil Beaton and David Bailey, the fashion photographer whose camera “made” top model Jean Shrimpton. What makes Bailey a big success?

MAGGIE FRANCE went to see him to find out

AS fashion photographers go, David Bailey has gone a lot further than most. He is just about the most successful and most sought-after of the breed in Britain.

He is essentially a with-it young man — in a world where fantasy and practicality meet head-on: where models become the raw material of the photographer’s craft. His style — tender and exotic — is unmistakable.

For David Bailey the girls he photographs become delicate, ephemeral creatures, unlike the frequent remote and angular women in the pages of the “glossies.”

This, he believes, speaks for itself and for him.

“If I think a girl is beautiful she will be beautiful in my picture. People say that models are not really beautiful, but they are — they are the most beautiful girls in the world. Usually,” he said, “I love them.

“It is impossible not to become emotionally involved with them. There they are, looking marvellous and beautiful … it is inevitable. It is the same with any lovely thing.”

Bailey is the man who made Jean Shrimpton the most famous and most copied model in the world. The frail, fey face that has launched a thousand front covers.

Bailey has an inconsequential charm. He has the face of a disenchanted cherub; brown, restless eyes; shaggy hair. He looks very young. He is 27.

He dislikes fervently being labelled a “fashionable” photographer, and rejects impatiently the idea that photography is the new art form.

“It is creative — but a photographer just creates something from the materials available. Like a skilled cabinet maker. You can’t call that art.”

Behind his camera Bailey is absorbed, concentrated. If he is arrogant it is because he knows he is good at the job.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I hate what I am doing to the girls. It turns them from human beings into objects. They begin to get fanatical about the way they look. They can’t stop watching themselves in mirrors.”

Fashion and photography. Ever since the camera was invented there hasn’t been one without the other. Above, as it must have been in early Edwardian days. Below, you see David Bailey at work creating another of the masterpieces that have made him the most sought-after fashion photographer in Britain today

Before I met Bailey a photographer colleague told me: “You’ll get on fine … you are a girl.”

Certainly it is believable that he can, if he requires it, make a girl fall in love with him across the room. But not every girl. Some react against his confidence and this unobtrusive talent for getting his own way.

“If a girl feels that way about me I just needle her until I have got the degree of aggressiveness I need. I think an aggressive woman can look very good in a picture,” he said.

He is newly married to French actress Catherine Deneuve. “This girl I’ve married is a very funny girl,” he said. “I feel that it is doomed to success. But I never want to work with her if I can help it. I think that would break it up.”

He reverted to the subject of fashion … he has just signed a new contract with Vogue magazine.

“I like what I do, but it is not my whole existence. I take fashion pictures, but I am not particularly interested in fashion.”

He prefers to take portraits, and has a book of portraits to be published soon. It is called “David Bailey’s Book of Pinups” — he is concerned that no one should hold him responsible for the title.

He plans also to direct a film — a science fiction story which he has written himself. “Funny, but sinister,” he explained. The provisional title is “The Assassination of Mick Jagger.” The star is Mick Jagger. “He’s one of my best friends,” said Bailey.

He has no intention of shinning up trees to take fashion pictures at 40.

He is crazy about furniture and wants to open an antique shop. He believes he will do this soon — he makes decisions swiftly and carries them out with jet propelled speed whether they concern making a film or going round the corner for coffee.

His three cars: a mini, a blue and black Rolls-Royce convertible which is his favourite possession; a Morgan which looks like a cherished veteran, but is in fact this year’s model, and which he drives like a bat out of hell.

He remarked that the Morgan was not very fast – only did 110 mph.

The post Cameraman in the fashion appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FOR the first time, a British television news programme is to cover the world from the world.

In The World Tonight starting on Tuesday, an international television link-up will put on your screens a running news documentary that has never been attempted before.

It will show the world to Britain as the world sees itself — not simply as a snap report from camera crews who dash in and out from one news area to another.

In the past, as the programme’s executive producer Tim Hewat points out: “British TV has covered the world from London. This, apart from other disadvantages, has led to producing stories that are exclusively British orientated. We see things happening in, say, Tokyo, as through British eyes. We will show them happening as seen through the eyes of people in their particular part of the world.”

To achieve this global flavour The World Tonight has set up a complex network of five key bureaux where permanent representatives will compile their reports.

As in London, there will be a The World Tonight team in Rome, and Tokyo. Paris and New York, plus roving producers Dietrich Koch and Russell Spurr. We introduce to you here these highly specialised people and take you into the environments from which they work to bring you The World Tonight.

Over to Tokyo and Australian journalist John Maher. Tucked away on the ground floor of a four-storey building of Fuji Telecasting Company is the cramped but efficient nerve centre of The World Tonight‘s Japanese bureau.

Space in this building, which houses most of the throbbing soul of Japanese TV, is at a premium. But John opted for his tiny, 10ft. square, pastel green office with its duck-egg blue Venetian blinds right here next to the cameramen and technicians, rather than select a more spacious apartment away from all the action.

To New York: Imagine Wardour Street, running like a spine through London’s Soho — spiritual home of British film-makers. Now imagine it blown out, big and broad and wide. That’s 53rd Street where nearly every door leads to a film studio, a cutting room, a producer’s plush office, a script writer’s den.

Here, for the new programme, work producer John McDonald and reporter Bill Biery in a comfortable atmosphere of controlled luxury. Off-white, deep-pile carpets, a Telex machine mumbling quietly to itself in a corner, leather chairs, coloured telephones. Efficiency — American style.

To Rome: Producer on the spot is Hugh Pitt. His beat ranges from the entire Mediterranean coast to the troubled oil kingdoms of the Middle East.

London: Reporter Jo Durden-Smith is 23, one year down from Oxford. He works from West End offices with live con tradictory clocks, a massive wall chart and an ordered confusion of scripts.

Paris: Sparkling, magic, feminine city. Appropriately, a woman-on-the-spot — Producer Joan Harrison, chooses to work from her sedate apartment a stroll from the Champs Elysées. In this fashionable part of the city she sits with French reporter: Denise Fabré sifting material.

All aiming to bring the world to you.

The post Watch on the world appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

CONFEDERATE cannons blaze a trail of death across your TV screen. Frenzied Union cavalry horses totter in the turmoil. The air is rent by the cries of the dying and the smell of burnt cordite.

The scene is Gettysburg, bloodbath of the American Civil War, the savage, heroic conflict in which brother slew brother. An indelible chapter in American history written long before the movie camera was invented.

Yet in Camera in Action, a series of programmes (starting on Tuesday) which covers aspects of life and the world in the second half of the 19th century, the scene is reconstructed as accurately and dramatically as the day it happened.

How is it done? By painstakingly piecing together a jigsaw of still photographs taken at the time. Granada have made them come to life by using the “action stills” technique which they pioneered in Britain five years ago.

The idea is to take still photographs and drawings and range a stop-motion camera over them. The cameraman will start with a shot of the entire picture, then zoom in on a detail, pan across to another corner of the picture, and so on.

The film is shot frame by frame, re-positioning the camera after each exposure. When linked at speed, the pictures from the past become a dramatic moving story straight from the pages of history.

Why is the technique so effective? said director Peter Jones: “Because the photographers of the day did their job so well. In the ‘Prospect of Whitby,’ the second programme, for instance, I think viewers will be staggered by the beauty and quality of Frank Sutcliffe’s photography.

“And in each programme we have had access to the original negatives or a new set of prints.”

The first in the series, “The Uprooted,” is the story of the vast European migration to American in the 19th century.

The “Prospect of Whitby,” is the story of the birth of the Yorkshire holiday resort; “The War of Brothers,” dealing with the American Civil War; and “Fashion Photographers,” a look at fashion photography down the years.

All the events will be seen as they happened, using photographs from museums, private collections, magazine libraries and family albums.

More than 250 photographs used in Tuesday’s programme came from pictures by Jacob Rüs and Lewis Hine. They were shot from different angles more than 90,000 times and then edited to make up the half-hour programme.

Action stills cameraman Ray Goode, who shot each one of those 90,000 frames separately, told me: “At first it was decided to write the script and then fit the photographs to it. But it was too stilted.

“Finally we decided to write the script to fit the photographs. There was a great deal of experimenting to be done.

“We have tried to make the stills come alive with the minimum amount of animation.”

The post Camera in Action brings history to life appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE Northern magazine programme People and Places little show that features the big names – stars of stage and film as well as top personalities from the worlds of music, art and sport.

The list of people who have appeared in the programme, which comes from Granada’s Manchester studios and is one of the company’s longest-running shows, is peppered with celebrities.

Here are some of the names: Lord Harewood, Henry Sherek, Katherine Dunham, Sheila Buxton, Tessie O’Shea, Dickie Henderson, Alfie Bass, Ted Lunee and Bill Fraser.

It is the sort of programme which presents the people who produce it with a never-ending streams of problems.

A phone call – sometimes just 10 minutes before the programme is due on the air – tells the producer that one of the artists has been held up and cannot get to the studio on time.

That is the kind of situation the presents a challenge to researchers like Jim Coburn, who are continually at the producer’s elbow.

The last time it happened he grabbed a taxi and drove three miles from the studios in the City Centre to the lodgings of comedian Freddie Earle. Freddie was making an omelette when Jim rushed in and said: “You’re on TV.”

Freddy [sic] dropped his fork, climbed into the taxi with Jim, and rushed to the studio as fast as traffic-choked roads would allow. He faced the cameras on an almost empty stomach and without a touch of make-up. There had been no time even for that.

“This sort of thing has happened a number of times,” said Jim. “We have had people rushing through the studio doors even during the 10-second count down to ‘on the air’ – and you can’t get much later than that!”

It happened again when Michael Holliday missed his train. The result was a frantic telephone call to jazz singer-trumpeter Leslie (Jiver) Hutchinson, who was appearing that week in Manchester.

Leslie was asked to jump into a taxi and head for the studios immediately!

Last-minute illnesses, late trains and planes, mechanical breakdowns. These are hazards which face the team that bring People And Places to the screen.

Under the heading of breakdowns comes the story of the luxurious taxi – the last word in comfort – that was sent to Blackpool to bring Dickie Henderson to Manchester for an appearance on the programme.

In Blackpool, the car developed engine trouble. So Dickie had to make the trip in an old-fashioned “boneshaker”.

The story of People And Places is not without its lighter moments, for the programme has always been liberally sprinkled with humour.

Interviewers Bill Grundy and Chris Howland started a gag with ran for weeks. It was the now-famous joke of long series of incidents carefully contrived to prevent Chris Howland singing on the programme.

It began, almost by accident, when Chris was given a singing spot – right at the end of the show. But because times ran out, the singing spot had to be cut. And on each occasion afterwards, something happened to prevent Chris being heard.

Letters began to roll in demanding that Bill should let Chris sing. But the joke went on.

Lord Harewood, who was in the programme to talk about the opening of Harewood House to the public, helped to keep it running. He told Chris: “You be down at Covent Garden at 10 am tomorrow for an audition.”

Later, Gary Miller, who was also in the conspiracy, asked Chris to sing with him in the show, but he said Chris would have to have a straw hat and cane if he wanted to take up the invitation.

Everybody thought that Howland would at last be heard. He dashed away for the vital hat and cane. But when he got back – breathless, and consequently unable to sing – only two bars of the number remained.

Chris continued to “campaign.” In a demonstration in which he was seen accompanied by about two dozen girl supporters, he carried a large board bearing the demand: HOWLAND MUST SING.

And Howland did. Standing beside a fountain in the studio grounds, he sang The Rain Falls On Everybody. It certainly on Chris, for Bill was seen busy at a tap. Chris got drenched.

There have been moments of unintentional humour, too. One of these came when the Spanish guitarist Pepe Martinez had to be coached to answer two questions in his very limited English.

The questions were: How long have you been in England and how long does it take to become a good flamenco dancer?

The answers, in the correct order, were six weeks and 25 years. Pepe gave them the wrong way round!

The People And Places team recall the time, too, when things got really hot, at the end of a demonstration of action painting. Part of the action was to set fire to the painting. The artist did. And because the show was under-running its time limit, the cameraman had to hold the shot as the flames leapt upwards.

A studio fireman stood by with an extinguisher, powerless to act because if he had done he would have put himself between in the line of the camera.

Said producer David Main: “Though we like to be up to the minute with items of interest to our viewers, we do not aim to be quite so hot on the trail as we were on that occasion.”

The post Getting people and places together appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

In South Vietnam, a primitive backward comer of South East Asia, where Vice-President Johnson had “looked into the eyes” of the people, 20,000 American troops are engaged in an endless struggle – endless that is, unless it should end in something worse. In the past seven years 300,000 Vietnamese and 1,400 Americans have been killed and wounded.

It is a war in which, as one American lieutenant told World in Action, “you don’t know many times who your enemy is until he shoots at you. It’s hard to fight someone when you can’t see them and when a man can lay down his rifle in a rice paddy and pick up a plough after he shoots at you.”

On the night when the Tall Texan and the Man from Arizona were fighting it out at the polls — to the overwhelming victory of LBJ – World in Action presented a programme about Vietnam, a subject that looms large in American minds and one which posed President Johnson with his first major crisis after re-election.

Mike Hodges and Mike Boultbee led the World in Action team into the paddy-fields of Vietnam. Arnold Bulka did the research.

Vietnam is a country of 30 million people, part of what was once called French Indo-China. It is split in two – with the communists holding the North which borders on China. The communist leader is Ho Chi Minh, aged 74, one-time pastry cook in a London Hotel, and now known to his 16 million people as Uncle Ho.

Uncle Ho is a professional communist. He studied the theory well at Moscow’s University of the Toilers of the East, where he graduated with honours. In 1944 he was smuggled back to Vietnam to lead guerrilla partisans fighting the Japanese who had taken over the country from the French. As soon as the Second World War ended, Ho set up his own makeshift regime in the North before the French could come back in and stop him. In the months that followed, the French and Ho found that the country was not big enough to hold both of them. And they went to war.

For eight years Ho and his peasant army, supported by Chinese arms and money, fought a quarter of a million of France’s best troops and killed 94,000 of them. Then on 7th May, 1954, at Dien Bien Phu – a place the French will long remember – they tried to break the ragged communist army. But the day ended with the pride of France’s army captured, scattered, wounded or dead.

The French Empire in South East Asia was now at the mercy of Uncle Ho, the Marxist-Leninist pastry cook. For with the defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French could no longer prevent the communists from taking over, not only Vietnam itself, but also their two other protectorates Laos and Cambodia.

The private little war in Indo-China seemed set to develop into a clash between the Big Powers of East and West. So they met together in Geneva in July, 1954 – rivals with one aim in common: to prevent each other from taking over the area. At this Conference three vitally important decisions were made:

One, that Laos and Cambodia should become independent, neutral states;

Two, that Vietnam should be divided in half, with Ho Chi Minh and his Communists taking over north of the 17th Parallel, and the French-backed anti-Communists holding on to the South;

And three, that an election would be held in all Vietnam, north and south, within two years, to decide on a single government for the whole nation.

Lord Avon, then Sir Anthony Eden, was Britain’s representative at that Conference. He told World in Action, “We were trying to bring to an end a very bloody brutal war which had been waging for some time and which was going at that time badly for our French allies who’d had a big defeat at Dien Bien Phu. In those conditions I’m sure that the agreement was the best that we could have got. The working out of it, inevitably, has had many disappointments but fundamentally the idea was sound – to try an create a protective pad between the Chinese forces in the North and to make of these three states, if we could, countries – little countries with an independent way life.”

The Geneva Agreement did not, in fact, bring peace to Indo-China. And principally this was because of the man chosen as the first leader for the new state of South Vietnan – Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem was an aristocrat, a Roman Catholic bachelor, who was opposed to both the communists and the French. His choice by the Geneva powers was by no means unanimous.

“In Vietnam, as it seemed to me,” said Lord Avon, “a wrong turning was probably taken when Diem was appointed as the Head of the Government of that country. That was many years ago. This isn’t hindsight, because the time I and the French representative to Geneva counselled against the appointment. However, it took place, and he ruled the country for many years.”

Diem became a virtual dictator, running the country with a Government that was practically a family firm. Even his sister-in-law, the beauteous and ruthless Madame Nnu, was given office – and with it access to the economic wealth being poured in by the Americans. Comfortably entrenched, Diem refused to risk an election.

From the north, Ho Chi Minh retaliated. He sent in his guerrillas, the terrorist force known as the Viet Cong, which is now harrying the Americans. This underground force opened a savage campaign of destruction and murder. Not even the children were spared.

Diem, meanwhile tried to soothe his people – handing out lollipops to the children and at the same time asking the Americans for military aid. Between 1956 and 1963, the Americans poured in 16,000 soldiers – “advisers” they called them – and enough equipment to arm the 300,000 strong South Vietnamese forces, but Ho Chi Minh continued to win. At the same time. Diem and his regime were in serious trouble from their own people. Diem became more dictatorial. Then he made his worst mistake. He refused to recognize Buddhism, the country’s biggest sect, as an official religion. Buddhist monks committed suicide in public, dousing their clothing with petrol and then setting themselves alight. Students rioted, and finally in November, 1963, the Army took over. They arrested and executed Diem and his brother.

Even then South Vietnam still failed to find a strong government. First they had General Minh – Big Minh. He was ousted by General Khanh, who gave way in turn to another temporary administration. Still, despite more and more American aid, the war in South Vietnam continued to be lost. And among the 20,000 Americans serving there the casualty list grew daily.

The Americans in Vietnam are fighting an enemy who most of the time is invisible. An estimated 30,000 Viet Cong guerrillas – the V.C.’s as the Americans call them – form the hard core of this hidden army. Some of them live in the jungles. And like the animals of the jungle they have learned how to hide well from their enemies. They even dig themselves into holes in the ground and have to be smoked out at bayonet point. Many other V.C.’s, however, live in villages where the local peasants hide them, feed them, and even finance them through an organized tax system.

The V.C.’s fight a hit-and-run war, as one wounded American Army Lieutenant described:

“The military operations are very difficult in a guerrilla type war, because you do not know where the enemy is. The guerrilla, if he sees a big force, disappears – and when he sees a small force he gets enough together to overcome this force and eliminate it. We went this one day to visit this village and everything was going pretty well, we stayed there for an hour or so talking to the people and nothing extraordinary happened and we returned. Unfortunately, the guerrillas were waiting for us. They probably saw us go in – it was about 2 kilometres or so, of undisturbed road – and they were waiting for us to come back. This was probably one of our mistakes. We had two jeeps and a 2½ ton truck with about a platoon of infantry in it. But this did not deter the Viet Cong at all. They planted a 105 round, I figure, with some extra explosive on the side of the road, and as our jeep came near he detonated it.”

The guerrillas move swiftly from place to place, and their task is made all the easier by the continued refusal of the South Vietnamese Government to stop people travelling freely about the country. An American captain explained, “Take for example the man that lives up north in some city. He gets a mission from the V.C. to go down and blow a bridge. He gets his orders, I don’t know where, but he gets them from some Communist leader. He comes down and blows this bridge, turns right round, goes back and he’s been gone only six or eight hours. Who’s missed him. Remember, people saw him walking on the road down here, or coming in a sampan, but nobody stopped him.

“If we don’t have any population controls,” he went on, “this compounds a problem that the military people have in combating these types of people. You don’t know where they are. They don’t as a fact wear uniforms, though some of their hard core units do – they’ve got a type of uniform. But as far as all of them being identifiable we don’t know who they are. This is a terrific frustration as a military type operation for a soldier.”

The main battleground in South Vietnam is the Delta of the Mekong River. This region, twice the size of Yorkshire, is flat and waterlogged, a maze of canals and rivers. It is here that practically all of the rice which feeds people of South Vietnam is grown. And whoever controls the Mekong Delta controls the country. In this flooded area, the guerrillas are hard to find and hard to get at; they are, in their own words, like fish in an ocean of peasants.

“They come down the Mekong by sampan and junk, usually at night,” said a U.S. Navy lieutenant. “When they reach the district they wish to manoeuvre in they go into the small canal. Some of these canals are so narrow that when we take our boats in we are brushing the trees on the bank. The V.C. wear civilian clothes, and they look just like a fisherman or farmer, but when you stop their junks and search them you find weapons hidden underneath, and pamphlets, propaganda material. V.C. also use the sampan and junks to attack civilians, this is another thing we are trying to stop. The V.C. in the area generally don’t appear in uniform, but they will join a hard core V.C. unit that’s been trained in North Vietnam.”

From a base in the Mekong Delta World in Action cameras travelled on one of these patrols. The U.S. Navy Lieutenant aboard explained the risks:

“We lose more boats to mines than by any other offensive means the V.C. employ. They will plant a fix mine of a 200 or 300 kilo strength in a narrow canal. This mine will be connected with electrical wires, to a lookout point on the beach. The wires are buried under the canal and run over to the beach into a grove of trees or into a hidden area. The V.C. put a lookout on the canal and when the boat they want passes over the mine they cross wires over very crude batteries.

“Two days ago we finished a salvage operation on an army personnel carrier that was sunk by a mine in a small canal down the river from here. The V.C. had fixed the mine knowing that the personnel carrier had to cross the river at this point.”

This patrol took World in Action up a small river in the Delta. The force consisted of: a monitor, armed with a heavy gun for shelling the V.C.’s on shore; two small gun boats; and two armed troop carriers with Vietnamese soldiers aboard. The patrol was under complete Vietnamese command. A Vietnamese Naval Captain and a Vietnamese Army Lieutenant gave all the orders. The U.S. Navy officer aboard could only make suggestions with no guarantee they would be accepted.

This patrol was the first to sail up the river for ten months. It was considered important to show the flag to the villagers, because large numbers of Viet Cong had been reported along the river banks.

“We usually operate within easy rifle range of the V.C.”, said the U.S. Lieutenant. “They have rifles, they have machine guns and a few Recoilless rifles. When you fight the V.C. they usually pick the time to fight. We have to look for them, and when they ambush us they usually are in a pretty firm position. So far from what I’ve seen, I couldn’t ask for a better group of fighting men than the ones on these boats because when they find an ambush they go right in after it.”

On this day the patrol did find an ambush. Viet Cong terrorists, hidden in the jungle thickness, opened fire on the patrol. The patrol boats fired back. As the gun boats and the guerrillas shot it out, the troop carrier swung downstream … and crashed into the banks. The troops jumped ashore to circle round the guerrillas and cut them off. But by the time they got there the guerrillas, as usual, had vanished.

The captain of one of the gunboats signalled that his men had killed a lot of terrorists, but not a single body was found. The Viet Cong carry their dead with them. Day in, day out, this is the war in South Vietnam.

Day in, day out, too, another war is being fought – a war for the minds and hearts of the people of Vietnam – a war of propaganda. At the 17th Parallel, the line that divides North from South, the two sides match propaganda poster for propaganda poster, word for word, flag for flag, loudspeaker for loudspeaker. Every day, Hanoi Hannah, the sweet-talking Communist Radio announcer, speaks to the peasants of South Vietnam, promising for everyone the better life.

Despite smooth words the casualty list grows. In one week alone in October, 1964, nearly 3,000 Vietnamese from North and South, were killed or wounded. As the war drags on, bitterness and hatred eat into the hearts of the Vietnamese. For this is a civil war – and civil wars are always the most brutal. North and South equally kill, maim or torture with the cold-blooded enthusiasm of brother set against brother. And as usual there are the bystanders – the people who just happen to get in the way. The American G.I. would be less than human if in the midst of all this he did not find himself downhearted. And back in the United States, the anger, the frustration and the humiliation of Vietnam is felt by the American people.

“There are soldiers over there,” said one man who was interviewed, “dying in this war without a name. We’re getting nowhere, we’re just sitting there. They’re not doing anything. There’s no sense in it. And you have to pay money to keep them there, so there’s no sense in it.”

Said another, “I think we should invade Vietnam.”

And a third, “We should just not let our men get knocked off one at a time, we should put our foot down and get out, one way or the other.”

Amid emotions like these, Senator Goldwater found willing listeners in his election campaign.

“Where has weakness brought this world since the end of the Second World War?” he demanded of his supporters at one meeting. “Twelve nations have fallen to Communism. In the past three years alone, Laos has been torn apart. Indonesia has been set afire. And South Vietnam has been soaked with American blood.”

The tough talk sometimes explodes into action. In August 1964 two American destroyers patrolling off North Vietnam were attacked by North Vietnam gun boats. As a reprisal, aircraft of the U.S. 7th Fleet bombed and strafed North Vietnamese naval bases, carrying the war over the border for the first time. China and Russia protested – but back home in America there were those who were heartened by the attack being carried into Communist territory.

Some American politicians, however, do not see this as the way to win in Vietnam. Among them is Democratic Senator William Fulbright who is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “I think that this tough talk, which is sometimes called brinkmanship, is irrelevant to modem conditions and it is also very dangerous. In the days of simple gunboats and very limited weapons you could engage in this kind of psychological warfare with impunity. If you did make a mistake it was not particularly disastrous in most cases, but today with nuclear war and with the highly sophisticated world we live in, I think this kind of policy is both dangerous and is irrelevant to the problem, in the sense that it isn’t designed in any way to solve the problems or to get at a solution.”

So long as the war in Vietnam continues to go against the Americans, so long will a threat remain to Britain’s interests in South-East Asia. For if Vietnam falls to the Communists the way will be open to Laos and Cambodia, through them to the pro-western nation of Thailand, and through Thailand to Malaysia, the new federation which provides most of our tin and rubber.

The strength and morale of Communism in the Far East got a new boost on 16th October, 1964, when China exploded her first atomic bomb. Today many Americans talk tougher than ever on Vietnam.

But the American soldiers in Vietnam, the weary and the wounded, know better than any civilian that this is not a war that can be won with guns or bombs alone. As the wounded lieutenant said to World in Action: “This is a guerrilla war – a war for people’s minds, and hearts.”

The post The V.C War appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

At its Convention in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, on 15th July the U.S. Republican Party picked the man to fight Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 American Presidential Election. Against all the earlier odds, the outsider who suddenly came right out in front was Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater represented the extreme far Right of his party. He stands for talking rough and tough to the Communists. He voted against the Civil Rights bill which aims to bring equal rights to the American Negro. Goldwater’s views have alarmed a lot of people – including many American Republicans — but his supporters, not unnaturally, are fanatically “pro-Barry”. A fortnight before the Republican Party convention. World in Action, with some prescience, went West to look at the man from Arizona who had become big news for the world.

Barry Goldwater was born and bred in the West – in Phoenix, Arizona. His grandfather, “Big Mike”, came to the territory less than 100 years ago. He came out to trade with the miners, ranchers and cowboys who were opening up the West. Like all true Westerners, even today, Barry Goldwater has built himself a homestead in the wide open spaces. He has a wife and four children – two girls and two boys.

Barry Goldwater ran the family department store in Phoenix, founded by his father, until World War II, when he served in the American Air Force. He only entered big-time politics in 1952 when he became a Senator for Arizona.

Most of Goldwater’s political henchmen also come from Phoenix. Stephen Shadegg is one of them. We asked him what he thought about Goldwater, the Westerner:

“He has an honest respect for the necessity of paying your debts. This is something we seem to have lost sight of in this country; we postpone it. He believes that every tub should stand on its own bottom, every man should sleep in his bed, and this is something that we have in the West. I think that in the more collectivized societies and in the big urban centres they’ve lost this. He has an intense interest in all people. He could not be a bystander while someone else was being involved in an unfortunate situation such as that incident we had in New York when 36 or 28 people watched while someone was being murdered. He has to be a participant, he’s an activist. Everything he does he has to do well. When he became a photographer he had to do it well enough to achieve membership in your Royal Photographic Society, and when he got in the war he had to fly an aeroplane. He was a pilot before he entered the service, but he was over age. He still managed his way round the red tape and became a service pilot and flew all during the war. In politics he’s much the same way, he s a very intense man about whatever interests him and he explores all of the possibilities – contrary to the present impression that he goes off half-cock; this is completely untrue. He’s a man who wants to examine all of the alternatives so that he can make a reasonable judgement.”

What is it about Barry Goldwater and his beliefs that appeals to his followers? Alistair Cooke, broadcaster an journalist, explained:

“I think that the appeal of Goldwater is a distortion of a very healthy impulse and it’s something that’s present in 19th century, the middle 19th century, especially out West where people who were frustrated by the congestion of cities and so on could move into open land which reached to the horizon and could stake out their own home and their own way of life and control their environment. Now the big argument inside the Republican Party is just how far you can go to control your own environment, that of your city, that of your county, that of your State, or whether the Federal Government has to move in into vast areas which are now controlled by the individual States. And I think this is a form of what you might call ‘Wyatt Earpism’. In other words, to simplify it – probably grossly – the appeal of Goldwater is the appeal of Wyatt Earp who says ‘Let me have ten minutes with Khruschev in Tombstone, Arizona at high noon and I’ll bump him off and lower taxes and everybody will be happy.’”

World in Action went with Goldwater supporters to Republican Convention in Dallas. Like many Westerners they talked about “the old frontier”. Said one man with enthusiasm, “He’s the spirit of the old frontier that we’ve always had in this country – to do something yourself rather than depend upon somebody else to do it. Like he wants to own his own business, go to his own doctor, go to his own church, take care of his own family rather than depend upon the State to do it. And this is where most people go for him because he is for the very thing that widens the frontiers of America – the reason that the English colonists came over to this country to begin with. The whole thing to me is something that goes back to the original conception of why the Constitution was first … I don’t know whether I make sense or not, but it sure feels good! I’m for him because I am in business for myself and I don’t like to be dictated to by someone in Washington on how to run my business, because I know more about how to spend my money the way I want to than someone in Washington.”

“This is the entire Goldwater concept,” said his companion, “the government is best which governs least.”

“People who make in this country 50 dollars [about $500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] a week and are supporting a family,” went on the first man, “it’s not unusual for them to contribute anywhere from five to ten dollars [$50 to $100] a month towards Barry Goldwater’s campaign. This is how strongly they believe in individualism.”

Said a girl with them, “Well, I’m too young to vote, but I can talk loud and I can run around and call out signs and sell hats and pass out badges and do just as good even though I can’t vote.”

Those Americans who “go” for Goldwater really “go” for him all the way. One of the factors that contributed to the Senator’s surprise success has been the passionate zeal of his volunteer helpers. Eleven thousand Republicans attended this Dallas Convention – almost all of them were “Barry’s Boys” the name given to Goldwater supporters. They arrived wearing Goldwater badges and slogans “Au H₂O,” the chemical formula for gold and water.

The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party which fought the Civil War to end slavery of the Negroes, seemed suddenly to have gone to the far Right. This upheaval in the Party took many people by surprise. But it did so, Alastair Cooke explained, in a gradual way:

“What I think nobody figured on was the fact that for the first time in modern history a Republican really excited the South, and that’s because the new test of liberalism in this country is now race relations. Usually a Republican candidate isn’t going to start counting his votes in the South because they aren’t going to be any use to him the moment he starts running for the Presidency since the South is a Democratic kingdom, more or less. Now, for the first time, a Republican started with this enormous popular support – the whole of the South behind him. This gives him overwhelming power at his Convention to get his nomination. But the moment he starts running for the Presidency he’s still got to try and beat a Southerner in the White House.” At the Convention in Dallas Senator Barry Goldwater made his bid for the Southern States:

“My good friend John Tower, fellow Americans, fellow Republicans,” he said, “I’ve looked forward to this for a long, long time and I never in my wildest dreams imagined that the reception would be anything like this, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. (cheers) If anyone wants to know why and how we’re going to win the 1964, let him come here and get his answer. We’re going to win, we’re going to win because we are now truly a national party. We are no longer a party that has to write off one great section of this nation, the South, (cheers)

“From the courthouse to Congress, we’re going to concede nothing here in the South this year. For the first time in American history Republican candidates are going to contest more than 70 Congressional districts that have always been foregone by default and for the first time in the history of this country all twenty-three Congressional seats in this great State of Texas will be contested and we’re going to win them.

“I intend to lead a united party on a platform of principles, the same platform and the same principle in every part of this nation, (cheers) I mean principles of leadership, principles which will preserve our Federal Republic, principles of respect for constitutional government, for law and order. I mean principles that look upon violence in the streets anywhere in this land, regardless of who does it, as the wrong way to resolve great moral principles. (cheers) This is the way that will destroy the liberties of all our people.

“I come before you today to make no sectional appeals. The issues now confronting our nation go beyond any one section or any special interest. They go right to the heart of our destiny as a free and constitutional republic and they involve the hopes of freedom everywhere in the world, (cheers)

“The peace of the world and the defence of this nation go hand in hand. It’s the destiny and the responsibility of this nation to keep the peace and there is no other way to do it than remain as we are today, the strongest nation on earth in all ways – spiritually, morally, economically and militarily. (cheers)

“Now those of us who live away from the coast of this country are often accused of being isolationists, of wanting to close our eyes to the rest of the world. I need not remind you Texans that nothing could be further from the truth. We are not isolationists. The real isolationists are the men who can’t see beyond the ballot box, who talk and talk… (cheers) who talk and talk but fear to act, who can only mumble when the American flag is tom down and trampled on and spat upon. (cheers) You and I and millions of Americans want to hear someone speak up for America in this troubled world. (cheers) We know that the world cannot be inspired by turning out the lights in the White House. (laughter) That’s L.B.J. now – Light Bulb Johnson (laughter and cheers), and you’ll find him out in November. (laughter and cheers) We know that the real need is to turn on some light. We need more light at the White House, not less. We need more light around the world – the light of American leadership, the light of freedom.

“I intend to speak plainly about all these matters, because I have a deep feeling of responsibility that those who are coming on after me, my children, my grandchildren, and your children and your grandchildren – I have a great feeling of responsibility for a heritage that must be passed on, and when I’m gone and there’s trouble in this country I don’t want my children to point to me and say ‘If father had only said this at the right time maybe things would have been different.’ I intend to speak as I feel because I am concerned about our country and I am concerned about our world. (cheers)

“This nation today is being dishonoured. Not a single new major strategic weapon system has been introduced in the past three years. The very strength we hold is the result of the sound, resolute planning of General Dwight Eisenhower. This Administration has nothing to do with it. (cheers) And this disarming means that America stands still while the Soviet is free to advance. As we go into the 1970s, there are plans to leave us a Strategic Air Command with no new bombers, with a damaged force of old ones and with just a minimum of the strength with which it has been able to keep the peace so far. The business of the S.A.C. is peace and if you don’t allow the Air Force and the Strategic Air Command, the Air Wing of the Navy, the Army and the Marines to make progress in the air, then we are heading for trouble, and real trouble, because this power is what the Soviets understand.

“There is no magic in winning elections. There’s no secret word. There’s no certain amount of millions of dollars that must be spent. There’s no cut-and-dried television image. There’s only one way that wins elections and that’s people like you. (applause) So I implore of you, act as adults; don’t cany your grudges into the ballot boxes: carry your hearts and carry what’s good for Texas and what’s good for the United States, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican – America is our first ballot. Thank you. (prolonged cheers, applause, and singing)”

The rise of Senator Goldwater within the Republican Party caused many people to ask if America as a nation was turning away from Liberalism and moving towards the extreme right wing in the political spectrum. World in Action put this question to Alistair Cooke. “No, absolutely not,” he replied emphatically. “I think this in fact is a proof that this whole movement of the extreme Right – which by the way is absolutely minute; the Birchites, for instance, in the California local elections have had their brains beaten out – has no power whatsoever. But I think that this movement of Goldwater’s is the last exertion of the Old Frontier. You know, this is Gary Cooper running for President, and an awful lot of people would wish it could be so. Like the devotion to the Western on television, its the last gasp of individualism.”

And so in November the Man From Arizona rode to meet The Tall Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson. It was a Presidential Election very much in the tradition of The Old American West.

The post Au H₂O appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

On 15th April, 1865, in the last weeks of the American Civil War, Vice-President Andrew Johnson became the seventeenth President of the United States. He succeeded Abraham Lincoln who had been shot while attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre the previous evening. Ninety-nine years later a second Vice-President Johnson succeeded to the Presidency after another assassination.

The week after its programme from Dallas World in Action moved to a second town in Texas to investigate the background of the West’s new leader. Tim Hewat took the team to Johnson City.

Life for the people of Johnson City is slow. The motorist, hurrying along Texas route 281 linking San Antonio and Wichita Falls, could well fail to notice the town. Its people are typical hill folk, unhurried, with plenty of time to talk. Many of them work in the saddle, although today most cowboys drive their horses from one part of the range to the other – and some of them just drive all the time.

The people of Johnson City are modest people, like George Biars, who has been mayor for fifteen years, largely, he says, because no one else wants the job at a salary of eight shillings a day [40p in decimal, about £7 in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed].

The biggest thing in town is, of course, Lyndon B. Johnson himself, whose grandfather gave his name to the place. Mr. Johnson was born in a two-room home and he went to school at Johnson City High School. His first job was shining shoes. Then he worked on the roads. Today, Mr. Johnson lives in his own ranch, the L.B.J., on the banks of the Pedernales River. And, partly through his marriage to “Ladybird” Johnson, he is comfortably off. Mrs. Johnson was the chairman of the television and radio station, K.T.B.C. in Austin, Texas, until her husband became President when all the Johnsons’ wealth was put in the hands of trustees.

Highpoints in Johnson City life are the barbecue parties that Mr. Johnson gives from time to time at the L.B.J. for visiting V.I.P.s. One such party was for President Ayub Khan, of Pakistan, who was showered with gifts. Another party was for thirty ambassadors from newly-independent African nations.

Naturally the people of Johnson City admire Mr. Johnson greatly. And, naturally, they are all watching closely to see how he is getting on as President in Washington. But the event they all remember, and indeed the Texas politicians in the State capital at Austin also remember, is Mr. Johnson’s speech at his old university in 1961, for that was the time, they say, when he recorded his philosophy and his beliefs.

Mr. Johnson was Vice-President at the time and he was speaking to students on graduation day at the State College of South-West Texas, near Austin, 42 miles from Johnson City.

“I have a long, well-worded, carefully-drafted speech, he began, “all of which I’m going to stand behind and none of which I’m going to read, because we are faced with the hour of decision and it is you that is going to make the decision.

“In the world today we have two great systems; strong systems competing with each other for the mind of man. One is the collective communist system. One is the democratic system. One is the system of slavery. One is the system of freedom. And each man in each country on the face of the globe is sitting up there in judgement on those systems. The average father and mother want for their children just what you want for yours – relatively simple tastes they have. They want a place to worship, a school to train their minds, food for their stomachs, clothes for their back, a roof over their head, and a little recreation now and then. And that’s about all the average man and woman, wherever he lives, desires. That’s about the extent of his ambition. And now he’s looking at these two systems to see which one offers him and his family the greatest promise for the future.

You are a product of the democratic system. Because of your sacrifices and your diligence, you are concluding a course today and going out into the world. You are some of he privileged people because a relatively small percentage of our total population has the privilege of sitting here with caP and gown on. And therefore you have a very special responsibility to the system that produced you; the system at made it possible for you to have a trained mind and a sound body.

“The three greatest friends that Communism has are illiteracy, poverty, and disease. And they’re the three greatest enemies that our democratic system has. And if you haven’t learned it, you ought to hear it now – that our nation, the richest in the world, the most powerful in the world, is out-numbered 18 to 1 in the world. And no nation can long enjoy great applause when all of its neighbours and all of its friends and all the other nations are impoverished.

“So you, as the leaders and the products of our system, have got to help us in the years ahead to find a solution to eradicating poverty, to improving the standard of men and women and children’s living, to improving their housing, to cleaning their slums, to stamping out the diseases of cancer and heart and all the other killers, so that in your time and my time when these two systems come in mortal combat with each other, you can proudly say Democracy has worked; the proof of the puddin’s in the eatin’, and the coon’s skin’s on the wall: we have educated all our young; we have provided security for our old; we have cleaned our slums; we have made home-owners of our people; we have driven disease underground. We have not sat back and lived with our selfishness and with our greed. We have not been content to be misers. We have practised the Golden Rule. We have done unto others as we would have them do unto us. Yes, we have marched forward like zealots – with a missionary zeal to try to make San Marcus and South-West Texas College and Central Texas and Johnson City a better place than we found it. We have tried to make this a better world than we were born into, and we are determined and dedicated to reward our Maker with the fruits of our labours and we are determined that they shall be made.”

Then Mr. Johnson talked of his visit to South-East Asia, to Saigon, the capital of troubled Viet-Nam.

“When I went into the dark streets of Saigon,” he continued, “my secret service men had cables from our Intelligence people saying that ‘you must be very careful and not get out of your car, you must be surrounded completely with security people, and never shake hands, because this is a very dangerous period – 14 were killed in the town last night – 4,000 mayors and city officials have been killed in this area this year.’ And I said ‘If they don’t want me to speak to them and to talk with them, then let’s don’t go.’ Because I want to know them and I want them to know me. I want to know Asia and I want Asia to know America. And I have learned in my limited experience in this world that you can usually look into a person’s eyes and see what is in his heart. And I want them to look into my eyes and into the eyes of the United States of America.

“We tore the big Air Force signs off of our plane and just painted on Old Glory. We tore the United States Military Air Transport sign down and we just put ‘The United States of America’ on our 707 jet. And we looked into their eyes and we think they could see what was in our hearts because they came in thousands and tens of thousands would surge forward like an Atlantic wave just to touch the hands of someone from America; just with the hope that maybe, perhaps, somehow, somewhere, their little child could get rid of the tape-worms in his stomach and have a chance, that only one out of ten there now have, of getting into school.

“And I’ll tell you that after three or four days we not only looked in their eyes and saw what was in their hearts, but we instilled in them a determination to climb and climb and climb until they reach the top of the hill so that their children could have a school and their children could have food and their children could have clothes on their back.

“I came back to Washington, not distressed, not discouraged; I came back strong in the belief that when people know each other, they understand each other, and if they understand each other, they don’t need to fight each other.

“So if they ask you what he said at your graduation address, you try to remember that he said that you were walking into a world of opportunity, not a world of obstacles; that you were a special missionary for democracy; that you owe freedom and liberty so much that you wanted everybody to have a little bit of it; and that you realized the principal enemies of freedom and liberty were illiteracy and impoverishment and disease; and that you in your own little way with your sheepskin, regardless of how much they paid you per hour or per day or per week, if there was enough to sustain you, you were going out to make war on these things, so that the people of the world could live in peace and prosperity.”

The post L. B. J. appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

When you walked through the door into Granada Television in Cross Street, Manchester you felt the place was special, certainly different from the other media temples I had worked in. The main reception area was dominated by a large compelling painting by Francis Bacon, the canteen illuminated with a challenging mural by John Bratby. In every office hung a portrait of P.J. Barnum [sic], the American circus-owner, as a reminder that we might be journalists, but never forget the razzle-dazzle.

– Michael Parkinson, Parky: My Autobiography, 2008

You will most likely already be familiar with stories of innovation in television, whether through technology, graphics, formats or presentation. Let me describe an early example of a regional news and entertainment programme which not only set a high standard in its field, but provided a template for what was to come later.

Granada TV was a company with drive, determination and flair – always bold whilst cautious (to quote from the coat of arms of Wallasey, within the company’s service area.). Even as the company was being formed, part of their forward-thinking attitude was that staff should not be drawn from the BBC, to prevent “contamination of the new thinking” to quote a Granada executive. Talent search took the company executives to Canada, to bring fresh blood into TV, an area that the parent, Granada Theatres Limited, had no experience in.

Most of the ITV regions put out regional news bulletins varying in length, including Granada’s Northern Newscast, but there were plans in the fifties to develop a new type of early evening news programme. It would complement the ITN news whilst providing contrast, reflecting not only topical news and regional issues, but also covering the arts, sports, and human interest stories. Derek Boulton, public relations officer said that the programme should make people feel that the North “is a good place to be, and we’ve got our own voice”.

The new show, People and Places, ran from 9 July to 20 August 1957 as a networked programme, presented by Peter Jones (comedy actor, chiefly known for In All Directions) and Elaine Grand (who later presented Thames’ Good Afternoon). From contemporary accounts, it’s best described as a miscellany, with sketches, interviews and music usually by the Derek Hilton Quartet. The programme was revived starting from Friday 23 May 1958, but this time only for the North, and presented by Bill Grundy, later joined by Chris Howland. Derek Hilton and his trio provided music (including the theme). Gay Byrne replaced Chris Howland in 1961. People and Places finally came to an end on 18 January 1963.

The Beatles were featured on later editions in 1962 and 1963, and a film shot by Granada at the Cavern in August 1962 didn’t make it onto the programme due to poor sound – but it was broadcast a year later on the show that replaced People and Places.

Launched on 21 January 1963, the Scene at 6.30 presentation and production team included Michael Scott, Michael Apted, Johnnie Hamp, Peter Eckersley, Michael Parkinson, Chris Kelly, Bill Grundy, Leslie Woodhead, Gay Byrne, Barrie Heads, Philip Casson, Brian Trueman and David Plowright: soon to be well-respected media figures not only in the North, but throughout the country and the world. TVTimes trumpeted Scene at 6.30 as “a no-punches-pulled, hard-hitting, bang-up-to-date look at today’s big talking points. And what’s new and original in music?”

Talking of which, the Beatles were not the only group featured – many other artists performed! Lulu, the Searchers, Long John Baldry, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, Duke Ellington and hundreds of others went to Manchester to appear, and, in many cases, to chat about their music. In November 1963, the Beatles performed I Want To Hold Your Hand and This Boy on a Daily Echo newspaper set, and had a conversation with Gay Byrne and Ken Dodd – their off-the-cuff humour was so refreshing and infectious that Granada, rather than losing the sequence completely, broadcast it as a one-off Late Scene Extra on 27 November 1963 at 11.45pm. Famous quote: Ken Dodd says that he would need an earthy name to be a pop star, Paul suggests “Rock” or “Cliff”, John suggests “Sod”!

In 1976, George Harrison was interviewed by Granada Reports about his new LP “Thirty-Three and a Third”, and part of that feature was that he was seen sitting at a Steenbeck machine watching the November 1963 film of the Beatles, shaking his head in time with the “whoos”.

Michael Wale’s book Vox Pop includes an interview with former Beatles press officer Derek Taylor. In it, he said had been asked by Peter Eckersley to come and work on Scene at 6.30 after Taylor and Brian Epstein fell out whilst touring with the Beatles in 1964. Taylor, having worked for the Beatles in the US, was much in demand there and set up his own business, representing the Beach Boys and many other bands, and working on the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, after which he went to work for Apple [the music people, not the computer people], again as Press Officer.

Recalling other guests, Joan Riley remembered a sixteen-year-old Scottish girl who was very loud, rehearsing her song Shout – Lulu – and Vanya Kewley who assisted Desmond Morris with a baby chimpanzee in a demonstration. She held the chimp up to the cameras, and it peed in her face, but she laughed it off. Joan was on the phone in her office, and discovered that there was a young lion sitting next to her – luckily she didn’t scream…

News reporting on Scene at 6.30 was more broad than the cliché of “warehouse fire in Leeds”. While accepting that, as Mike Scott said “the London end [was] dominated, not dominating”, he understood the need for a London studio, so that anyone based there could be interviewed for the programme. This had the advantage of enabling debate on issues affecting the North. David Boulton did recognise a problem within the North: “Considerable efforts were made to take the programme outside Manchester itself…particularly there was quite a lot of political pressure to do items in Liverpool because [the city] always felt left out and always second-rate compared with Manchester”. In years to come, this was a recurring theme, and at one point it threatened Granada’s ability to retain their franchise.

The London-based presenter was Dennis Pitts. By using regular inserts from Pitts in London, Michael Parkinson in Leeds and, of course, the whole team in Manchester, Scene at 6.30 invented an innovative format that would later be used by the BBC in Nationwide.

Since 1956, Granada had always been inclined to challenge the accepted wisdom. Mike Scott stated that a new type of current affairs programme was evolving, whether in programmes such as Under Fire, where MPs had to face blunt questions from the audience, or in covering the February 1958 Rochdale by-election (which Granada had been told would be illegal) to covering political party conferences. News actuality of the Ringway air crash in 1957, to the hurricane in Sheffield in 1962 had set some precedents as regards what should be reported and brought to the public’s attention. This was an approach which was a major part of Scene at 6.30.

Granada received a call on 22 November 1963 from CBS in New York, stating that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. It was just five minutes after the beginning of the programme. The senior executive on duty, Denis Foreman, called ITN, who told him that they were “not going to break into the schedules with the story until they had it from [our] own reporter in America”… and there was a standing rule that individual ITV companies should never pre-empt ITN on big stories. Foreman impulsively went ahead, and Mike Scott broke the news to the Scene at 6.30 audience first, before anyone else in the country.

David Boulton was Granada’s Public Relations Officer based in their London office in the early sixties. By his admission, he wasn’t that good: Sidney Bernstein sent for him, told him he was useless, but sent him to Manchester to work on Scene at 6.30. Producer Mike Murphy gruffly greeted him on his first day, and assigned him the task of a three-minute profile of Frank Cousins, completed with the help of a lady who later became Mrs. Boulton. After a short while, David Boulton became the producer, taking over from Mike Murphy. There was a three-minute bulletin produced by the then little-known Bob Greaves, and David decided to put him on Scene at 6.30, where he became a welcome fixture and part of the northern identity of Granada.

Another personality who put his stamp on everything he did was Michael Parkinson. In his autobiography, Michael Parkinson was asked to come and produce the programme by Barrie Heads, who told him that he wanted the programme to be “irreverent, funny and seditious”. Parkinson also mentioned that the Scene at 6.30 ethos was that any of the production staff who could write and present an article could have a go at presenting, and he chose to go on air with Bill Grundy for his very first time in front of the camera. Grundy advised Parkinson to slow down his delivery, and lean forward as if engaging the viewer in conversation: he also said that if anything went wrong, “look pleadingly in my direction”. Grundy also reminded Parkinson, at the end of the show, that he should say thank you to the studio. Less seriously, Michael was also seen with a “From the North Granada” logo drawn on his back, as if it was a tattoo, and extolling the virtues of licorice.

There is a 1965 film from Scene at 6.30 in which he narrates the story of sixteen children living at Ockenden Venture Home for Refugee Children in Wetherby, Yorkshire, with their house parents Mr. and Mrs. Lovell. An emotionally challenging tale of twelve German children and four English orphans who are, to quote Parkinson, “not simply cared for, but grafted into the family”. It isn’t known whether it has been broadcast outside the North, but the film was donated by the charity to the Screen South East archive.

Bill Grundy was regarded as one of the best presenters, but not without his particular problems: he once slipped from the newsreader’s chair whilst reading a story, the worse for wear, although he could not be seen because of the unmanned, locked-off camera. He was an important part of the presentation team, and really came into his own during trades union congress and election broadcasts, with a direct and forensic questioning style.

A further development was the establishment of Granada In The North, a kind of news bulletin and preview of the evening’s entertainment fronted by one of the Scene at 6.30 team. It was a way of establishing the station identity from the moment viewing began, and acted as a promotional vehicle to keep the viewers tuned in throughout the night. The sequence even had its own ident. It lasted from 1964-1968.

Changes were being made to refresh the format of Scene at 6.30 to maintain its pace and vitality. A major reinvention came in July 1966 when the programme became a late-night feature called Newscene (an amalgam of “news” and “scene” coined by Brian Blake). Johnnie Hamp wanted to make it more controversial than Scene at 6.30. One of the new elements was that a studio audience of youngsters would engage in debate with the musical guests on issues of the day. (With the benefit of hindsight, the idea was very similar to BBC-1’s A Whole Scene Going – a rare example of Granada following a trend rather than leading.)

Courtesy of elenarendezvous

As regards archive status, the only complete edition that survives is the Scene Special shown at 10.25pm on 7 March 1967 in the North only. Entitled “It’s So Far Out, It’s Straight Down”, it focussed on the burgeoning London underground movement and psychedelic music scene. Paul McCartney was interviewed and so were leading underground figures connected to the International Times and Indica Bookshop, such as Barry Miles; a Legalise Pot rally in Piccadilly with John “Hoppy” Hopkins and Suzy Creamcheese; Pink Floyd performing at the UFO Club; and footage of the International Poetry Incarnation, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 June 1965 featuring Allen Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell and Laurence Ferlinghetti amongst others (this became a film in its own right – Wholly Communion). It would be correct to state that Scene Special produced such a balanced and definitive picture of that time. As a snapshot of the counterculture, it’s an invaluable time capsule, and excerpts have been included in many programmes including Tony Palmer’s All You Need Is Love in 1977.

Scene made its way back into an early-evening slot in June 1967, and Late Scene was a late-night feature as before (this writer recalls that Sgt. Pepper (Reprise) was used as a closing theme at least once during the summer of that year). Change was coming though…

The franchise awards on 11 June 1967 allowed new contractors into the system: London Weekend TV, Harlech, Thames (itself a new company formed by ABC and Rediffusion jointly) and Yorkshire. The last of these was a challenge to Granada: their
franchise was now a seven-day contract, broadcasting to the North-West (“West Of The Pennines” according to the TVTimes) only. Granadaland, the proud concept driving the company’s approach, looked forlorn and defeated. However, the company was down but not out – a rethink was needed to redefine their region, and to serve the viewers with the same devotion and fervour as before.

Scene continued into 1968, with the same features and news coverage as before. According to one account, Mr. Sunshine by Barclay James Harvest was featured in a short documentary shown as part of the programme – this was the B-side of the single Early Morning which came out in April, the same month that Scene was finally laid to rest.

The replacement was Six-O-One, mostly fronted by Bob Greaves, as were the successors Newsday and Newsview – yet again, there was music, sport, news, human interest but not as vital as before. Yet, the assemblage that was essentially Scene at 6.30 was taken apart to form several strands – three examples being Put It In Writing, On Site (featuring Ray Gosling) and It’s Trueman (Brian Trueman in search of miscellany) – all of which quickly registered with the viewers. The fact was that there was so much talent in Scene that it was sometimes difficult to contain it.

There was a feeling that Granada were still trying to recapture the glory days of Scene at 6.30 in the early seventies, featuring specially shot features (I remember seeing the Flirtations perform Give Me Love on a clip shown on Newsday or Newsview in 1971). Eventually the format became one of the longest-running magazine and news programmes, Granada Reports which started on 1 October 1973.

Scene at 6.30 set a high standard in the sixties, and the team who worked on it became well-known to the viewers, and eventually a wider audience.

Michael Apted became a film producer in Hollywood, and is still highly regarded for the Up series of documentaries; Brian Trueman not only was an actor (he was in BBC radio’s The Clitheroe Kid) but wrote many children’s programmes such as Cockleshell Bay and many books; Michael Parkinson, after a time at LWT, established himself as THE chat-show host; Chris Kelly presented Junior Criss-Cross Quiz, Clapperboard and Food and Drink for the BBC; Gay Byrne went back to Ireland and RTÉ to present the long-running The Late Late Show.

Johnnie Hamp went on producing music and entertainment programmes, notably The Comedians and The Wheeltappers And Shunters Social Club, and left Granada in 1987 to form his own production company. He is now retired.

In terms of drama, Philip Casson produced or was involved in many productions from EastEnders to The Man in Room 17. Peter Eckersley was involved in production, then became Head Of Drama, commissioning Victoria Wood to write a play for Granada.

Leslie Woodhead became involved with World in Action, and is still working at 83, as a director/producer on documentaries and Hollywood films.

Bill Grundy continued in presentation and journalism of all shades, such as Afternoon Edition, A House For The Future and Thames TV’s Today – he is remembered more for the December 1976 encounter with the Sex Pistols, which led to his sacking, and a low-key career in the media until his early death in 1993.

David Plowright was Controller of Programmes 1969-1979, and then managing director and later chairman of Granada TV from 1987. Always a staunch supporter of Granada’s programming, quality and integrity, in 1992 he came up against the new Chairman of the Granada Group, Gerry Robinson who forced him out. He passed away in 2006.

In 1979, Plowright was succeeded as Programme Controller by Michael Scott. His career took him from presenting Cinema, The Nuts and Bolts of the Economy and many discussion programmes. In 1987 he returned to presenting with The Time The Place, and was warm, witty and incisive as ever. A character with many fine talents, he passed away in 2006.

Granada in the nineteen-sixties was an exciting place to be for those working there, but the face of the television channel to its public was friendly, warm, informative and Northern… all qualities that apply to every programme, but especially to Scene at 6.30.

The post Seen at 6.30 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The latest Granada show, Scene at 6.30, which is 2½ hours a week long, has successfully passed the dangerous early days. Now the infant is strong enough to bear some examination of its pedigree. It is a pedigree which stretches back seven years to Granada’s first days as a television station and my first assignment as a floor manager for them.

In 1956 Granada plunged into the North with, I would guess, the heaviest outside broadcast plans ever. Lifeboats at Fleetwood, docks at Liverpool, a Salvation Army hostel in Manchester, cheese in Cheshire, Guy Fawkes night in York — the Travelling Eye units hardly stopped for the whole year.

While they were working, a new type of current affairs programme was evolving in the studios. It was criticised as brash and vulgar, the studio audiences who asked the questions condemned as uncivilised. Members of Parliament who were asked to take part found a hard fight on their hands. Under Fire was on the map.

Granada’s coverage of the Rochdale by-election in February, 1958, established a new involvement of television in politics that later developed into our coverage of the last general election.

The first live TV reports of a Party Conference came from Granada. Our cameras entered the Labour Party’s conference hall at Scarborough in 1960 to record Hugh Gaitskell’s famous “Fight, Fight and Fight Again” speech. This led to the first live coverage of Party Conferences and the TUC — again by Granada.

The Ringway air crash in 1957 posed a question of television ethics. It was possible for a Travelling Eye team to get to Ringway quickly and give us live television coverage of a tragedy that would normally have been reported for us on film.

The unit went out and in a remarkably short time we were transmitting to the network pictures of the Viscount airliner that had swung off course in the last moments before landing and slashed part of a terrace of council houses into obliteration.

The pictures spoke for themselves, our talk at the scene was muted. It was a depressing job to work on and at the time I wondered if we were right to do it.

On a practical level, I was afraid that our bulky equipment might obstruct the rescue workers. On this point I was immediately proved wrong; in fact, our television lights were an aid to the rescue operation.

And, on reflection, I think we were right in principle to do it.

There have been other examples of this kind of news story. The most recent was the hurricane that swung into Sheffield at four o’clock on the morning of February 16, 1962.

It left a trail of roofless, shattered buildings and as the first reports came in, our Travelling Eye unit, by now refined into a highly mobile and compact set-up, left for the scene. By late afternoon live TV pictures from Sheffield were on the air.

The Northern face Granada has shown to the national network has not just been one of politics and news. It wasn’t our political programmes that made actors frantically try to re discover the Northern accents their drama school teachers had so carefully ironed out.

On the crest of a wave of novels about the North and films about the North came a television serial about the North. I doubt if Tony Warren, the original creator of Coronation Street, realised the full significance of the moment when he put the first sheet of paper in his typewriter.

He started a serial that rose steadily through the ratings to a consistently dominating first and second position. A programme that made people experts about the North who previously had known only that “it always rains in Manchester.” A programme that even managed to combine great popular success with unheard-of praise from some of the egg-head weeklies. A success indeed!

Now we have Scene at 6.30 – which we hope embodies all the best from what has gone before. A magazine programme for the North and of the North. But not simply about the North. We make gracious acknowledgment that there is another large city in the South of England by having a studio there.

The Scene at 6.30 London studio exists because it is foolish not to recognise that many of the people we want to talk to are for one reason or another in London. If they haven’t the time to come up here, then we. in the interests of good coverage, must go there.

But if you know Scene at 6.30 you know that the London end is dominated, not dominating. Our cameras travel farther and farther across the Granada region. If there were places that had not been visited by a Granada unit before Scene came along, their number diminishes every day. In fact, we’re beginning to hear complaints that we’re never in Manchester!

Pop artists presented in an original way, news and interest stories from the North, subjects national and international that affect the North.

I suppose the next Scene at 6.30 milestone will be when one of our camera units goes abroad to cover a story. Why not?

The post And the SCENE is all set at Granada appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

SCHIZOPHRENIA — believing you are two different people — is not something to wish on anyone.

But 48-year-old Jack Woolgar quite enjoys his own particular form of split personality. And he gets paid for it.

Jack is a well-established Northern repertory actor. A sensible, sane chap, busy with theatre and television work and living comfortably and quietly with his family in Huddersfield.

But when he enters the Granada studios an alarming transformation takes place. He parts his hair in the middle, dons steel-rimmed spectacles and becomes Albert Sowerby, the crackpot chicken farmer and inventor who will be making more “scientific revelations” in Granada’s People and Places on Monday.

I asked Jack to introduce me to his other self — and it was Albert who answered.

He told me he lives on a lonely, windswept farm at Salaithewaite on the slopes of the Pennines, with his Chinese wife Lotus Blossom and several hundred hens.

“We have two cottages,” he assured me, solemnly. “My wife and I live in one and the hens in the other.”

Lotus Blossom is Albert’s second wife. “My first was blown over the cliffs in a high wind at Scarborough,” he said.

He and Lotus Blossom met when he was supplying chickens to the local Chinese restaurant. They fell in love over a chicken chow mein.

Now, on the moors, they enjoy an idyllic existence, supplying eggs to the Egg Marketing Board — and dreaming up fantastic inventions to keep up payments on the television set.

Albert has a problem, though. The world still hasn’t recognised his genius.

“But they will,” he told me confidently.

His “dream-machine” had half the West Riding agog.

“It was an armchair with a bucket seat and a steering wheel,” he explained.

“There was a tape-recorder playing recordings of car noises on one side, and a packet of sweets on the other.

“You could sit in it and dream you were going anywhere. And I like sweets. Very convenient.”

The world hasn’t yet seen the best of Albert, because he is working on a system of engendering poetic inspiration in the layman.

“You lie flat on your back, gazing at the fleecy clouds,” he said.

When this has been marketed, he will be tackling the problem of runners who jump the gun in sprint races at the Olympic Games.

“I’ve got it all worked out,” said Albert — “sprung traps like those in use at greyhound tracks.”

Mercifully, Jack Woolgar never lets Albert out of the studios.

The post Egg-head among the hens! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

MR. KRUSHCHEV’S face was split in an amiable grin — and he reached across to shake hands enthusiastically, president Kennedy accepted the handshake cordially — and slapped Mr. Krushchev on the back for good measure.

“You see,” said Chris Bryant, blandly picking up Mr. Nehru, and gingerly stepping over President de Gaulle, “we’ve been in England for only four months, and already we’re making history.”

It was the sort of crazy situation I might have expected to find, dropping in unexpectedly on satirists Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, who provide another droll commentary on life in Granada’s People and Places on Wednesday.

Allan and Chris were rehearsing. And the international gentlemen were hand-puppets they had brought with them from Canada.

“We’ve been in Canada for years,” said Chris.

“But we aren’t Canadians,” said Allan.

“He was born in Scotland — near Gordonstoun.” said Chris.

“And he was born in Bolton,” said Allan.

“Why Canada?” I asked.

“It was the strong Empire-building streaks in our nature,” said Allan.

“We were young men so we decided to go West,” said Chris.

“To seek our fortune,” said Allan.

They are still young men. Allan is 23, Chris is 26. Allan is the one who plays the guitar.

“He carries it to impress people,” said Chris.

“It helps to cover up my inferiority complex,” said Allan.

Chris is probably the only comedian in the business with three university degrees.

“He graduated from Cambridge and studied law at McGill University in Canada,” said Allan. “He graduated from McGill and studied law with the Canadian Government in Ottawa. He graduated from there and became a comedian.”

“That’s life,” said Chris.

Chris is still retained by a leading legal firm in Canada — and he does regular long-range research work for them over here.

Allan manages to keep two careers running simultaneously, too, punctuating his comedy work with what he describes as his “serious writing” — criticism and review.

The cross-talk act I had interrupted started at McGill University some years ago.

“We didn’t know each other at the time,” said Allan

“I’d heard about him and was trying to avoid a meeting,” said Chris.

The featured act of a show was the West Point Glee Club — “One hundred and forty odd American Army cadets,” said Chris. “They were on a goodwill tour of Canada.”

“As they filed into the theatre I sat in a dark corner chanting ‘Yankee, go home’,” said Allan. “Suddenly I heard a still small voice coming from the other side of the theatre chanting ‘Yankee, go home, go home’.”

“The still small voice was Chris Bryant,” said Chris Bryant. “And a mutual taste was established ”

After leaving university, Chris and Allan toured America appearing in elegant nightclubs, but returned to Montreal to do their own television show.

“It was a sort of souped-up, personalised, late-night version of People and Places,” said Allan, “with interviews, jazz, sketches, film clips and free-wheeling discussions.”

“There was that well-known Canadian gangster who was going to tell us all about his — and others’ — criminal activities,” said Allan.

“On the night of the show he turned up sporting a black eye,” said Chris.

“He had not only forgotten what he was going to talk about, but he assured us, when reminded, that he didn’t know anything about it to begin with,” said Allan.

“However, the show was eventually saved.”

“He recited some of his own poetry for us,” said Chris. “Stuff he had written on an ‘extended vacation’.”

Which, for some inexplicable reason, took the boys back to where they were when I interrupted.

“I understand you’re writing a biography,” said Allan.

“An autobiography,” said Chris.

“Your life story?” said Allan.

“No — it’s about a car,” said Chris …

So I took the hint, and left.

The post Duet for drolls appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN the surgery of the People and Places doctor, not a stethoscope was in sight. His desk was covered with photographs of sporting celebrities — and some of them you can see here.

“These are for Granada’s Evening Surgery next Friday,” he said. “I shall be giving a doctor’s eye view of some of the giants of the world of sport. All have in common one remarkable quality, which I think will be a surprise to many viewers.

“I don’t want to say what it is in advance, but these pictures might suggest the link they have between them.”

As we went through the photographs, discussing the achievements that have made world headlines, I discovered the doctor is a sportsman.

Since he was given his first cricket bat at the age of five, he has tried his hand at most sports. But, as the picture of Ben Hogan reminded him, golf is the one he took up late.

All the same, he has done well at it. In two years he got his handicap down to three, and then went on to win a top Northern tournament.

Sam Langford’s photograph recalled his interest in boxing and the time he was President of Manchester University Boxing Club. That phase came roughly between the lacrosse period, when he was picked to play for Lancashire schoolboys, and the rugby period, when he played for the university. But of all the sports stars we talked about, Fleetwood-Smith, the Australian bowler, was obviously the one admired most by the doctor, and cricket the game he loved above all the others.

By the time he was a medical student he was captaining the combined English Universities team. At 42, he has just stepped down as captain of his local eleven.

Today his sport is divided between cricket — he plays once and sometimes twice a week throughout the summer — and golf — two or three rounds a week in the winter.

“Golf,” he said, “is particularly suitable for a doctor, because it can be played at any time. Cricket is different. Someone has to be found to look after things for me.

“Fortunately, I have a good arrangement with another doctor who likes football just as much as I like cricket. In winter I stand in for him so that he can go to his football matches. In summer he stands in for me so that I can go to my cricket.”

And the result of all this exercise? Well, the doctor may be going rather bald on top, but he can still put in a half hour session on his bagpipes without losing his breath and he hasn’t had an illness since his schooldays.

Which isn’t bad for a man on the wrong side of 40.

The post Sporting doctor finds a link appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Head On, the first of an occasional Granada series this Wednesday, uses television to present living portraits of people in their own image … and out of the candid opinions and recollections of friends and others. The subjects can reply to criticism and, in so doing, enrich their own portraits. The first subject is Randolph Churchill. Lord Birkenhead and John Spencer Churchill recall Randolph the boy; Sir Fitzroy Maclean recalls Randolph the soldier; Michael Foot recalls Randolph the political opponent. Whatever Randolph Churchill is today he was moulded by happenings in his early years. Here he writes of those happenings

I WAS born in London on May 28, 1911, at 33, Eccleston-square, of poor [sic: the Churchill family were anything but poor – Ed] but honest parents. Born within sound of Bow Bells, I was a Cockney and, until I was 40, was destined to spend more than half my life in London.

I have no recollections of Eccleston-square where my father and mother had lived from their marriage in 1908. When I was born my father was Home Secretary in Mr. Asquith’s famous Liberal administration, and when I was only a few months old my father became First Lord of the Admiralty and we all moved to Admiralty House overlooking the Horse Guards Parade. “We all” were my father and mother and sister Diana, who was nearly two years older than myself.

I remember looking out of a window at Admiralty House and seeing a large parade of soldiers on the Horse Guards Parade. I asked where they were going and was told: “The Dardanelles.” This must have been in 1915 when I was four.

I didn’t know where the Dardanelles were or what the war was all about, but the Dardanelles hung like a storm cloud over Admiralty House, and I used to end my nightly prayers: “God bless Mummy and Papa. God bless the Dardanelles and make me a good boy. Amen.”

I also used to pray for a Mr. Jones at this time. I was taken, I suppose by my father, to the House of Commons. Among other sights I was shown the pegs on which Members hung their hats. Pointing to the first peg I saw, I enquired who hung his hat there. I was told “Mr. Jones.” He rated almost as highly in my prayers as the Dardanelles.

One other thing I remember at Admiralty House, Diana and I used to be taken for a daily morning airing in the Green Park in a double pram. This must have been just before World War One.

There were people called Suffragettes who wanted to get the vote for women, which I later discovered was a proposal to which my father and Mr. Asquith were strongly opposed; so the Suffragettes tried to kidnap me in the park.

I have a memory of being pulled out of the pram and of the nursery-maid catching hold of me and pushing me back.

More strongly etched in my memory is the detective who thereafter discreetly accompanied us on our morning outings lest this half-hearted attempt should be repeated.

I think I remember the coming of the war in August 1914. We were staying at the seaside. I think at a place called “Pear Tree Cottage.” There was a lot of excitement and my father had to keep driving to London and coming back.

One day when he was in London we were told that war had come. We looked out to sea expecting to see German ships approaching the coast, hut nothing happened except that we all had to pack up and go hack to London. We children were rather disappointed.

When we were turned out of Admiralty House we all went to live at 41, Cromwell-road. We doubled up with my Uncle Jack and my Aunt Goonie and their two children, Johnnie, who was two years older than me and Peregrine who, I suppose, had just been born.

The house was almost opposite the Natural History Museum. On wet afternoons Diana, Johnnie and myself would be taken there.

We did not spend much time looking at the exhibits. We preferred to run along the corridors playing hide and seek and since hardly anybody seemed interested in the specimens which had been collected in this fine building, we seldom got into any trouble. While we were at Cromwell-road there were Zeppelin raids on London. These were tremendously exciting, since we children would be woken up in the middle of the night, wrapped in blankets and carried down to the basement where there would be a lot of grown ups having supper and drinking champagne.

We liked Zeppelins very much indeed and thought it a great treat to mix with grown ups in the middle of the night.

Another memory of Cromwell-road is of one of my father’s birthdays. We children had our luncheon up stairs and were always brought down to see the grown-ups finishing theirs.

One day, when it was my father’s birthday (November 30, St. Andrew’s Day), we came down, and for some reason or other the grown-ups had only just started eating.

My mother had arranged a treat for my father — oysters. When we children came in there was only one left. My father said: “Would you like to try one?” I naturally said: “Yes.”

The oyster was put into my mouth. I was horrified and went and spat it into the fire. I suppose this was in 1916 with food rationing so very strict.

Everyone was aghast at my act.

I am glad to record that this episode left no permanent scar on my palate, for I have eaten scores of dozens of oysters in later years, with the greatest enjoyment.

A little later, I suppose at the end of 1916 or the beginning of 1917, my father bought a little place in the country, Lullenden, near East Grinstead. I imagine to get us away from the air raids.

We were very happy there and used to go to school at a place called Dormansland in a pony-trap. I think we went there only in the morning.

The lessons ended with a short religious service and the final hymn was always O God Our Help in Ages Past.

It was at this time that I first discovered in a rather macabre way that my father was different from other fathers and was a great man.

I was about five years old at the time and I said to a little boy at school (it makes me blush to recall the episode): “Will you be my chum?”

He said: “No.”

I said: “Why not?”

He said: “Your father murdered my father.”

I said: “What do you mean?” He said: “At the Dardanelles.”

So when I got home I told my mother who was naturally distressed and explained to me about the Dardanelles.

I am sorry to say it made me feel immensely proud and I realised my father was a boss man who could order other fathers about. My discovery that my father had exceptional powers was reinforced in a more mundane matter.

Often my mother and father were not at Lullenden tor many weeks. He was making munitions and she was running canteens for munition workers.

One day we heard that my father was coming down that afternoon at tea time. We had run out of jam. My father has never had tea as a meal in his life. He always said: “I don’t believe in eating between meals.” However, we thought he would come and sit with us while we had our tea.

So with a precocious sense of propaganda I collected 10 or 12 empty jam pots and put them on the tea table. My father is not particularly observant about these sort of things, but a collection of 12 empty jam pots caught his eye. He was horrified to learn that we had no jam. The next day several jars arrived.

He seemed to me a very powerful man. He could order the fathers of other boys into battle and could produce jam.

Under my father’s encouragement I learnt by heart “Ye Manners of England who guard our native shores…” When my father and mother and their important friends came down for the weekend. I was invited to stand on a stool and recite this poem.

I particularly enjoyed the last verse: “The meteor flag of England shall yet terrific burn, till England’s troubled night be passed and the star of peace return.”

I remember this vividly and I always thought that I had enjoyed these recitations.

But it seems that I bore some resentment against my father in the matter. For my mother has since told me that I used to refer to my father as the “meteor beast.”

One last recollection of Lullenden. A splendid old man with a white beard who looked like King Edward VII came to stay. He was Sir Ernest Cassel and I understood that he had been a great friend of my grandfather’s as well as being a friend of my father and mother; also that he was rich.

On the morning he was due to leave, my sister Diana was summoned to see him and came back with a £1 note.

The nanny said: “Now Sir Ernest wants to see you.” I said. “Do you think he is going to give me £1 as well?” “No,” said she, “I think he’s going to give you something bigger.”

I was not aware that there was anything bigger than a £1 note so I approached Sir Ernest with lively excitement.

He gave me a £5 note. I did not know that such a thing existed. It seemed more than all the money in the world.

I saw him once more about a year later. Again he gave me a £5 note. I have seldom been solvent since.

I discussed Sir Ernest’s generosity with my governess, Miss Kinsey. She said: “Well, you see, he is a millionaire.” This was the first time I had heard the use of this magic word.

She explained to me as best she could what a millionaire was. I asked whether we knew any other millionaires. She said: “Yes. Colonel and Mrs. Spender-Clay who live nearby at Ford Manor. I used to work for them. They are certainly millionaires because Mrs. Spender-Clay was an Astor.” “Don’t we know any other millionaires?” I asked.

“Well, your father’s friend Sir Phillip Sassoon is certainly a millionaire.”

I had not then met Phillip Sassoon; later I often did, but neither he nor the Spender-Clays ever gave me a fiver.

Shortly before I was eight I went to a boarding school, Sandroyds, which was then at Oxted in Surrey.

There was a gang of bullies at the school organised by two boys who held the whole school in awe.

They would send their minions to arrest any small boy like myself whom they did not like, and frighten him by swinging and cracking whips around their heads.

Many other small boys less uninhibited than myself were terrorised and enslaved by this process. So I formed a counter-gang to resist these outrages.

My gang consisted of a very tough boy called Benn, who I think was a nephew of a Member of Parliament called Sir Arthur Shirley Benn, and three Spanish princes, Alvaro, Alonzo and Atalfo of Orleans-Bourbon.

Benn was my chief of staff and the three Spanish princes were my bodyguard. We got the better of the old bullies and demoralised them.

My greatest friend at Sandroyds was a boy called Rattigan. He was a member of my counter gang and in the holidays he would ask me to lunch at his mother’s home and we would go to see a matinee, usually a Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes.

In the next holidays my mother would ask him back and we would go to see another play.

When we left Sandroyds he went to Harrow and I went to Eton, and I didn’t see him again for 25 years. Meanwhile in the early thirties I began to read in the papers about a clever young playwright called Terence Rattigan who had written a play called French without Tears.

I wondered often whether it could have been my boyhood friend but it was not until many years later, just after World War Two when I met him on the liner Queen Elizabeth in Beatrice Lillie’s cabin, that I discovered he was.

One of the things I remember very well about my four years at Sandroyds was that Queen Marie of Rumania came down to inspect the school.

We were all drawn up in two lines on the cricket field. Accompanied by Mr. Hornby, the headmaster, she inspected all of us.

She naturally embraced her three nephews, the Princes Alvaro, Alonzo and Atalfo; she also embraced me.

I was flattered but surprised, and supposed that she had done this because I was the son of a famous man. I had been indicated to her by Mr. Hornby as the son of Mr. Churchill.

What made us giggle very much was when she also embraced Rattigan, for this could not have been due to relationship or the fame of his parents, but to his charm and good looks.

When I was about 12 my father asked me whether I would like to go to Eton or Harrow. I thought it was very civilised of him to give me the option.

We had been an Etonian family for many generations. My father was sent to Harrow only because it was quaintly thought at the time that he suffered from lung trouble and that Harrow on the Hill would be better for him than Eton in the smog.

Lack of lung power has never subsequently been detected in my father, but perhaps it was the climate of Harrow which rid him of this complaint.

My father had not been happy at Harrow. I doubt if he would have been much happier at Eton, but I was greatly complimented that he gave me the choice.

I inspected both institutions. It seemed that there were many fewer rules and much less discipline at Eton than at Harrow; accordingly I opted for Eton and joined Colonel Sheepshanks’ House in October 1924.

I remember very little about Eton except that I wanted to escape as soon as possible and get to Oxford, an ambition I achieved well before I was 18. When I got to Oxford, much as I enjoyed it, my ambition was to escape into the outside world, which I did after four terms, by going on a seven-month lecture tour of the United States, at the age of 19. Now I was grown up. So this concludes the story of my childhood.

The post My life with father appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

I WOKE up in a hammock in the middle of a funfair wondering where I was that lovely May morning. Nearby, my 15-year-old son Joe and other Ramsgate boatmen were preparing for a normal day’s work.

But it was a bit of a mystery why we had suddenly been told, the day before, to “kip” at the funfair, instead of going home as usual.

And I wondered even more when an Admiralty messenger arrived, as we were unloading mail from a foreign ship, and warned us: “Stand by for a special job after lunch. Have your boat at the east pier.”

We were told to lay in extra fuel, although we were going to be towed out.

There was a tug out front with a Naval Commander on board, and four or five drifters, each of them making ready to tow a boat like ours.

“Take as much drinking water as you can,” someone said.

Another puzzle. The Navy boys brought us stacks of tinned corned beef, biscuits and cocoa, so I knew now we must be going on a long trip. But no one told us where.

The next thing they produced properly foxed us … a batch of ladders.

Along with the mystery was the suspense. It was now four hours since the “stand by” order, and I sent Joe briefly back to his mother, telling her that we might not be home that night.

Then, at 4.30, we got the signal, and the “mystery” trip started. The tug led the way, the drifters left the harbour with our 23 ton boat, and others like her, in their wake.

The tug led us steadily on, until it grew dark, and the Kent coast had vanished.

Finally, well past midnight, we anchored near a destroyer. In the distance there were heavy rumblings. Yet our “patch” of sea seemed still and quiet and, a bit tired, we wondered what the next day would bring.

It was not until dawn broke that we had an inkling of the mission we were on. For, on the beach, barely 150 yards away, there were thousands of khaki-clad soldiers.

They were waiting, helpless, starving, bewildered, for our little convoy to take them home.

My boat, the New Brittanic, is licensed to carry 120 passengers. But the tug sent out a row-boat, we threw those ladders across; and, in half an hour or so, about 200 tired, hungry men made us look like a floating sardine can.

We gave them all the food we had — then transferred them to the destroyer.

Again and again, we ferried survivors to the waiting warship, and we saw screaming bombers dive so low you could pick out their swastikas.

Our rescue operation lasted two long days.

Then, in the early hours of Friday, May 31, 1940, we rounded the Goodwins and anchored back in Ramsgate.

We were home safe. And, thanks to our boat, so were nearly 3,000 soldiers.

– WALTER READ, as told to Bill Evans

That was one man’s view of the miracle of Dunkirk, 25 years ago this week. Monday’s edition of All Our Yesterdays will show film of those history-making days between May 27 and June 4, 1940, when 299 British warships and 420 other vessels brought off 335,490 officers and men, despite constant enemy attacks. Here now is another man’s view of the great life-saving operation

… but first — ‘Find the boats’

THE finding of the little ships for the Dunkirk armada is one of the little-known sides of the story.

The operation was code-named Dynamo — and caught up in it was Mr. Ian Christie, now landlord of The Oak at Surbiton, Surrey.

He told me: “I was working for a boat firm at Teddington when, one May evening, I — and others — were summoned to the private office.

“We were handed a list of river craft to be commandeered immediately, and told it was top secret. There wasn’t written authority for seizure, but we were not to take ‘No’ for an answer.

“We started at Maidenhead and worked downstream. I was amazed how smoothly it went. Some people were aghast — but no one argued about giving their boat. No one asked for authority. We stripped the boats bare, took them to the assembly point, formed a convoy of up to 30 craft and started for our destination, Sheerness.

“At Gravesend, we stopped to pick up iron rations. At Sheerness, the Navy took over, and we went back by train to Teddington to assemble another convoy. It went on, round the clock, for about 15 days. I think I made eight journeys. The round trip took about two days.”

During this time Mr. Christie received three sets of call-up papers — but was told to ignore them until Operation Dynamo was completed. “It is that important,” he was told.

Mr. Christie continued his story: “The most extraordinary thing about the whole operation was the way people just gave up their boats.

“There was a wonderful spirit from everyone. One man left a bottle of whisky on the cabin table with a note: ‘To the future commander of the Scheda — best of luck, and may he have as good a time as I have had!’

“But one ship I took — the Barona – broke my heart. The owner had just finished painting her. She looked spanking new.

“Sometime later, I saw her off Brightlingsea — burnt out. I could have cried my eyes out. But it was nothing to do with Dunkirk.

“I learned that the crew had started to make a cup of tea and were then called away suddenly. They left the gas on — and she blew up.”

– RICHARD POLLOCK

The post Fine day for a sail… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FOR at least 10 people out of the millions of regular viewers, All Our Yesterdays will become a heartbreak programme on Monday.

Ten more widows, mothers, sisters, brothers and friends will see their loved ones wave farewell and give the thumbs-up sign in one of those cheery newsreel films of 25 years ago. Laughing troops who were later to die in action.

Every week on average, 10 people write to the All Our Yesterdays office asking for pictures of their dear departed.

Brian Inglis and producer Bill Grundy are aware of the heartbreak this weekly peep into the past can bring. They have weighed the cost and decided that this is one of the penalties that must be paid for the privilege of telling the story of Britain’s part in the Second World War.

Bill Grundy told me: “People are always writing to say I got a terrible shock last night when I saw my husband. Please try to let me have a picture of him. After that newsreel shot he was never seen again.’

“And, of course, within reason, we try to satisfy these requests. We have to confine ourselves to outstanding cases. Widows who ask for photographs of their husbands naturally get priority.

“It calls for a weekly picture hunt and a bit of detective work. We have to identify the face, track down the exact frame from thousands of feet of film, and get the picture enlarged.”

As the programme bites deeper into the war, Bill and company are preparing for more photo requests.

Going through the All Our Yesterdays postbag, I found the letters strange as well as nostalgic. A Welshman living in Oxford wrote to say that the war years were the happiest of his life.

He asked for a newsreel picture of his friends singing in the N.A.A.F.I. He wrote: “I am an invalid who has been desperately unlucky in life as a child and as a postwar adult.”

One of the most moving newsreel sequences showed a British European Forces platoon tramping through the snow in France. All Our Yesterdays received a request for pictures of every man in the platoon.

Not one of them had survived. But not one had been forgotten.

An infantryman wrote for a picture of a French farmyard near Gorre. “While I was sheltering from an air-raid,” he wrote, “a jagged chunk of shrapnel ricochettcd off the cobblestones and killed the man next to me.

“He was a Roman Catholic padre from Birkenhead. I want the picture to send to his sister.”

Often, it’s an innocent, cheery looking newsreel shot that brings the memories flooding back. Former RAF Flight Lieutenant Harold Perry, of Thornber Grove, Blackpool, saw himself and his crew clamber out of a battered bomber at Villeneuve, France.

The film was shot in March, 1940, after a typically hair-raising war incident. Mr. Perry takes up the story: “I was a wireless operator in the Whitley Mark V bomber. We had been on a fact-finding mission over Warsaw and landed by mistake at Saarbrucken, 15 kilometres behind enemy lines.

“The bullets began to fly as we tried to take off again on a very short runway. Luckily a drainage trench had been dug across the fields, and when the old Whitley hit it, we literally bounced off the ground.

“The Germans threw everything at us, but we managed to get away by some very fine ‘grass-cutting’ 3ft. above the ground.

I wrote because I am the only survivor of the crew of Old Queenie. We got back safely, but the rest of the boys were killed or reported missing on subsequent missions.”

And so the letters go on. Behind almost every incident and every face in the crowd featured in those newsreel films of 25 years ago is another story to match it in courage or sadness.

The post Pictures from the past appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Wednesday’s third programme in the series A Slight White Paper on Love is titled “Honouring the Contract”. The programme will examine some of the eccentricities of marriage and a divorced couple will meet again for the first time to discuss what went wrong with their marriage. (Male escape mechanisms from the pressures of marriage include a New York Club where men throw crockery at female effigies and a British Henpecked Husbands’ Club.) TV Times invited
ARTHUR DICKSON WRIGHT
noted surgeon and wit, to cast his analytical eye at the whole subject

HE is the man pitied by all, except his wife, who is deterred by none, least of all by the object of her nagging.

It is one of the strangest developments of the married state where the lady stands before a minister and makes declarations of loyalty and obedience to the man of her choice.

Then almost as soon as the ceremony is over and the covenant signed and sealed, starts on her life’s work of making the life of her husband as miserable as possible.

She starts upon his premarital behaviour, especially any slight straying from the paths of virtue or courteous behaviour during the period of engagement. But she was cunning enough not to complain before the final capture of her victim.

She planned to start as soon as the ceremonies were completed and even to mar the honeymoon with discordancies which the unfortunate man never expected in the idyllic days of his engagement.

The nagging generally works up in intensity — even the arrival of children does not mitigate — and very soon he gets accustomed to it.

If the psychologists are to be believed, it shatters personalities and leads on to neurosis.

The illogicality of it is not apparent to the lady, because, as a rule, the object of her jealousy is quite well behaved morally, otherwise he would leave her.

It may be said that he behaves himself because of his wife’s behaviour and she believes this to be so and keeps it up.

The picture of the henpecked husband walking slightly be hind his mate and listening to her remarks over her shoulder is a great gift to the cynical playwright.

Especially to French authors, who have taken great joy in this truly English spectacle, because I believe that only in England and America does this phenomenon exist and the pathetic, bedraggled figure of the henpecked husband is so well known.

The passage of the years does not ease the burden and her reproaches and recriminations do not cease when baldness, grey hair or fatness place him in a less dangerous situation vis-a-vis the opposite sex.

She seems to have no sense of the ridiculous as she continues to upbraid him when he is long past active wanderings. She will recount stories of so-and-so, who ran off with his secretary at the age of 70. No gifts, no flowers seem to be of any service in stemming the torrent of words.

Indeed, they often seem to be a stimulus to more nagging on the part of the lady, who feels they are a camouflage to cover other clandestine activities.

The really bad man, with drunkenness or immorality in» his nature, seems to escape the nagging.

The lady feels that it is hopeless to alter him and resigns herself to it and turns a blind eye to his shortcomings.

I feel that it is the good man who is henpecked. He settles down to his life in harness and becomes punch-drunk with the abuse constantly showered upon him.

He seeks the joy of his life in the company of friends outside his own home, not daring to bring them home for fear of losing them after they have witnessed him “catching it” from his wife’s tongue.

The victim sometimes comes to accept the constant abuse and will miss it when it stops. This is a great psychological mystery, because in the strife of daily malediction the husband finds a sort of happiness?

This was brought home to me once in a remarkable way. There was a wealthy, childless couple who never had a kind word for each other and had nothing in common except the front door.

The wife, whose nagging exceeded anything I have ever heard, had to have a minor operation and, while going under the anaesthetic, she died.

The husband was inconsolable and within seven days had committed suicide.

When, after years of persecution, the nagged husband gives up the struggle and leaves his troublesome partner, then the lamentation that breaks out has to be endured by all around her.

Her description of the departed husband to the Bournemouth boarding house makes one puzzled to know if there ever was such a wicked man in the world and makes one wonder why she ever married him.

I suppose that murder may enter the head of the nagged man as a way out of his desperate position.

An example is the wife thrown into the sea by her irate husband at the height of a fierce argument as to which was best to use for a certain purpose, a knife or scissors.

As the wife came up for the third and last time, the last thing the husband saw as she sank were her two fingers making a scissors movement.

The queerest thing of all is the fact that the henpecked husband may come to enjoy the nagging as much as the wife enjoys giving it—and the two are not as unhappy as they seem.

SSSH! THEY’RE OFF TO THE CLUB…

by RAY JOWETT
who visited Britain’s most secret society
— the Henpecked Husbands’ Club

IT’S the most secret society in Britain. For sheer “Sssh” it makes M.I.5, Mau Mau and the Mafia look like specialists in public relations. The society is the Henpecked Husbands’ Club.

For one day a year its secret meeting spells freedom for men who have reached the end of their tether; men exhausted under the weight of dog walking, dish washing and decorating.

They meet in secret to talk about their tormentors and plan and scheme for a better deal. The meeting place, changed every year to avoid detection, is nearly always in a remote part of Yorkshire, where the movement began.

“You see,” said the club’s vice president, Mr. Fred X, of Halifax, “we must have this one day away from our wives. It not only means a day without chores, it means we can swop ideas on how to make life more bearable in the next 12 months. Why, at the last meeting, I found out about instant mashed potato. An’ y’know, the missus still doesn’t suspect. She just thinks me cooking’s improved.”

President and Mayor are resplendent in fur-trimmed regalia. The Keeper of the Peace stands by the door to look out for marauding wives. Newcomers are dealt with first. The Medical Officer (a retired chimney sweep) checks their physical condition. “Got to be sure they’re suffering from housemaid’s knee or dish pan hands.” he said.

As the day goes on, the henpecked exchange recipes and other culinary information. One or two, driven to the brink of despair by nagging wives, have been known to throw all caution to the winds and sneak out to the local pub.

The annual bolt from domestic tyranny began 70 years ago. Six Methodist ministers (all henpecked, it seems), decided to get away from it all and spent a whole day together in a disused cottage in Yorkshire’s Cragg Vale.

Soon, the local laymen got wind of the retreat. Now the club has over 70 members including an Austrian languages professor.

What is a woman’s view of the club? “It’s just an excuse for dressing up.” said a wife, “a little bit of make-believe while they wallow in their self pity. They’re just like sheep.

“They don’t seem to realise that we wives encourage them to play their silly games for one day in the year.”

Only once has the conclave been disturbed. A Yorkshire lady, particularly adept with tongue and rolling pin, discovered her hubby’s intention of joining his downtrodden brethren. She followed him to the meeting and, just as he was about to take the oath, burst in on him.

“Thar’s no ’enpecked,” she roared. “Thee can coom on ’ome.” He went.

The post Henpecked, but happy! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE six-seater “Dove” aircraft that whisks the World in Action team across Europe is once more standing by, ready to fly off at a moment’s notice.

For World in Action returns to your screens on Tuesday.

The pilot is Capt. Jack Walters — a 34-year-old veteran of some 7,000 flying hours in 50 different types of aircraft. He has been conveying World In Action for the last four years and has taken them as far north as the Faroe Islands, east to Copenhagen, and south to Rome.

But to come down to earth — to London’s Golden Square, to be exact. It is a Tuesday: the World In Action team are in real action—preparing one of their “panic” editions for transmission that night.

Directing operations as smoothly as a master mariner is Alex Valentine — a broad, forceful 41-year-old Scotsman in a black crew-cut sweater. He smokes incessantly, and fortifies himself with endless cups of coffee.

He told me: “There have been, and I’m afraid will be, many ‘panic’ programmes. They’ve become part of our life. Some programmes come out sub-standard, so we scrap them. Or topical programmes fall down overnight — like the time Cassius Clay had a hernia and couldn’t fight.

“So then, we have to think and act quickly. We have to do a week’s work in two days. It’s impossible, of course, but somehow it gets done.”

He pointed to two camp beds in the office. “Those,” he said, “are the most important properties here — and coffee!”

He went on: “Physically, this job is a backbreaker, for all 32 of us. I’ve never seen so many dawns in my life, I don’t mind telling you.”

Basically, World In Action has four producers with four units working on four different programmes, here and abroad. When “panic” time comes, everyone who is available drops whatever he is doing and comes to Golden Square.

World In Action has been in existence for 764 days. They have screened 80 programmes from 24 different countries, and shot over three-quarters of a million foot of film.

“The thing is,” Alex said, “that you’ve got to be prepared to shoot two programmes, to get one on the air. On any ‘panic’ story, you’ve got to get at least 5,000 foot of film out of our library as an insurance, as a stand-by, in case what you get on the spot doesn’t work. You may never use a foot of it. Like the ‘Man In The Trunk’ case — the suspected spy who was about to be flown, doped, to Egypt.

“When this story blew up, I decided it was big enough to justify a ‘panic.’ We scrapped what we were working on, and I took the first night flight to Rome.

“The co-operation I got from the Italian police was fantastic. In less than two days they had built me an exact replica of the trunk and they used all their resources to make up a complete and detailed reconstruction of all aspects of the crime.”

Assistant to Alex Valentine on World In Action is Peter Heinze. He is one of three “fixers” — the back-roomers who do anything from obtaining £500 [£8,100 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] in Vietnamese money at the flick of an eyebrow to getting 10,000 toy soldiers delivered by the next post.

For “The Great Train Robbery,” for example, they hired the privately-owned Bluebell Line in Sussex for two days.

The biggest “panic” of all?

“John Bloom, I should think,” said Peter. “At the time of his empire’s collapse, we didn’t start on the programme until Sunday, for Tuesday transmission. Somehow, we managed to recall all our four producers and camera crews.

“We shot ‘around it,’ as best we could. We had to think of every possible background angle, in case we didn’t get Bloom himself. Once we had committed ourselves to it, we had no alternative.

“We kept ringing Bloom day and night. He kept saying … ‘Well, I’ll think about it. I’ll think about it …’ We never got him. Well, that’s the way it goes.”

ABOVE is the team which brings you World In Action. Below is a key to the jobs they do.

1 and 6, Assistant cameramen; 2 and 9, Cameramen; 3, Recordist; 4, Driver; 5, Assistant recordist; 7, Co-pilot; 8, Pilot; 10, Assistant editor; 11, Editor; 12, Librarian; 13, 14 and 15, Production office staff; 16, Secretary to executive producer; 17, 18, 22, 26, Four researchers; 19, 20, 27, 28 Four producers; 21, Executive producer; 23, Projectionist; 24, Assistant dubbing editor; 25, Editor; 29, Dubbing editor; 30, Assistant editor; 31, Production assistant; 32. Commentator.

The post Panic stations – for World in Action appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WILLIAM JOYCE was brought up as an Irish country boy but by the time of his death at the age of 39 he had become — next to Hitler — the most hated man in World War II.

The grotesque mouthpiece of the Third Reich (as far as England was concerned, he was the only ‘German’ who spoke directly to us), was known as Lord Haw-Haw. His story is told in Monday’s All Our Yesterdays.

Joyce, an insular, home-loving traitor and the voice behind the “Gairmany calling” propaganda broadcasts to Britain, got under the skin of the British nation as few other men have done this century.

At first, no one took him seriously. His peak audience of 6,000,000 regular listeners and 18,000,000 casuals was achieved on pure entertainment value.

The Press urged the British public to listen “for light entertainment.” Another reason why he had an avid following was that radio played a far bigger part in the nation’s life in 1940, with no TV and the blackout keeping people indoors.

But after the Blitzkrieg and the fall of France, people began to take Lord Haw-Haw more seriously.

William Joyce, born in America of Irish-American parents on April 24, 1906, moved to Ireland with his mother and father when he was three. He came to England about 12 years later.

He joined the English Fascist movement under Mosley, but when faced with conflicting loyalties in 1939, went to Germany with his wife Margaret.

When war broke out he found employment as a broadcaster in the English language section of the German propaganda ministry.

In his first broadcast on September 11, 1939, he accused the British of hypocrisy and colonialism and scoffed: “England will fight to the last Frenchman.”

A poll showed that more than a quarter of the British public had heard him, and that he reached his radio peak 25 years ago this week.

Jonah Barrington, a national newspaper reporter, wrote: “A gent I’d like to meet is moaning periodically from Zeesen. He speaks English of the haw haw-damit-get-out-of-my-way variety.” A few days later Barrington bestowed on him the title Lord Haw-Haw and it stuck.

By May, 1940, the Germans were themselves using the title Lord Haw-Haw, but his “popularity” was already on the wane.

His last broadcast to Britain, the Commonwealth and America was in April, 1945. With Germany on her knees he described Hitler and Goebbels as “barricaded heroes in Berlin.” His broadcast ended: “You may not hear me for a few months. Heil Hitler and farewell.” He was captured in a wood while trying to escape to a neutral country, convicted of high treason at the Old Bailey and hanged.

The pompous propaganda peddler of the Third Reich was dead.

The post Gairmany calling! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

BY any standards, the Claypole family of Mill Hill, London, is a large one. It numbers nearly 130 — bearing in mind, of course, that the family includes a “zoo.”

Richard, who is 16 and attends Mill Hill Public School, has been passionately fond of most things that walk, crawl or fly since he was five.

So much so, that his back-garden collection now totals something like 120.

Add to that his sister Jackie’s two ponies, Tippin and Jassamine, and Mum and Dad’s two Old English sheepdogs, Ming and Nana, and you have just about the full complement.

Richard can be seen in Zoo Time on Wednesday. When I talked to him it didn’t take me long to realise what a dedicated young zoologist he is.

He’s a member of the XYZ (Young Zoologists) Club, and a familiar figure to the keepers at London Zoo.

Most of his own collection are reptiles or amphibians, which he keeps in a heated greenhouse. But there is also a hairy armadillo and a badger cub.

How did it all start?

“When I was about five,” Richard said, “I became interested in insects. From there I went on to reptiles, including green lizards and a grass snake.

“Now I have 49 different species and about 120 items. And, of course, the collection is growing because there are always some of them breeding.”

For many people, the biggest problem with a zoo such as Richard’s would be feeding. But he takes that in his stride.

“The reptiles eat worms; my owls have chicken heads, which I get from the butcher; I breed locusts for the toads and frogs; Mr. Todd, the badger, gets horsemeat and breakfast cereal; and the armadillo has mincemeat, milk and chopped fruit.”

In most cases, the only thing standing between a boy and the pet of his choice — particularly if it happens to be a little offbeat — is Mum. But Richard has no trouble with his.

“She got used to seeing caterpillars wandering all over the place,” he said, “and eventually took the rest as a matter of course. Well almost …

“I don’t keep snakes any more, because she doesn’t like them.”

How does Dad react to the zoo? “Oh, very favourably,” Mr. Claypoie said. “It gives Richard a lively and real interest.

“And I would certainly far rather he did what he is doing than a lot of the things in which the modern generation indulges.”

Thirteen-year-old Jackie is more concerned with her ponies than with her brother’s collection, though occasionally she brings friends along to see the latest additions.

Most of her spare time is spent riding and show jumping, and a pile of rosettes is evidence of her success over the fences.

Mr. and Mrs. Claypole’s two sheep dogs appeared in a film with Richard Attenborough and have been featured in a number of TV commercials. Most families have their “black sheep,” and with the Claypoles it’s Mr. Todd, the badger.

He is only half grown, but already he weighs more than 20lb [about 9kg – Ed].

And he has decidedly destructive tendencies, even though some of them are unintentional.

“I’m afraid he may have to go fairly soon,” Richard said sadly.

What does Richard intend doing when he leaves school?

“I haven’t settled for any career yet,” he said. But I think it probably will be something involving animals.

“Either that, or I shall have animals as a sideline. You know, importing and exporting them.”

The post Boy with 120 pets appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Temperamental, unpredictable and camera-shy. The stars of People Like Us, ITV’s new wild-life series, which begins on Tuesday at 10.5, have all these traits. Among them, also, are stars with a sting.

The series, filmed and directed by 28-year-old cameraman Norman Langley, will include shots of bumble bees building a home, jackdaws swooping on a herd of deer and swarms of ants at work and play.

But how, I asked Norman, do you film the life of an ant? Or a pair of jackdaws perched perilously 50ft. above the ground in an old priory?

Everything, he assured me, was achieved by a combination of logic, instinct and supreme patience. I would rather put it down to ingenuity and clever improvisation.

The series compares the animal society with the human society, hence the title. The programmes will be looking at various kinds of animal societies — from the insect to the ape — and will show how the individual fits into the remarkable pattern that nature has evolved.

The first programme deals with bumble bees. They will be seen flitting over the ground, house-hunting. Their site might be an old mouse-hole, a tussock of dead grass, a discarded sack, or an old tea-chest in a shed.

“We ran and crawled over fields and streams trying to shoot them,” said Norman. “To do close-ups I had to get within two or three inches with my 63 mm. lens.

“Of course, it takes time. Six months on and off to film the bumble-bee story.”

Part of the bumble-bee story was shot indoors, with the bees in specially constructed hives with glass fronts.

Here, for the first time, Norman encountered his biggest problem of the series. How to get the subject used to the powerful light needed for filming?

“After a while,” he said, “the honeycomb in our beehive used to melt. And the bees were buzzing around frantically trying to do running repairs.

“In the end we tried to cool them off with strategically placed fans.”

Norman and his team had to take several close-ups of clusters of flowers swarming with bees — and it was then that he discovered the sting in his “stars.”

“We were all a bit apprehensive,” he said. “More so after the technical adviser got stung!”

Norman — six years working on programmes like Animal Story and Breakthrough — found the trickiest subject in the six-programme series was the ant.

“They disliked the heat, too,” he said. “We could never get them used to it.” Shooting was divided between an ant-heap in a Surrey wood, and an artificial nest of plaster, sandwiched between glass.

In the programme dealing with the jackdaws the problem facing Norman was how to get up to them in their castle at Ripley, Surrey. In the end, the team built a scaffold and used a massive 600 mm. lens to get close-ups.

The jackdaws also provided one of the most unusual shots in the series. In Richmond Park — a few miles from Ripley as the jackdaw flies — they were filmed swooping down on deer, stealing tufts of hair from their backs to line their nests.

Oddly enough, the deer seemed resigned to losing their winter coats this way.

The post Stars with a sting appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

JEAN (“The Shrimp”) SHRIMPTON is a girl with an “international” face. A face which looks at the world from the covers of all the best magazines.

She is now regarded as the world’s top model girl, at 20 years old, and can earn as much as £20 an hour.

At the moment she is working in New York, where Dick Fontaine and a television camera team spent four days following and filming her every move for World in Action. which is why she is on our cover this week.

On Tuesday you can see the results of their work in “The Face on the Cover”, which in telling the story of Jean gives pointers to success for 50,000 other models.

“Jean Shrimpton is at the top now.” Dick Fontaine told me. “I think she’s overtaken Suzy Parker, for she is wanted all over the world by the best photographers, magazines, agencies.

“And she has achieved one of her ambitions — modelling the Autumn Collections for world – famous photographer Richard Avedon.”

Dick has been to New York three times but has always been too busy to see much of it.

“The first time I saw only the inside of the United Nations building; the second time, I saw the inside of the Plaza Hotel with the Beatles,” he said. “I’ve still no idea what there is in New York apart from taxi cabs and treble-deck sandwiches.”

American photographers are efficient and professional, according to Dick. Models are professional and used to working at speed—though most of them are German, English or Danish.

“They all work harder. They all get more money,” he said. “It was the top thing for Jean Shrimpton to go to America. All the best-known photographers are there, and they are not necessarily the best. ”

Jean Shrimpton was well established in Europe before she went to America.

“When I was in Paris a couple of months ago, I counted eight covers of different nationality magazines with Jean’s face on the front —on just one kiosk,” said Dick. “It’s becoming the same in America now. She’s so much in demand. People recognise her in the streets.

“She is the face of this year and last year, and every woman wants to look like her. They all adore her in New York. In fact, it’s ‘the thing’ to be English in America at the moment.”

While the World in Action team in New York followed Jean Shrimpton, their liaison girl and researcher in London, Jenny Isard, was talking to Jean’s parents for more facts on the world’s most sought-after model.

Dick was worn out chasing Jean Shrimpton in New York — “she moves pretty fast,” he said — but he would like to work there. “It’s a good place to work if you like working hard, and if you like cities, and. New York is a real city.”

The post The face on the cover appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A new series of Granada’s Men of Our Time begins on Wednesday. There are four programmes in the series dealing with Lenin, King George V, Stanley Baldwin, and Hitler. Here EARL ATTLEE assesses the lives and influence of the four men.

THE four personalities of whom I write today form a totally disparate group.

Two of them are characteristic British figures who exemplify in their careers and qualities that process of continuity and peaceful change which differentiates our island story from that of the continent of Europe.

The other two are dynamic figures whose careers have profoundly influenced world history, the one an anachronism, a throw back to barbarism, the other the protagonist of a new way of life, the ultimate development of which is of profound importance to the human race.

KING GEORGE V had the great advantage, which he shared with his second son, of not being born heir to a throne. Brought up to manhood as a serving officer in the Navy, he was somewhat alarmed when the death of his elder brother opened to him the prospect of succeeding his father to the British Crown.

He was reassured by his cousin, Prince Louis of Battenberg, that there was no better training for a high position than service in the Royal Navy.

Years later the same advice was tendered by his son, another distinguished admiral, Earl Mountbatten, to King George VI, and its wisdom is again illustrated in the Duke of Edinburgh.

King George had no easy time. He had to deal with a constitutional crisis in the clash between the Lords and Commons in 1910. Though fearing an undermining of the hereditary principle, he gave his assent to Mr. Asquith’s threat to swamp the Lords, if they proved obdurate.

He then had to face World War I and give the nation the example of steadfastness and sympathy in critical times.

A few years later he was faced with an unknown quantity, a Labour Government. A narrow reactionary might have tried to avoid this by trying to get the two capitalist parties to combine. Not so King George.

He acted as a constitutional monarch. I did not meet him often, being Postmaster General, but found him friendly and interested in the work of my department.

I would have described him as a good, commonsense man of average ability with a strong sense of duty to his people.

I understand that he was not very successful as a father, his sons being somewhat in awe of him. His son was the first of the Georges to break away from the unfortunate tradition of the dynasty in this respect.

STANLEY BALDWIN I knew well, indeed for some time I was his opposite number in the House of Commons. He was the son of a Midland businessman, but related on one side to the pre-Raphaelite painter Burne Jones, and thus in contact with the circle round poet and artist William Morris, and, on the other, to Rudyard Kipling.

With this background he naturally had a broad outlook.

Though half Scottish he was characteristically English in his love of compromise and his desire for peace at home and abroad. I always felt that, though he disagreed with Labour, he understood our outlook. There was nothing he liked better than having long talks with Labour members.

He did two great services to his country. The first was after the General Strike in which, not unsuccessfully, he sought to assuage the bitter class conflicts in the nation and did much to modernise the Conservative Party. The second was over the abdication crisis when he interpreted the real feeling of the country.

He consulted me at the time and I think I gave him the right advice as to the feelings of the majority of the people. He was less successful in facing the international situation.

He failed to bring about “the great alliance,” to use Sir Winston Churchill’s expression, which would have prevented World War II. Yet he also failed to rearm Britain, which was the alternative.

If he had shown the same courage in facing the dictators as he did the Press Lords, the course of history might have been changed. In other matters, notably India, he showed a forward looking view, thus serving the spirit of peaceful change.

LENIN, whose doctrines still inspire nearly half the peoples of the world, though a prophet of revolution, was essentially Russian. A devout follower of Karl Marx, he got his chance to apply Marxist principles to a great country.

Marx himself was apprehensive at the idea of his principles being applied by the Russians. I think that he had always thought of his principles being applied in a country which had already experienced the bourgeois liberalism which followed the industrial revolution.

A man of tremendous will power and personality, Lenin gave the leadership which the Russian revolution needed and without which it might well have failed owing to sectional and personal rivalries.

He was probably right in thinking that, in a country so backward as Russia, with no democratic tradition, violent revolution and a dictatorship were the only way.

On the other hand, his switch to the new economic policy showed a degree of flexibility and it is known that he distrusted Stalin for his narrow-mindedness.

I recall George Lansbury, telling me on his return from a visit that Lenin would have liked to have had advice from the Socialist thinkers, the Webbs and R. H. Tawney, on future policy.

His views on the minorities in Russia and the impossibility of applying the same methods to countries with a different history showed a wider outlook. It may be that Mr. Kruschev [sic: Khrushchev – Ed] is a better Leninist than Mao Tse-tung.

ADOLF HITLER was unlike Lenin in every respect except will-power. Only in a country such as Germany with a morally and mentally sick people could such a man have attained power. In Britain he would have been only a nuisance and a bad joke, like Oswald Mosley.

There is almost nothing to be said in his favour. A dosshouse loafer with a collection of prejudices which he thought were ideas, he had great powers as a mob orator and considerable ability as a Party organiser.

He was fortunate in operating among a people of no political sense and of encountering no man of character and will power, either civil or military, able to withstand him. Hence his success up to 1940.

I am told that Germans try to forget him and rightly so — for apart from his autobahns he left behind him only ruin.

He was, in effect, a destructive force, resolved to rule without regard to the welfare of any other human being. But for Speer, one of the other Nazi leaders, he would have liked all Germany to perish with him.

The post Four faces of history appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The ancient art of falconry is the subject of “The Feathers of Death” in Granada’s Another World series on Tuesday. In the programme Douglas Fisher follows the training programme of a wild young Spanish falcon. Here is the story of a young man who has already faced this several times himself — Mr. Terry Pickford of Blackpool, one of the North’s leading falconers

KING HAROLD was an expert with falcons. In medieval times no thane or noble worth his salt would have been seen hunting without them.

But the eminent early aficionados of falcons and falconry couldn’t have seemed more remote as we strode out across the featureless stretch of heathland just outside Blackpool.

The gaudy painted face of the “Golden Mile” was only a few minutes away — as the hawk flies.

And the falconer I was accompanying had already spent the best part of his day at the drawing board in the British Aircraft Corporation works at Warton.

Only the elaborately reinforced glove he was wearing conjured up any of the romantic imagery I have always associated with this most ancient of British sports.

The Goshawk, with eyes like the Angel of Death, poised rigidly on his wrist.

“Some people will tell you that their birds have a genuine love for them,” said Mr. Terry Pickford, 19-year-old junior technician and modern-day falconer.

“I think that’s a lot of poppycock myself. The only thing that binds a bird of prey like this to its owner is the food that he provides for it.

“Love doesn’t enter into the arrangement at all — as far as the bird is concerned.

“Keeping a hawk or a falcon does have its commercial possibilities. Only recently I was invited to use the bird to scare away sparrows, which were proving a bit of a problem to several factories.

“And if you’re well known you get work with your falcon in films or by providing pictures for magazines. But generally the birds cost more than they make.”

Mr. Pickford, who calls his bird Blitz, got interested in falconry five years ago after reading a book about golden eagles.

“But getting a good bird is a lot more difficult than you would think,” he said.

“You can’t go into a pet-shop and buy yourself a hawk or a falcon. You can’t buy any British birds in Britain — it’s against the law.

“You have to send abroad for them, and it can be an expensive business.”

A Goshawk like Blitz costs about £15 [£260 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed]. Falcons can cost £40 [£680] or more.

And when the bird has been bought the problems are still only just beginning.

“It has to be trained to eat from you,” he said. “Trained to sit on your wrist. Trained to return to your wrist. And trained eventually to hunt.”

Food is another expensive item. A bird has to be fed freshly killed meat every day. And the traditional equipment of the falconer, the glove, the jesses, the leash and the perches all add more to the bill.

“My advice to a potential falconer is not to bother — unless he is as wildly enthusiastic as I am,” said Mr. Pickford.

“The more work you do with these birds, the more you realise what you have to learn.”

But with all its problems the sport which was originally the birthright of princes never loses its fascination for the young Blackpool engineer.

“There’s marvellous satisfaction in training a wild creature like this into such a superbly efficient hunting instrument,” he said.

A cruel sport?

“Only to the falconer,” he said. “In the course of a day’s hunting, you are likely to have to run about 10 miles through broken country and over all kinds of obstacles.”

And when I pressed the point:

“It’s much less cruel than a gun. If you shoot a rabbit and only manage to wound it, it may take days to die.

“If a falcon hits, it kills instantaneously. And if it misses, the quarry gets away unharmed.”

Falconry and a general study of ornithology doesn’t leave much time for any other kind of relaxation for Mr. Pickford. Like girl friends.

“Most of the ones I had didn’t really like the falcon,” he grinned.

“I suppose they were jealous.”

The post No love from falcons appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

MISS ANGELA LLOYD is 21, has big, blue eyes and blonde hair that curls perkily at shoulder length.

She has rather unusual playmates, too, like Denise, a rheumatic Muscovy duck that can’t swim; Rebel, a rabbit that’s always on the run; and a gaggle of tame, baby sparrows that peck the grit from the soles of your shoes.

We all shared an interview in a backyard of the staff quarters at the Children’s Zoo, London, where Angela works and her off-beat animal chums live.

You can see Angela talking about rats and mice as pets on Zoo Time, on Wednesday. She is something of an expert on pet rodents, having kept and bred them since she was six years old. She talked to me about life in the Children’s Zoo … and the sort of things youngsters say and do when visiting this miniature Disneyland.

First, let’s introduce Denise and Rebel. Poor old Denise, aged about five — which I am assured is elderly for a Muscovy duck — has rheumatism in her webbed feet. As the affliction has dried out her feathers, it has upset her buoyancy and she can’t swim any more. A disastrous state of affairs for a duck.

But the girl helpers at the Children’s Zoo have adopted Denise as their personal pet. They even bath the old girl. She lives cosily in a bale of straw behind the staff quarters, growing old gracefully.

Rebel, the rabbit, is her bale-mate and keeps escaping from his pen in the Zoo. So he has been posted to the rear of the staff quarters, which are adequately enclosed but where he can roam freely.

“I’ve been working here for nearly three years,” said Angela. “Although I appeared in several TV plays and stage productions as a juvenile, animals have always been my first love.

“I adore the work. It gives me a chance to be near all the animals I’m interested in, mice and rats particularly.

“I look after and study rodents in the mornings. In the afternoons I take the children on pony rides. The children fail into two categories — the very shy ones and the super-confident, leave-me-alone-I’m-all-right ones.

“In fact, one little boy once told me: ‘Leave me alone. I know what to do. I’ve watched Rawhide!’ And he dug in his heels and almost managed to get a normally placid Shetland pony to break into a gallop.

“Hamsters, too, amuse the children. One day, two little boys watched fascinated for hours while a hamster chewed his way patiently through his hutch.

“Once he had escaped, they came and told me. ‘He’s super,’ they said. ‘Will you ask him to do it again?’

“And there was a sad scene when a little girl fed Hector, one of our mischievous goats, with a fresh loaf of bread.

“Hector left the bread … and gobbled the wax-paper wrapping. He loves that, although it’s bad for his digestion.

“But the little girl cried because she thought Hector didn’t want her loaf.

“I reassured her and told her he was a special goat who liked to eat paper and rags. Next time I looked around, sure enough, the little girl was feeding Hector her frilly handkerchief.”

Then Angela prepared to go and feed her mice. Mice? Weren’t girls supposed to be terrified of mice? “That’s silly,” said Angela. “They’re lovable little things.

“But I can’t stand spiders. Ugh. Even a tiny one sends me scampering away screaming.”

The post A duck that can’t swim! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Usually you find him sitting behind a desk, immaculately dressed and not a hair out of place, interviewing anyone from Cabinet Ministers and Archbishops to coal miners and artists. But this week Mike Scott, of Granada’s Scene at 6.30, has changed his lounge suit for sweater and slacks to bring viewers a breath of the great outdoors as he travels by canal barge from Lincoln to the Wash. And between programmes, as this picture shows, Mike shares the bargee’s chores with the rest of the Granada production team.

The post New role for Mike Scott appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WITH some people, it’s first editions. With others, it’s stamps, or match boxes or cigarette cards.

With Johnny Hamp [sic], host and producer of Granada’s Wednesday Pop Scene, in the Scene at 6.30 programme, it’s television debuts.

As pop-chief of Scene At 6.30 he has assembled a bundle of them since the programme was launched 14 months ago.

“When we decided we needed a pop musical item in the show every night, we had a problem,” said Johnny, behind a desk covered with new record releases.

“Most of the big names launched their records in London.

“We decided that if we were going to get the teenage audiences we wanted, we would have to start scooping the London shows.

“That didn’t only mean getting established names to come to Manchester first with their records.

“It meant digging out new talent before it had been fully recognised elsewhere.”

One of the first charttopping groups to make a television debut on Scene was Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas.

“That was a relatively straightforward deal — a straight recommendation and transaction with the Epstein stable,” said Johnny.

But a much more zany new talent hit the television public for the first time on the programme a few weeks later — Mr. Freddie Garrity and The Dreamers.

“I was invited to see them playing at a Manchester club,” said Johnny.

“I thought their act was killingly funny. They threw everything into it in those days — including dust-bin lids and bicycle frames!

“Funny thing is, Freddie and the lads had been auditioned by Granada only 12 months before and had been thrown out on their ears because their act was considered absurd and stupid.”

The Dreamers have never forgotten their first television break. And they still launch all their new releases through the show.

About the same time, another crazy crew turned up at the studios for a first television appearance — The Hollies.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them,” grinned Johnny. “They were dressed in jeans and shirts that didn’t match, and they looked more like rough kids than musicians.

“But we put them on, because they had a new kind of talent, and they never looked back.

“I still think they’re one of the greatest groups to come out of the North.

“When The Mindbenders did their first television stint,” said Johnny, “they were directed by Silvio Narrizano – who had just finished the award-winning production of War and Peace!

“Dave Berry? The first time I saw him I thought that he was wasted on television — and I still do.

“He thrives on audiences. He can work them up into a frenzy of excitement.”

The complete opposite, in fact, of those two cool kittens of British show-business — The Caravelles. Who very nearly didn’t make their television debut on the night they were booked to appear on Scene.

“They arrived at the studio at six o’clock and went in front of their first television cameras without any rehearsal,” Johnny explained. They missed their plane from London, and had to take one to Liverpool. We rushed a car to Merseyside to get them, but by the time they got to the studios there wasn’t time for a run through.

“You’d think if anyone could catch a plane it would be them, wouldn’t you — with a name like The Caravelles.”

The problems of producing nightly musical items for Scene have been magnified ten fold with Wednesday’s Pop Scene.

“On the new show we are trying to feature stars who are in the hit parade that week.” Johnny explained.

The performance of a new record usually coincides with the disc’s general release.

But occasionally, Pop Scene jumps the gun even on this.

“Take Millicent Martin,” said Johnny, “we had her on the show singing ‘Nothing But The Best’ three weeks ago. And the disc only goes on sale this week.”

Four scalps that don’t hang from Johnny the Collector’s belt are those of The Beatles.

“But there is some connection,” said Johnny. “They made their television debut in People and Places — the programme from which Scene sprang — on October 17, 1962. They have appeared in Scene a number of times — and we expect to feature them with their new releases in the months to come.”

The post Pop collector No. 1 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Sir Winston Churchill is 90 on Monday, when, as a birthday tribute, All Our Yesterdays will devote its entire programme to him. TV Times asked Randolph Churchill to write about his father. The result is a unique tribute, perhaps the most remarkable ever paid to this great man.

SEAHAM HARBOUR, November 30, 1964

TODAY, on what would have been the ninetieth anniversary of my father’s birthday (if only he had survived), I sit down to tell a tale of the sad state of what was once the free world.

Ever since 1940, when Hitler occupied our country, I have been prisoner in a slave-labour camp in County Durham and have been forced to work in the coal mines.

My readers are too young to remember the past — the golden, free world in which we used to live. Now the Swastika flies all over Europe — over the Louvre, over the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace.

Over the White House itself, and the Federal Reserve Bank in Fort Knox.

People of my generation, if any survive, will realise the full irony of the fact that I have had to smuggle this story to the only country in which it can be published — the Chinese Peoples’ Republic.

All else has succumbed to Hitler. He is now a venerable and largely benevolent figure aged 75.

He administers his colossal empire — the largest since the days of Rome — in a paternal fashion from his palace in Potsdam. He does not condescend to spend more than a week at Buckingham Palace, or more than three weeks in the White House. He leaves the administration of these vast territories to his able but not so benevolent, gauleiters.

For the record we may as well know, now there is an opportunity of a free Press in the Chinese Peoples’ Republic, how these events came about. The year 1939 saw the culmination of the Baldwin-Macdonald decade.

During this time the English people were lulled into a sense of lethargy and apathy.

They were taught by their masters to place their reliance upon the League of Nations — a bogus absurdity which President Woodrow Wilson was not allowed by the American Senate to adhere to, and from which Germany and Italy were to resign.

The defence of the country had been scandalously neglected by the Conservative Party with the willing co-operation of the Socialist Party. Even the timid and tardy attempts of the Secretary of State for War, Mr. Hore-Belisha, to introduce conscription in 1939 were voted against, not only by the Socialist Party.

Sir Archibald Sinclair also led the Liberals into the Opposition lobby with this caitiff and recreant attitude.

All this, of course, is old history. Any of my readers who have not been permanently brainwashed will recall how in June, 1940, France was overwhelmingly defeated, and how Chamberlain called in Lloyd George to play the role of an English Petain and negotiate terms for surrender with the Germans.

They will remember how the Germans, to begin with, treated us with consideration because of our handing over our Fleet in good order to them; how the Germans used this Fleet, joined with theirs, to protect their convoys for the peaceful takeover of Latin America.

How the Americans were supine spectators of this flagrant breach of the Monroe Doctrine; How the Americans eventually in 1943 reacted; How they were defeated by the Germans and the Japanese.

It is too late to lament those events.

Of course the bravest of our race resisted. Duff Cooper and Anthony Eden made impudent and saucy speeches. Hitler indicated in the early 1940’s that London would be obliterated unless they were silenced. Silenced they were.

Now, nearly 25 years later, we are all so numbed by the slavery in which we dwell, where no revolt, no resistance is any longer possible without even a handful of people in whom a spirit of freedom still resides.

Can anything be better than to escape to the Chinese Peoples’ Republic? It is reputed that there, thousands of miles away, whither it is practically impossible to escape, a few breaths of freedom can still be drawn.

At the age of 53 I am too broken in mind and spirit to think of escaping myself. It is only through the kindness of a few friends, who have supplemented my rations, that I have been able to summon up the energy to write this brief account which a more adventuresome friend of mine hopes to smuggle to China.

I don’t suppose any Englishman or American will have an opportunity of reading this. But perhaps it will give a few Chinese comfort in their lonely freedom.

It is tempting to think of what might have happened if there had been a man who, in 1940, could have rallied the British nation to a sense of its duties and responsibilities.

A man who could have gained a breathing space in which the United States might have come into the war.

My father, Winston Churchill, who is little remembered today was, alas, killed in Flanders in 1915 on his 41st birthday. Is it fanciful to suppose that if he had lived all might have been different?

Could he, perhaps, have galvanised the British peoples, with the blood of Marlborough and Lord Randolph Churchill in his veins, into a heroic resistance?

More extraordinary things have happened than this in the history of the world.

Perhaps he could have held the ring and formed a grand alliance which would have beaten hell out of the Hitlerian hordes.

Perhaps, at least, part of Europe, the United Kingdom, India and the United States might still be free if he, or some other equally audacious spirit, had been available, even at the age of 65, in the early summer of 1940.

It was not to be. And it is vain to make such speculations.

All resistance is now impossible, but some of the older ones like myself can still record their recollections and their fancies, writing on scraps of lavatory paper in cellars late at night by the light of improvised tallow candles.

The post The most unusual birthday tribute a son has ever paid to his father appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

CLANG! Yes. World in Action certainly rang the bell with Seven Up — that delightful keyhole glimpse of the men and women who’ll be running Britain in the year 2,000.

“Please,” pleaded thousands of viewers. “Please may we see it again?” And Granada is happy to oblige at 9.40 on Wednesday.

This 45-minute programme, which came out of the blue in May this year, had such a stunning impact that TV people have already come to recognise it as a classic.

Seven Up was derived from the fact that today’s seven-year-olds will be running the country at the turn of the century. And a famous quote that goes: “Give me a child of seven and I will give you the man “

The idea was put up by award-winning Canadian drama producer Paul Almond. And those journalistic “hard cases” who cover the world’s trouble spots for World in Action were unable to resist it.

The programme’s present executive producer Alex Valentine, told me: “Standards on World in Action are perpetually high, but now and again, a programme rings the bell. This was one of them.”

Almond interviewed dozens of seven-year-olds from all branches of society. A boy from Liverpool’s middle-class suburbs. A girl from the Surrey stockbroker belt. A boy from a children’s home. Two girls from London’s East End. A farmer’s son from the Yorkshire Dales.

Their views on life are not just sensational — they are of vital importance in taking the pulse of the next generation.

Their outlook is amazingly decisive for seven-year-olds. They speak frankly on love, leisure, marriage, education, money. The Beatles.

Like the young toff who had dabbled in stocks and shares but found the city page “frankly, quite boring ”

Other kids expounded, “I think The Beatles are mad.” “I have a girl friend but I don’t think very much of her.”

One seven-year-old wanted to be a jockey. Another a missionary.

The response from viewers was tremendous and immediate. A number rang the TV centre on the same night of the programme asking if they could adopt the little boy from the children’s home. “These calls were genuine and the people were very sincere,” said Alex Valentine.

A mammoth post arrived. Education authorities wanted to borrow the film to show in teacher-training colleges. A children’s hospital asked if they could show it to their student nurses.

If you missed this programme and your mouth is watering, you can judge for yourself on Wednesday.

The post Young World in Action appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

YOU could call them the ‘camera commandos’. But don’t call too loudly. The producer might hear and start getting ideas about sending them on a patrol in the Borneo jungle.

That’s how it is with Scene At 6.30. Three interviewers — Mike Scott, Mike Parkinson. Peter Eckersley — between them have had enough adventure in 18 months to make the Three Musketeers look like a trio of retired scoutmasters.

Take Mike Scott. Since the programme began he has faced fire and flood. He has balanced on a plank over a fast running river to interview a woman marooned in her bedroom. He has crouched behind steel plating on an artillery range with shells whizzing past him.

Last summer he took a barge down the Lincolnshire canals to the open sea. A week later he was perched up in a Hastings Bomber making a trip through an Atlantic storm.

A day later he sat astride an elephant telling it elephant jokes. And to cap it all, the next day he floated down less pleasantly odorous reaches of the River Irwell, Salford, in a gondola.

Stratford-upon-Avon and back in half a day to make a film about Shakespeare. Up a misty mountain in the Lake District to talk to a hermit.

It’s all in a day’s work in Scene At 6.30. And it’s all in a hurry. The task master (or is it slave driver?) is producer David Plowright. He’s also what they call an ‘ideas man’. Someone only has to pass his line of vision after having an ordinary short, back and sides, and David has Mike researching into hair styles.

While Mike Scott is facing up to his tasks, be assured that Mike Parkinson is no less busy earning a living in no less suicidal ways. He might be patiently waiting by a hole in a stall for a python to pop out, or tossing about in an open boat off Flamborough Head in rough weather talking about a giant crab.

Mike Parkinson is the man they send down coalmines, or put on a thunder-rock fortress in the North Sea, or haul up into the air on a giant crane. Earlier this year he faced loaded revolvers in the Zanzibar rebellion.

Some months later, he mixed with Isle of Man nationalists who boasted they would fight if ever Lancashire annexed the island.

As a reward for a job well done, producer Plowright made him a tinker and sent him trudging across the Emerald Isle with a caravan.

What the viewer never saw was the time when Mike was on horseback without the caravan and the rein snapped. The horse bolted and our hero galloped across County Kerry as if the ‘little people’ were chasing him.

About the time he was bringing his steed to a halt, Peter Eckersley was taking things peacefully, doing a spot of fishing—up to his neck in the treacherous Solway Firth, seeking a tussle with a 30lb. salmon and reciting Walter Scott for the camera.

Peter is the man who has to grab toothbrushes and catch planes. Last year he covered the late President Kennedy’s tour of Ireland. This year he flew the Atlantic with The Beatles. He likes the giddy heights. If a building is being demolished, where better to stand and describe it than on the huge ball which is knocking it down? What better view of Liverpool than the one obtained from the top girder of the Roman Catholic Cathedral?

His latest trip was the five mile voyage from Ramsey to Panama — that is, the Panama registered pirate radio ship Caroline.

In the night sea he had to climb a rung ladder from a tiny boat bobbing below, with a microphone between his teeth instead of a cutlass. Fortunately, he was recognized and didn’t have to walk the plank.

The people who work on Scene At 6.30 are trained to touch tigers. If there’s a phoenix up a gum tree, one of them will be sent to catch it. If there’s a geni [sic] in a bottle, somebody will crawl in and interview it.

The post Always on the scene appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IT was on December 12, 1960, that All Our Yesterdays was first presented. I came to it a year later when James Cameron, who had launched it, decided to go back to his old addiction—the life of a roving foreign correspondent.

I would get letters (as doubtless he did) pointing out how much better it would be for all concerned if he could be induced to return to the programme, while I went to Jericho.

But then, the Abdication came up. By the time we had got through that nostalgic period, the producer Jeremy Isaacs, now running This Week, in which he has since been joined by James Cameron, the director, Peter Plummer, and myself felt so much a part of the 1930s, we sometimes had difficulty in remembering that we were living 25 years on.

I still often find myself, particularly after writing the script, thinking that it is 1939 now, and feeling the same irritation with Kingsley Wood (or whoever it may be) and the same delight at some tune of the time, “Music Maestro’’ or “Indian Summer”.

Incidentally, we’re going to devote the December 28 programme to the music of the period, with the Derek Hilton Trio and singers Pat O’Hare and Chris Langford — on the lines of the August Bank Holiday show.

The other night it was suggested on another TV programme that All Our Yesterdays might skip a few weeks, from time to time, when nothing much was doing, in order to concentrate on the big events. We might compress the phoney war period, for example, to move on to the blitzkrieg and Dunkirk.

It’s a tempting idea, but in fact we have found that much of the pull of these old newsreels lies not in what they show of great events, but in the ordinary occasions — a football match with a glimpse of Stanley Matthews, a parade with King George VI making some wry aside to Queen Elizabeth. We saw that in the cinema! We remember, or we read about it. Just occasionally, we were there.

The war is a great stirrer-up of these memories. Most of us would be hard put to recall what we were doing in, say, June, 1939. But nearly everybody over 30 remembers vividly where they were and what they were doing three months later. And there is more chance of seeing yourself, or people you remember on wartime newsreels because they showed so much more of ordinary folk at their jobs — in the Forces, in A.R.P., in industry.

If only there were some way to give notice that you were going to see yourselves, or members of your family! We are constantly getting letters saying that there, third from the left in the front rank of a squad of A.T.S. was Aunt Mabel — but she happened to be out of the room at that moment, letting in the cat.

“My phone hasn’t stopped ringing and people stop me in the street,” Sam Costa wrote to us the other day when we had shown him at the piano. “The one person who didn’t see the programme was me.”

But of those who have seen themselves on the programme, and written to us about it, the viewer whose comments gave us most pleasure was Lord Avon.

For some of us, in the years immediately before the war, Anthony Eden represented the true voice of his country — even more than Churchill.

I even noted with regret in my diary — normally used only to record “dates” and other trivia — that Eden had resigned from the Cabinet in February, 1938; “Chamberlain blackmailed by Musso” was my diagnosis, which was not so far out. That Lord Avon should be appreciative of the programme’s handling of that black year was praise indeed.

The post Catching up with the past appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A GIANT yellow bulldozer squeals and rumbles its way along a slum street. It snatches at a steel cable girdling a derelict house.

The crumbling roof sags, rotten walls totter and the eyeless sockets of windows are swallowed up in a cloud of brick and plaster dust.

It’s the end of a street. The end of a lifetime. The houses were bad. So was the past.

For nine weeks these yellow giants fascinated director-producer Norman Swallow as he headed a team of 26 technicians following in their destructive wake.

He watched the heart being torn out of the slums at Oldham, Lancs, where 1,000 houses are due for demolition.

His recordings and impressions will be screened as The End of a Street on Wednesday.

The project started on June 1. Swallow went out into the slum streets and picked his “cast” from the people he met. And he talked to hundreds of people in St. Mary’s ward of the town.

You will meet people like Mrs. Ellen Cartwright — Nellie the waitress as they knew her — at the Canteen Inn which will shortly be bulldozed into a heap of rubble and memories.

Nellie wept when the bulldozer tore into her two-up-two-down at No. 27 William Street.

“I saw it go brick by brick … and I cried. All my children were born there,” she said. She vows she’ll return to St. Mary’s ward as soon as the new flats start going up.

The End of a Street is a kaleidoscope of fears and hopes, of crumbled wood and stifled sobs.

Like the man who tells: “I was married there. My father lived there, my mother. My children were born there. It’s like someone you love being hurt.”

A community spirit existed there that can’t be traced on the new estates. There was Alice Buckley. Plump, jolly and homely.

When a pensioner was made homeless across the street, she took him in. “Like a stray dog,” she joked. “And he’ll come with me and my husband whenever we move.”

The lodger is 72-year-old Billy Travis, a bright-eyed little man in muffler and cloth cap, who was known throughout the district as Billy Borndrunk.

“Beer? I thrive on it,” he roared. “And I take my nickname in good part. I’ve had some good friends in these parts.

“But I’ll survive. As long as there’s a pub, a dart-board and a box of dominoes.”

Norman Swallow said: “We found lots of old people who did not want to go but after they had got a new council house they agreed it was like being on holiday for always.”

The End of a Street shows how much the problem is one of age. In a forum of five teenagers, college girl Anne Greaves pointed out: “Some old people are snobbish. And I can understand their point of view when they have no roots in their new surroundings.”

Schoolgirl Christine Cottrill detests her home town: “I don’t want to stay and live in it. It’s a dirty grimy hole. There are too many mill chimneys.”

The youngsters long for coffee bars, dance halls and amusements that cannot be found on new estates. But they are 4-1 in favour of staying in Oldham.

You will also see the “planners” — the men at the town hall who govern the people’s fate.

Of his title, Norman Swallow said: “The word ‘end’ means not only the physical destruction of the houses but the deeper destruction of the society they represent. Friendships are smashed as well as buildings. It is a dramatic moment in their lives.”

The programme, which has taken six months to produce from the original idea to the final editing, considers the wholesale destruction of 1,000 homes and its effect on 4,000 people. Swallow calls it, arguably, the town’s second Revolution.

The post The end of a street appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the first attempt on Hitler’s life by the German underground movement — to be dramatically recalled in Monday’s All Our Yesterdays. The story of the German anti-Nazi resistance movement is told here

by TERENCE PRITTIE

Diplomatic Correspondent of The Guardian, 16 years a foreign correspondent in Germany, and author of the book “Germans against Hitler.”

IT was in November, 1939, that the first attempt was made on the life of Adolf Hitler.

A bomb exploded in the Buergerbraukeller, a beer-hail in Munich, where Hitler had just been addressing a rally of the “old comrades” of the Nazi Party.

Along with the Reichstag fire, this bomb-plot remains one of the two unsolved mysteries of the Nazi era.

A man called George Elser was later arrested by the Nazis and murdered by them in prison. Elser was a Communist, and he may have been the instrument of a Communist plot.

It is also possible that there was no genuine plot at all and that the explosion was engineered by the Nazis, and timed to take place after Hitler had left the beer-hall. The Nazis used the incident as a pretext to send armed men across the Dutch frontier at Venlo where they kidnapped two British secret service agents — Captains Best and Stevens.

The Buergerbraukeller incident is a reminder that active opposition to Hitler among the Germans did not begin with the July, 1944, conspiracy organised by Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and his friends.

There was opposition to Hitler from the moment he seized power in 1933. But his opponents were at first not able to visualise resistance in terms of physical force or in terms of killing him.

This was because generations of Germans had eagerly embraced the teaching of Bismarck, that the citizen must serve the State unquestionably if the State is to be strong.

To almost all Germans in the first 40 years of this century, a strong Germany was their ideal. To them the assassination of the Head of the State was unthinkable.

Yet in March, 1933, the Social Democrats voted against the Enabling Act which gave Hitler the powers of a dictator. They refused to dissolve their party, and many of their members went into exile in order to fight Nazism.

Others distributed illegal pamphlets, organised cells in factories or crossed to and fro between Germany and the surrounding countries bringing information and money.

The Communist underground movement was also active and more than 250,000 Communists were sent to prison during the first six years of Nazi rule.

Individual members of the Roman Catholic and Evangelical churches did not hesitate to speak out against evil doings, even if this brought them into conflict with the authorities.

The youth of Germany could scarcely have been expected to oppose Nazism, for they grew up in the first flush of enthusiasm for the material achievements of the regime. They found themselves pitch-forked into a war which they believed had been forced on their country.

Yet there is the shining example of the White Rose group in Bavaria, whose members were distributing leaflets as early as 1942. Long before the lost battle of Stalingrad and the consequent anticipation of Germany’s defeat.

There are lots of other examples, too. of individuals who showed their loathing of Nazism and paid the penalty for it.

It was particularly difficult for German Conservatives to focus their minds on active resistance to Hitler. They were bound to Bismarck’s creed of service to the State.

Those of them who were soldiers were bound to the cause by a personal oath of loyally to the Fuehrer and were susceptible to zenophobia [sic] — “our country, right or wrong.” Even so, the German Conservatives, largely because they were men of action, were behind the serious attempts to kill Hitler.

In 1943 and early the following year, there were at least four such efforts. In three of them, the conspirators were quite prepared to blow themselves up together with Hitler. They were foiled only by last-minute changes in his plans.

In March, 1943, a bomb was smuggled into Hitler’s plane, shortly before he boarded it. He might have been blown to pieces in mid air, had not a tiny part of the mechanism failed.

The German Conservatives debated a coup against Hitler in 1938 and 1939. They planned to kill him in 1941 as the Nazi armies drove deep into Russia and the war looked like being won. To me, this is at least as significant as the final drama in July, 1944.

The truth is that there were many Germans who did their best to oppose Hitler — even though their numbers were small in comparison with the mass of their sheep-like fellow citizens.

Their story should not be forgotten, least of all by the Germans of the post war era. For the memory of their courage and independence of mind will do more than anything else to help Germany to grow up self-reliant and self-aware. defenders of human liberties and rights.

The post Blind faith protected Hitler appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FIND film of typhoid germs wriggling around under a microscope.

Find film of baby boxes — new machines for the automatic handling of infants.

Get a shot of banknotes being burnt.

Those are typical assignments handled by George Lys, film librarian of Granada’s World in Action, on Tuesdays.

The germs — needed for last year’s programme on Zermatt — were eventually located after Lys had rung round most of the London medical schools.

Westminster Medical School had just the film.

The baby boxes film never did arrive.

As for the burning banknotes, they must surely be one of the oddest episodes in British television.

The World in Action camera team tried to stuff real notes down drains. They tried to chuck them off Westminster Bridge. But in both cases the authorities stepped in and said “Not Allowed.”

Lys tried to find film of banknotes burning.

He used to work on the Rank “Look At Life” cinema series, and remembered a sequence of Bank of Scotland notes being burnt, but Ranks said they had been forbidden to use this film, except in that original context.

The Bank of England had no such film.

So the World In Action team, tiring of this vain attempt to chuck their money away, decided to make their point (that money was being wasted on defence) in another way.

But the finished World In Action film has never been publicly shown – except for a brief excerpt screened by the BBC — because the ITA stepped in and banned it as lacking balance.

George Lys, a lean, keen, energetic 40-year-old, has seen many millions of feet of film pass before his eyes during the past 25 years.

His memory, he says is unexceptional. But stored in his head is invaluable knowledge of how to get shots of all kinds.

Any historical material, any sequence that the hard-pressed World In Action camera team haven’t time to go out and shoot for the next programme, it’s George’s task to get — fast.

Most helpful of all sources to him is the United States Information Service. The Russian Sovexport Films are also extremely obliging.

Car firms and the big airlines provide ungrudging assistance. “We asked TWA for a shot of a jet in flight,” said George. “They didn’t have one, sent a camera up within a few hours and flew the film straight to us.”

One of the oddest, most valuable sources, for last January’s programme on the Lakonia sinking disaster was a passenger.

“We sent a questionnaire to the victims asking if they’d had lifeboat drill, and so on.” George explaihed.

“One man had taken some 8mm. film of the abandonment of the ship. We had it enlarged to our 16mm. size and it turned out to be very good.”

George’s job also involved the cataloguing, for possible future use, of all film taken for World In Action.

“There may be 10,000 feet shot for a programme, of which about 950 get used. The rest is filed.

“When we use film crews in the States we sometimes get crazy guys filming everything in sight.

“For the feature on Jean Shrimpton modelling in America, we ended up with 22,000 feet, and 93 of them got on to the screen!”

So that he knows exactly what he’s got and where it is, George prefers to work without an assistant, though I should mention that, as part of World In Action’s policy of using the best available equipment, he does employ a robot.

It is “the world’s first fully automatic splicing machine” for glueing film together!

The most frustrating part of George’s job is having to work in an office from which his reporting and researching colleagues are constantly flying off to exotic places in search of news.

George, who’s just returned from a family holiday in Poole, said: “I haven’t been abroad for 15 years and you can imagine that this job makes me long to fly out to see the world in action for myself.”

The post Money’s not for burning appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

LIKE a snow-covered volcano that has fumed impatiently for weeks below the surface, World in Action could shake everyone when it erupts for the third time on Tuesday.

The six-week break between the last series and the new was meant to be a holiday for its globe-trotting team of reporters and cameramen.

Instead, World in Action‘s sensitive fingers have been on the pulse of every major international story that has broken since the end of July.

Some holiday! When the Vietnam crisis broke in the evening papers, a World in Action team flew out to Indo-China at midnight the same night.

In the hair-raising fortnight that followed, producer Mike Hodges and cameraman Mike Boultbee were ambushed in the jungle while on a river patrol and almost blown to pieces in their hotel.

I met the two Mikes the day they arrived back in London, sunburned and travel weary from their trip half-way round the world.

Hodges told me of their march through Vietnam to the 17th Parallel with an American jungle patrol.

“We were trudging down a jungle track,” he told me. “when suddenly we were met by a hail of bullets — right from nowhere. All we could see was trees and greenery.”

“Our American friends fired back speedily while Mike Boultbee, risking life and limb — leapt in front of the soldiers to snatch the film we wanted.

“We didn’t give chase. There was no point when you consider it takes three days to cover a quarter-of-a-mile in jungle territory.

“On another trip into the interior with a river patrol boat, we were nearly blown out of the water by a mine.

“Lucky escape number three came when the cinema next door to our hotel was blown up by a home-made bomb. On all the occasions, both soldiers and civilians were lucky to escape death.

“The only time I felt safe was on a helicopter raid on Mekon Delta. At least we were in the air with the guerillas on the ground!

“Apart from that other occasion, I was expecting to be shot or blown to pieces at any moment. It was the most nerve-racking experience I have ever encountered.

“The Americans afforded us every protection, but if you stopped a bullet it was purely at your own risk.”

Next, I spoke to the programme’s executive producer, 40-year-old Alex Valentine, a rugged, good-humoured Scot of Italian extraction.

Alex graduated to the top of this go-anywhere, do-anything outfit after years in top-flight journalism.

“The programme thrives on a get-up-and-go technique,” he told me, “so this has been no holiday for any of us. The team was always on tap — never more than a telephone call away.

“Our lightweight camera gear — carefully weighed and packed — means that we can fly off to any spot on the globe at a moment’s notice.”

What will be in the new series? “It wouldn’t be fair to tell you precisely what our programmes will cover,” said Alex, “in case we disappoint you by throwing them out at the last minute.

“But I can tell you that World in Action cameras have whirled in Indo-China, Malaysia, New York, Chicago and Washington — all during the past four weeks.

“In Vietnam, we played a waiting game in case the situation flared up. We played it the same way in Cyprus and Zanzibar earlier this year and it paid off.

“Our team, which had been in Cyprus for four weeks, snatched some valuable material before they were kicked off the island by the authorities.

“This sort of situation calls for nerve and shrewd handling. Try bull-dozing your way in Cyprus and Vietnam and you’re likely to end up with a bullet in your back.”

I asked Alex for the ingredients of a typical World in Action programme.

He told me: “It should be topical — we did the Beaverbrook story in six hours flat. And it should tell, in an interesting way, a great number of things that are not known to the public.

“In particular, we set out to expose falsehoods and commonly-accepted assumptions that are not true.

“The golden rule on World in Action is to take nothing on trust and always try to find out for yourself.”

The same thing might be said of Alex himself. A favourite yarn spun in the team’s “local” in London’s Soho recalls his dynamic coverage of the Lakonia shipping disaster.

When the story broke, Alex was in Cyprus. He was immediately told to cover the Athens end of the Lakonia story.

Then came a cable urging him to interview the Captain of the rescue ship, the Montcalm, in the Adriatic just off Venice.

There is no recognised flight from Athens to Venice so, like a true newspaperman, he “jumped” a plane from Athens to Zurich; boarded another from Zurich to Rome; sped from Rome to Venice by car; then hired a tug to find the Montcalm.

He boarded the Montcalm, interviewed the Captain and got his report safely away, all within the space of 48 hours.

Spectacular progress, even by World in Action standards!

The post Always in action! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A FAVOURITE occupation as the year bows itself out is looking back over what has happened since January 1. And what a year this has been!

So spare some thought for the task facing producer David Plowright and his What The Papers Say team as they get down to preparing their annual end-of-the-year awards list.

This time they won’t need a newspaper file to remind them of the big stories of the year. They really have been big.

Choosing the outstanding features of the year’s Press, David and his collaborators will be working while they eat … for a dinner has been arranged “somewhere in London”

“It is over the dinner table that we shall go through the list and make our decisions,” said David.

“We all have our nominations to put forward, and our task certainly isn’t going to be easy.”

Dining with David will be Brian Inglis, Bernard Levin, Michael Frayn and Harold Evans. They have all been prominent in the programme, and they will all have ideas on who or what merits an award.

None of them may be expected to give way to a rival claimant without a struggle. They are an argumentative lot, especially on their favourite subject, newspapers.

Over dinner they will be sorting out the best cartoon, columnist, scoop, news reporting, background story and the best newspaper.

“Yes, it has been an amazing year for news,” said David. “You have only to think back to the beginning of January, then let your mind run over what has happened since. At home the year, of course, has been dominated by one big story — the Profumo affair, with all its implications and ramifications.

“Linked with that, you have the shake-up on the political front, the departure of Mr. Harold Macmillan to make way for Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and the death of Mr. GaitskelL

“With so little time left before the year ends we have another staggering change in the international scene with the assassination of President Kennedy.

David added: “Most of the events which have been big news in the year have been shared by every newspaper and every other news medium, but there is always ample scope for individual talent to reveal itself and win an award.

“In the sports field there have been racing and football scandals and the lighter side of our national life has brought us the Beatles, a great source of news stories and likely to hold their place on the front page for a long time yet.”

Brian Inglis said that, for him, the West Indians role in leading a real revival of interesting cricket was perhaps one of the brightest features of the year.

“It is particularly cheering to look at the cricket field when so much else in the sporting world goes on under a cloud,” he said.

“I am thinking of racing and the doping scandals, and of football with its rowdiness and vandalism, and the effects on the game of increased gambling.

“For the New Year we are looking with interest to the constitution of the new Press Council and wondering if it is going to be more effective than the old one.”

Michael Frayn put his finger on a trend which has become more apparent as the months have gone by.

“In a year when the papers have been almost overwhelmed by the volume of news, they have found themselves being outstripped by rumour,” he said.

“That is what happened in the Profumo affair, in the crisis over the Conservative leadership. It even happened in the assassination of Kennedy.

“I ask you, how did you hear of the death of Kennedy? Through the papers? Through television? Or did somebody tell you? Many people I know say ‘Somebody told me’.”

Harold Evans barely repressed a shudder when I asked him to look back on the last 12 months. “Newspapers,” he said, “have never had a year like this. I hope they never have another.

“There has been high farce — a Great Train Robbery and a Tory leadership mumbo-jumbo.

“There have been successes — the nuclear test-ban treaty was one of them.

“But it has been a tragic year with the death of Kennedy and Gaitskell.

“And it has been a squalid year with Profumo, Keeler, and Vassall. A busy year.” He added: “Our eyes have been on the stars and our feet iIn the mud.”

Last year the What The Papers Say awards went to: Picture – Daily Mirror (taken by a reader, Jim Meeds of Hutfield, Herts.); columnist -Peter Simple, Daily Telegraph; scoop — Walter Terry, Daily Mail (Cabinet changes); behind the news — Roy Jenkins and The Observer (I.C.I. — Courtaulds story); news reporting — Clare Hollingworth, The Guardian (from Algiers); paper of the year – Sunday Times colour supplement; cartoon — no award.

This year’s awards will be announced by Brian Inglis in a special edition of What The Papers Say on Boxing Day.

The post Choosing what the papers said BEST appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Almost 50 years after it began in August, 1914 — and despite another major war and the invention of atomic weapons — the First World War still exerts a compulsive fascination on men’s minds. High on the list of current best sellers are books about it; television plays are written round it; scathing shows, lashing the generals and the politicians who ran it, draw record-breaking audiences to London’s West End. Why is this? Primarily not because the First World War saw the most appalling casualties ever to have occurred in war. Nor again, because the whole social fabric of Europe collapsed and a golden world of wealth and privilege ended. But because, with the wisdom of hindsight, the whole thing is now seen to have been an utter waste — particularly of a generation of young men who were Europe’s greatest asset. On Wednesday ITV present 14-18, a new film report of the facts of that war. Here, for a more personal view of the holocaust, is a commentary by Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein whose experiences of the First World War, initially as an infantry officer, later as a brigade staff-officer, had an overwhelming effect on the way he conducted brilliant campaigns in North Africa and Europe in the last war.

TO have taken any part at all in the First World War a man would have to be at least 63 today. It ended 45 years ago and a man of 63 might have seen just the end, being then 18.

It was very interesting to note at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday that the only political personality wearing 1914-18 medals was Lord Attlee.

The Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was there, but he was 15 when the First War ended. Mr. Harold Wilson was there. He was two when it ended. Mr. Jo Grimond was there. He was five when it ended.

I served through both wars and when one looks back on the ’14-18 war one naturally compares it with Hitler’s War. It would be impossible to find two wars more different.

So I think we might have a look at the First War, and I suppose the dominant factor was that we formed great armies entirely from volunteers. That has not been done since and I doubt if it will ever be done again. You see, in Hitler’s War we had National Service.

Then I think the soldiers were different. They were, of course, the same British men as regards flesh and blood, but they were different because of the progress of education and science.

In the Kaiser’s War the soldiers did just what they were ordered. They put up with appalling discomforts and miserable conditions in the trenches. They were slaughtered in thousands on the Western front in battles like the Somme and Passchendaele.

Barbed wire and machine guns dominated the battlefield. The soldiers lived underground and the mud was frightful, and the generals on both sides tried in vain to smash through the opposing front.

But they were unable to find the answer; they merely lost more lives, and the casualties were appalling.

In those days there was no close marriage between political policy and military strategy. The politicians in Whitehall intrigued against the generals and the generals intrigued against the politicians and the soldiers accepted it all as inevitable. Now the leadership in the ’14-18 war, political and military, would not have lasted very long in Hitler’s War, and I think the reason is this: Between the wars men found their visual world being extended — cinema, radio, television, and so on.

The young man between the wars began to measure his everyday environment in a way that was impossible before 1914, and he became unlikely to accept conditions of work not in keeping with the ideas he was able to absorb.

He would not, as a matter of course, accept the dictates of those in authority over him. He wanted to know what it was all about. He wanted to see his boss. He wanted to know what was required of him, and why and when. In fact, the progress of civilisation, education, and science between the wars demanded a different type of leadership.

Now, I went out in the First War in August, 1914, as a young lieutenant in command of a platoon of 40 men, many of whom were reserves called up on mobilisation. They were all regular or ex-regular and I fought in command of the platoon until the middle of October, 1914.

I was then very seriously wounded and when I was mended I was posted to a brigade in the New Armies raised by Kitchener. All volunteers who had to be trained. And I remained with the New Armies in France until the war ended.

That experience made me realise that there was something very wrong in the army. The generals and the staff in the higher commands didn’t seem to me to understand that battles were won primarily in the hearts of men.

They didn’t realise that bottled up in men are great emotional forces that must be given an outlet. And that outlet must be in a way which is positive and constructive, which excites the imagination and warms the heart.

If these forces can be harnessed and made to pull together the result can be terrific. The soldiers have got to know that the generals really do care for them; that they will never sacrifice life needlessly; that what they demand of their men is possible.

There will then be built up the feeling of mutual confidence between the leaders and the led.

Now all this I learned during the First War, and it was pondered deeply by me between the two wars. I was in a position to put it into practice during the Second War.

It is very interesting to note that the comradeship of the First War has lasted and I think it will go on lasting, because it has been cemented by the British Legion. And in every town and village where we live in this country you see the War Memorial commemorating those who died.

It was, in fact, the spirit of service, service to the country entirely by voluntary means — and I think the young people today have got to realise this.

And I think the young people have got to understand that this country of ours is a great country and its decline would be a great disaster for Christendom, as was the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

And if all young people today would remember, and understand they must give voluntary service to the country, then I think all would be well with our country.

The post 1914-18: The lesson I learned appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

JERROLD ZACHARIAS, brilliant scientist, invented an atomic clock so accurate that in 2,000 years it will not be more than half a second wrong.

Yet he said to me: “My watch runs a little fast. This I like because I know it will never be slow, and I would rather be early than late for an appointment.”

This exemplifies the realism of Professor Zacharias in his two fold approach to the timeless problems of science and the day-to-day problems of life as we live it.

Prof. Zacharias, who is, among other things, a military adviser to the U.S. Government, is here in Britain to give the last of the Granada Lectures on Wednesday. His subject is “Teaching and Machines.”

He is a short, rather stubby Bostonian with iron-grey hair and dark bushy eyebrows. He is well-dressed. He deliberates deeply before talking and underlines his points with careful movements of his hands.

Listen to his comments:

On teaching: “If I cannot make people understand a subject then I don’t understand it myself.”

On nuclear weapons: “They have reached such a stupid stage that the human race can no longer continue to play with them. They must learn to live with them.”

On physicists: “He is a kind of chemist, only he doesn’t smell so bad.”

He told me, in a quiet voice with clipped American accent: “I am here to lecture because I feel I have something to say about what we are doing in the United States to make our schools good.

“There is a difference in making schools good, rather than just making them better. This applies to the whole world, not only America. This is why I feel what I have to say will particularly interest the British public.”

Dr. Zacharias first began to study physics at Columbia University.

During the war, he worked at the radiation laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on radar development. In 1944, he directed the engineering work on the atomic bomb, and later established a laboratory of nuclear science, studying nuclear-powered flights, undersea warfare, air defence, and the Distant Early Warning Line.

For his brilliant technical services, Dr. Zacharias was awarded the U.S. President’s Certificate of Merit in 1948 and in 1955 received the Department of Defence Certificate of Appreciation — its highest honour.

I asked him, as one of the leading boffins working on the A-Bomb, if he has conscientious qualms about the horrific effects the weapon has had on mankind. His reply: “No. People were killing themselves wholesale for hundreds of years before I was born.”

In 1956, Dr. Zacharias, with a number of other professional physicists, switched his attention to improving the teaching of physics in American secondary schools. Why?

“Because we realised the most important thing we could achieve was educating the young,” he said. “We wanted to raise the quality of science education, and, at the same time, try to stop the wave of anti-intellectualism that had sprung up in the post-war world.

“If humanity is not educated it is exposed to every evil that besets mankind. I trust an educated person. I do not trust an uneducated person. Why? Because an educated person has the power to react properly. He has the power to reason. Without this power, he can be swayed by demogogues and glib leadership.”

As a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, Dr. Zacharias originated the idea that film aids and special texts should be used to improve physics teaching in high schools.

His ideas led to a Physics Science Study Committee in America, which conducted a crash programme to develop an entirely new high schools physics course. Within two years, 20,000 students in 600 schools were taking the course.

Said Dr. Zacharias: “My principle is that in order to learn something, you have to participate in it. I learned more about London by driving around the city than any guide book could have taught me.

“It’s the same with any subject. You want to learn about the atomic clock? Right, come to the laboratory and I will show you. I don’t think you would understand if I tried to explain verbally.”

I asked Dr. Zacharias what sort of educated world he hoped to see in, say, 25 years time? He replied: “My aim is a world in which men are men and not mice. My world is a world of independent thinkers.” Now what of Dr. Zacharias, the man? “I am,” he admitted, with a quiet smile, “a very impersonal man. I have so many interests, so much work to do. I enjoy coming to Britain because it gives me the opportunity to argue with friends here. What do we argue about? The same as everyone: beliefs, science, humanity.”

Finally, how did Dr. Zacharias wish to be remembered — as an atomic physicist or pioneering educator? The reply typifies the man. He said: “I never worry how I might be remembered. There is a saying that you get some thing done or you get credit for it. I want no credit for what I can do, even from the eye of eternity.”

The post Time and Prof. Zacharias appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

“THIS,” said a member of the World in Action team wryly, “is not a show to work for if you like to sleep regularly and are fond of your family.”

“It’s the way newspapers used to be in the old days,” chipped in Alex Valentine (ex-Fleet Street) without a trace of nostalgia.

“It’s a dictatorship,” boomed Tim Hewat, the 35 year old Australian dynamo who heads the team as executive producer. “It has to be to get the right results.”

Youngest of all television’s current affairs programmes (it began only last January), World in Action has brought a new style of television journalism into existence.

There are no link-men or pundits. Stories break down into three categories — profiles, inquiries and exposes. “Tough, tireless noseyness in the best traditions of good journalism,” The Spectator called it.

Behind the scenes, it is the tirelessness that distinguishes the whole operation. On a story about airlines the team travelled thousands of miles in two days, passed through 19 customs posts in 58 hours. Sleep? “We snatched it where we could.” said [Bill] Grundy. “On the plane, on an airport seat, sometimes even in taxis.”

Stephen Peet, after working for several weeks on his sensational film of East Germany, saw it edited and cut and prepared for transmission. Then he drifted into the office the following Monday for what he thought would be “a quiet day to enjoy my triumph. I should have known better — I didn’t get home until 3 a.m.”

Alex Valentine had to get up at dawn every day for a week in order to film petrol tankers filling up with supplies for his story on the cut-price petrol war.

Hewat and another member of the production team (there are six producers including Hewat, aided by three researchers) sat up all night editing and cutting and writing the commentary for the story on gambling.

When the Zermatt typhoid story broke last March, Tim Hewat decided it was too hot to ignore.

Two camera teams flew to Switzerland and by train to Zermatt and Davos. On the advice of the Public Health Laboratory, they made them selves self-supporting. (“They mustn’t eat or drink anything while there,” warned an official. “They mustn’t even brush their teeth.”)

The team disembarked from the mountain railway at Zermatt with 67 pieces of equipment, to be met by hostile officials who refused their co-operation.

So while Hewat argued, his chief cameraman, David Samuelson, crept away with a silent camera and shot 600ft. of film. But by the time he returned, Hewat had talked the officials round. By Friday night, Hewat and his men were back from Switzerland and the job of cutting and editing began.

The post TOUGH and TIRELESS – that’s World in Action appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

DIANA LANCASTER who posed as the mother of a three-month-old son and trudged around London trying to find work and lodgings. Her report provides a significant background to Wednesday’s hour-long special programme from Granada, Unmarried Mothers

SLOWLY and deliberately the door was shut in my face. Just as it closed the woman behind it made her final, withering remark. “This,” she said, “is a respectable house.”

I turned away, thanking God that I was not what I was pretending to be — an unmarried mother

To find out the kind of existence that faces thousands of the 50,000 girls in Britain who have illegitimate babies every year, I invented for myself a three-month-old son, and trudged around London looking for work, looking for somewhere to live, trying to borrow money.

Trying to live the part of so many mothers without husbands.

Finding somewhere to live was the most pressing problem. I telephoned a flat agency and asked if they ever had flats to let where young children were allowed. A man answered.

“Well — we don’t have many. How much do you want to pay?”

“Up to £6,” I said (just manageable with a job).

“No — not very likely,” he came back. “Nothing at the moment. How many children do you have?”

“One.”

“What does your husband do?”

“I haven’t a husband.”

“Have you ever had one?”

“No.”

Pause.

“I think I’ve got something.” Another pause. “Yes — do you work?”

“I’m a secretary.”

“How old are you? How far out of town are you willing to travel? Where do you live now? I think I might have something. If you like to call in, dear, we might come to some arrangement.”

Obviously I didn’t go. Instead, I began the march round newsagents’ noticeboards. Here’s a sample of the sort of encouragement these notices gave me:

“Suitable for European married couple. Respectable and quiet business people only. References required.” The rest inevitably ended with “no children, no coloureds.”

At house after house I was faced with a battery of bells and no indication of which should be rung. Most of the landladies said: “No children.” and that was the end of the matter.

If children were tolerated, this was the reaction: “But it’s only a single bedsitter.”

“There are only myself and the baby,” I said over and over again.

“What about your husband, then?”

“I haven’t a husband.”

“Oh. no, I’m sorry, dear. It’s not that I mind, but the other tenants would object. You see, we don’t allow men here — this is a respectable house. No. I’m sorry, dear.” And the door closed…

One landlady gave me a chink of hope. She invited me in through a jungle of brown lino corridors and grey net curtains, put me down in a hand-greased armchair and confided:

“Yes, dear — you see — I know what it’s like. It was in the war, dear…”

And I had the history of her boy-friend, herself and her son. Even then — the room had been taken the day before, and she suggested I tried next door.

If I couldn’t get lodgings, perhaps I could find a living in domestic job. I answered all the advertisements in the papers. More often than not there was no reply. If replies came, they didn’t vary…

“Sorry — I haven’t the conveniences.” “Sorry, I’m afraid it wouldn’t work out.” “I’m awfully sorry, there’s no room for a baby…”

Money, obviously, was the answer. I would have to borrow — so that I could afford a more expensive flat. Where could I borrow? I saw advertisements in the paper that promised — “absolutely no security needed” for any amount up to £5,000.

I tried them — in turn.

The first question:

“Are you married? I’m sorry, madam — you have to have a gentleman guarantor in regular employment.”

Everyone was always sorry. I wasn’t an outcast — just a nuisance.

In the end I went to the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child.

Past the small plaque on the doorway in North London’s Kentish Town Road, which reads: “National Council for the U.M.C. Second Floor. Please walk up.” On the second floor, two prams give a clue to the meaning of “U.M.C.”

Just two senior staff. Mrs. M. E. Bramall, General Secretary, and Mrs. P. Crabbe, Welfare Secretary, deal with about 5,000 unmarried mothers a year — putting some of them in touch with their local social workers, and helping about 300 of them personally, watching over them and their children often until the children are of school-leaving age.

“We don’t pay for them all that time — we don’t have the money or any real resources — but the important thing is we know where the resources are,” said Mrs. Crabbe, who is a West Indian.

“We have a grant of £1,500 [£26,000 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] a year from the Ministry of Health, local authorities give us some help, but most of our funds come from individuals. Even so, we are £5,000 or £6,000 [£88,000 to £105,000] in debt every year,” said Mrs. Bramall.

Of the country’s 50,000 illegitimate babies a year, about a third are to couples already living as man and wife. Another third are absorbed into families that already have their problems. Another child, illegitimate or not, is just another mouth to feed.

The mothers of the remaining third find their way to local social workers; or are among the 5,000 who go to see Mrs. Bramall and Mrs. Crabbe; or just don’t know what to do.

“Poor things. Some of them just refuse to face up to it, and the others are so frightened and guilty and ashamed,” said Mrs. Crabbe.

Mrs. Bramall is concerned with the Council’s work in trying to educate public opinion and change legislation affecting unmarried mothers.

“This might be the point when people will begin to be a little more tolerant and accept the problem,” she said.

“There’s less hypocrisy now. People are at last beginning to realise that ‘but for the Grace of God…”

Even now, though, for the girls who, because they are afraid of authority, or too proud to ask for help, decide to go it alone, lodgings are the most pressing problem.

“Few people want young children in their houses — apart from anything else. I saw a girl last week who has moved her lodgings eight times in the four months of her baby’s life,” said Mrs. Crabbe.

“Most of the girls feel too scared and guilty to talk about the trouble they have had while they have been searching on their own.”

The post Nobody wants her baby appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

On Monday Granada’s A Camera Goes To War brings to life one of the least glorious pages of British military history — the Crimea, preserved by the lens of pioneer war photographer Roger Fenton. Here is the story of Fenton himself, told by GRANT STRANG

ROGER FENTON, M.P.’s son and barrister-at-law, was off to war. With him he took the best wishes of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. And, for good measure, he had the assurance of every assistance from the Secretary of State for War.

For Roger Fenton was not only off to war — he was off to make his mark in history as one of the first war photographers.

Born at Crimble Hall, Lancashire, Fenton’s father was M.P. for Rochdale. At one time the family had been immensely wealthy, owning a cotton mill, a bank and other property, but disputes had resulted in them losing everything.

All this was history when Roger Fenton went to the Crimean War in which Britain had allied herself with France to keep Russia out of the Mediterranean. It was the war of the Charge of the Light Brigade, of Florence Nightingale.

Disease was as deadly a killer as the enemy’s mortars. In sub-zero temperatures the troops had not even the protection of warm clothing.

On the eve of Roger Fenton’s departure to the Crimea in February, 1855, such a storm of anger had been aroused in the country when the appalling sufferings of the troops became known that the Government was forced to resign. It was suggested that photography, the amusing new novelty which was all the rage, could be used to “provide dispatches of the most convincing accuracy” to show that something was being done.

But, strangely enough, although Fenton’s mission to the Crimea was under the patronage of the Queen, the Government was not footing the bill. His sponsors were a Manchester firm of publishers who wanted picture postcard “scenes of historical interest” to sell to the public.

What Fenton had not to photograph were any scenes showing the real ravages and horrors of war.

Anyway, Fenton’s crude equipment would not have been up to the task, and it was not until the 1914-18 war that the first battle scenes were photographed. What Fenton’s five months “covering” the Crimea did provide was a unique historical record of how men looked and behaved in the midst of a war — and of the scenes in which their battles were set.

From his previous experience touring Yorkshire in happier times, Fenton had converted a wine merchant’s vehicle into a caravan and mobile darkroom.

Everything he would need had to be shipped with him when he sailed from East India Docks, London — five cameras of different sizes and an assortment of lenses, 700 glass plates, several chests of chemicals, a still for distilling water, and a variety of other miscellaneous equipment.

In the barren country his slowly trudging horse-drawn van stood out against the skyline as a tempting target for the Russians who mistook it for an ammunition wagon.

Several times Fenton came under fire, but his own courage matched that of the men he had come to the front line to photograph. Gradually the portfolio of pictures which were to make his name famous grew thicker.

Back in England, where sets of his photographs sold for 60 guineas [£6 6s 0d, £6.30 in decimal, very roughly £600 in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] and singly at prices from 10s. [50p, £45] to a guinea [£1.10, £100], Fenton went on to claim a new title as the country’s leading landscape photographer.

Then suddenly, at the height of his fame, he announced that he was giving up photography and going back to the law. His decision came as a surprise and a shock.

Stranger still was the reason he gave to his successor as secretary of the Photographic Society. For the pioneer who had given a new dimension to the art of photography decided that there was no future in it, because no one could guarantee that his prints would not fade with time.

However, most of Fenton’s collection of Crimean war pictures did survive, and they form the basis of Monday’s A Camera Goes To War.

The post He captured the Crimea – by camera appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

EARL ATTLEE writes about men of our time who are featured in Granada’s new weekly series, starting this Wednesday

IT is said, and rightly, that for a final judgment on men who have played a conspicuous role in the drama of history we must await the verdict of history; nevertheless an interim assessment by contemporaries who lived in the same atmosphere may not be without value.

The four men in this series were very different, yet their careers were conditioned by the circumstances of the time and their national characteristics.

MUSSOLINI was an Italian gangster on a large scale. You may find his like in ancient Rome, the Italian Renaissance and modern Chicago.

He came to power in an Italy depressed by its losses in the First World War and by the failure of the Allies to give her the big extension of territories at the expense of the Slavs, by which she had been bribed to come into the war. Italian politicians were a poor lot. Mussolini himself was in early life a socialist and anti-imperialist.

Hailed by the privileged classes as a saviour from communism, he had a great chance to pull his country round, but the draining of the Pontine marshes is his only real success. He fell a victim to imperialism and to the illusion that Italy was a great military power destined to restore the Roman Empire.

In this he was helped by the connivance of British statesmen like Simon and Neville Chamberlain who hoped to use him as a counter-weight, to Hitler

Thus, for a time, this comic opera dictator strutted about the stage till he backed the wrong horse in Hitler. He declined into the position of a jackal to this tiger and had a fitting end — hanged, with his mistress, by Italian patriots.

I never met the man but my colleague Lord Alexander of Hillsborough who had to meet him over the Naval treaty says that at the height of his power he was not unimpressive, but, like so many wielders of absolute power, he degenerated, inflicted much suffering on his people and left behind only an evil memory.

As a democratic socialist I object to all dictators, whether saints or sinners, but I prefer a saint if I must have one.

GANDHI was part saint and part astute politician. I recall meeting him more than 30 years ago in the House of Commons in company with George Lansbury who shared his pacifist illusions.

This gentle, charming and unworldly man was the inspirer of his countrymen in their claim for independence. He gave the whole character to the movement by his doctrine of non resistance and his opposition to violence.

But for him the great subcontinent might have become the arena for a bloody struggle, both between Europeans and Indians, and Hindus and Moslems. As it was, despite the regrettable loss of life in the Punjab, the transition to Indian rule set an example to the world, though Gandhi himself was murdered by a Hindu fanatic.

Even Gandhi did not entirely escape the danger which besets the holder of great power. The success of his pacifist campaign had a profound influence on Indians and even today has its influence on African nationalists. Yet he, like Mussolini, was the victim of an illusion.

His methods were successful because he had to deal with the British. It was opinion in this country which forbade the use of methods which other imperialist powers would have used without hesitation.

The revulsion in Britain against the action of General Dyer at Amritsar in shooting down unarmed demonstrators was an object lesson. But if Gandhi had been up against Hitler, Stalin, General Franco or Dr. Verwoerd, how long would he have lasted?

His disciple, Jawaharlal Nehru, has had to face aggression by the Chinese dictators and has had to use force. What Gandhi would have done had he been met with this situation, one can only guess.

Gandhi was a great man and his influence remains, but as long as there are evil men like Hitler and Stalin and the like in power, the world’s work has to he done by men of tougher fibre like Sir Winston Churchill, who are realists and do not take refuge from reality by illusions, however beautiful.

RAMSAY MacDONALD was a more complex character than the others. Coming up the hard way, he had great personal advantages, good looks, a fine presence and voice and oratorical power. His enduring work was the building up of the political Labour Movement so that it replaced the Liberals as the expression of progress.

I knew him well and in his early days regarded him with distant awe and reverence, till I became his Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1922, and later a member of his Government.

His task was to lead the underprivileged, but unfortunately in course of time he came to dislike and mistrust the working class and to feel more affinity with those he should have opposed. I recall the seeds of doubt being implanted when he said to me, apropos the joining of our Party by an insignificant peer: “We have a young earl joining us.” He spoke reverently.

As the world economic crisis of 1930 developed he seemed to regard himself as the saviour of society and, too, of Society.

When he went into coalition with the Tories he said: “All the Duchesses will want to kiss me.” Eventually with failing powers he was a mere figurehead to reaction. A tragic end. Loss of faith, vanity and snobbery were his undoing, but his services should not be forgotten.

He raised Labour from being a mere minority group to the second party in the State and paved the way for its triumph in 1945.

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, in my view, had far more influence on world history than the others. He was perhaps fortunate in living at a time when the world needed his qualities. In this we might compare him to Winston Churchill.

A man of great personal charm and profound political instinct, he rescued the United States from a position of great danger to which it had been brought by the ineptitude of President Hoover and the business and financial magnates.

Lapsing into chaos through economic distress, the United States was restored to prosperity and a new purpose by the New Deal just in time before the dangers of fascism and communism were imminent.

The United States has been fortunate in finding great Presidents like Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and F.D.R. at times of crisis. But F.D.R. did a second great service, not only to the United States but to the world, in bringing America into the Second World War.

The U.S.A. had fallen into isolationism after the days of President Wilson and had had in Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, Presidents who gave no real lead at home and shirked the responsibilities in the international sphere that must inevitably have come to a great Power. In bringing the United States into the world conflict Roosevelt showed great political skill, and, in appreciating the world crisis, great prescience.

I recall talking with him before the U.S.A. became belligerent. He pointed on the map to Algiers, saying: “That is where I want America to be” — a remarkable forecast, and an appreciation of strategy.

I think towards the end of his life he failed to grasp the nature of Russian imperialism and gave Stalin too much at Yalta, while he had an old fashioned idea of British imperialist aims in Eastern Europe that were quite unrealistic.

But still, without his leadership the world might have been dominated by dictatorships and the cause of democracy lost for generations.

The post Men of Our Time appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHY are supermarkets so successful? What is it that lures the shoppers… the bright lights, the embracing warmth, the background music…?

Or is it a belief that supermarket goods are cheaper than those in ordinary shops?

These are the kind of questions World in Action will be investigating on Monday.

Background facts to the programme are that there are now over 1,000 supermarkets up and down the country: takings are going up all the time (one group exceeds £9,000,000 [£158m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] a year).

What’s the secret, then? I have seen both sides of a supermarket — as a shopper and as editor of a supermarket magazine, and I’m sure that one of the most important factors is the time saved by supermarket shopping.

Self service so obviously speeds things up.

Price reductions are an added inducement to shoppers, but not, I think, a primary one.

But I doubt if any of the points I’ve mentioned weigh as heavily as the fact that the supermarket offers more choice of food from every part of the world, under one roof, and more variety of pricing in similar foodstuffs.

That background music — how much is it worth in terms of winning your hard cash? Recent criticism that sexy music was being played to encourage buying hardly makes sense.

It seems so obvious that nostalgic melody is a better tranquilliser than the Twist, and a blanketing of shoppers’ problems by soft music must make buying easier.

Colour is another vital persuader. Women’s magazines highlight “meals to a man’s heart” in colour, and a riot of gay packets and cans greets the eye on entering the supermarket.

Do women really miss that personal service and the friendly chat over the counter with the grocer “round the corner”? I made some inquiries.

Barbara Goalen says: “Yes. I support the small grocer because I hate everything being standardised, and the personal service at the small grocery is so much a part of England.”

Jan Holden, on the other hand, has “no option but to like the supermarket because my children so enjoy playing old-fashioned grocers there. The music doesn’t affect me either way.”

Barbara Kelly is divided about it. “I like the variety in the large supermarket but, because I also like the personal care, I use a very small personalised supermarket.

“I don’t like music when I’m shopping, and if it happened in my small supermarket I’d stop going!”

Barbara, perhaps unknowingly, echoes thousands of women shoppers — so much so that current management training courses are directed to impress the new supermarket manager with the fact that instead of seeing his customers as so many heads, he must know them as persons.

Other new trends in the supermarket also reflect the personal care angle. Hostesses are to be introduced in some of them — boys will take goods to the car park, from others.

There is to be more counter service for health and beauty products and generally a more personal element is to offset the criticism that the supermarket is too impartial.

Oddly enough, baby-sitting arrangements introduced in some supermarkets have not always been successful.

Most children prefer tn be roaming down the aisles, and in on the spending. The cute eye of a small child soon registers the fact that candies are lodged at the check-out counter, as a last-minute reminder to mother.

While money-saving and supermarketing cannot be said to go hand in hand, regular price reductions on specific items can cut the cost of living. I think no woman will deny that she spends more in the supermarket than she would at the small grocers.

Certainly the idea of returning goods to a supermarket needs thought.

It is a hazardous procedure to explain to the check-out girl, on going in, that you are taking goods in to exchange, and that they have already been paid for.

The National Union of Small Shopkeepers estimates that the grocer “round the corner” still holds his own.

In the fight for survival which exists between shopkeepers and supermarkets, it is thought the latter may well have to revise their policy and restrict themselves to city centres, rather than the outskirts where they meet the often keen competition of the backstreet shopkeeper.

The post How super is a supermarket? appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

NEWSPAPER editor Alastair Dunnett stood at the window of his New York skyscraper hotel, looking over towards the Manhattan waterfront.

A mile away clouds of oily black smoke billowed up from a dockland fire. Flames ripped through the packed floors of giant warehouses.

Forty-nine-year-old Dunnett, who presents Granada’s What the Papers Say this Thursday, turned from the window, walked across the bedroom, and switched on a coin-in-the-slot TV set.

“What came over was the most thrilling television I have ever seen,” he told me. “The station had scrapped its scheduled programme. Every available outside-broadcast camera had been rushed to the docks to cover the blaze. Cameramen were as close in as the firemen fighting the flames. Commentators were everywhere.

“Smoke-blackened and dazed workmen were interviewed as they staggered from the blazing store sheds — even before ambulance men could give them first-aid. It was enthralling. Anybody who saw that fire on TV would read a very pale version of it in his newspaper later.”

I asked Dunnett, if, as a newspaperman, he considered TV a rival. “I think TV and newspapers are complementary to each other,” he said. “There is room for both. One does some things better than the other.

“News coverage, for instance. If a TV camera can be on the spot when a big story breaks — like that New York docks fire — then it scoops the newspaper.

“But TV’s advantage — on-the-spot immediacy — can also be a disadvantage. If the viewer sees it, all well and good. But it is over in a second. If the viewer has missed it, that’s too bad. Television is a matter of time. You must take it when it is there for you to see. A newspaper is always at your elbow. The printed word is with you for all time. If you haven’t time to read a story in your paper, you can fold it up and slip it into your pocket to read on the bus on the way to work.

“But I’m convinced that newspapers must change their techniques to meet the challenge of TV. They must become more interpretive of the news than descriptive. They will have to tell their readers why certain things happened, not just describe them.”

Can What the Papers Say criticism be damaging to newspapers? “They can take it!” said Dunnett. “It certainly is easy to criticise a newspaper. I’m an editor, and I have to do it every day.

“It is easy to forget what a tremendous technical achievement a newspaper is. You start off with, say, 16 blank pages, and they must be filled to the last quarter-inch. Everything you have done before just doesn’t matter. This must be new.

“It is so terribly easy to say next morning ‘I would have played up this story in a big way. I would have put that picture there.’ But somebody has worked through the night, making sudden decisions and spot judgments to produce it. A remarkable performance, a newspaper.”

Dunnett started his working life in a bank. “I did, in fact, take my professional bankers’ examinations. But I had always been interested in journalism. Even while still at school. I had written for newspapers. I eventually left the bank and moved into journalism.

“During the war I moved to London to be Press officer to Tom Johnston, then Secretary of State for Scotland.”

Dunnett was for 10 years editor of the Glasgow Daily Record before becoming editor of The Scotsman three years ago.

The post A newspaper man’s view of television appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE wisest dogs in the world, sheepdogs of the vast Australian sheep ranges, will be in Granada’s Animal Parade on Monday.

Their daily work of sheep handling will be seen in trials filmed in Australia. Trials which display what must surely be the perfect understanding between human and animal intelligence as the dogs carry out the commands of their masters.

These dogs are Border Collies, originally from the English-Scottish borders.

They are mainly black and white in colour, alert, medium sized, lithe and fit, fast as the wind, and supremely intelligent.

Practical dogs, their standing is based on their working ability, not on their looks as with almost every other breed of dog.

Although the trials you will see in the Australian pictures vary slightly from the accepted British procedure — adapted quite practically to meet the special needs of Australia’s sheep farming pattern, the ultimate purpose is entirely the same — to produce a quiet and efficient working dog, capable of the steady and careful treat ment of sheep.

When the skilful teamwork of shepherd and dog is seen, either on television or in the countryside, and trials can be seen everywhere in the North of England, something of the comradeship that exists be tween the lonely hill shepherd and his dog will be appreciated.

Theirs is not a circus performance, a repetition of taught tricks, but a thought-out reaction to the whims of sheep to obtain their mastery.

More than one shepherd owes his life to his dog’s intelligence in winter drama on the high hills of this country.

Lost in snow and cloud on the fells of Lakeland, one young shepherd was guided over rocky slopes by hanging on to the tail of his collie, a journey to safety he could never have made otherwise.

In similar country, a 10-year old trials champion collie worked alone for three hours to bring some marooned sheep down a crag face; and one sheepdog of the Lancashire hills hung on grimly to the fleece of a sheep, preventing it from slipping to drown in a moorland stream, until relieved by his master.

And there is the famous example of devotion to duty of Tip, the 12 year old Derbyshire sheepdog which guarded her master’s body for 15 weeks on the storm swept moors of the Peak District.

Uncanny though the skill of the sheepdog appears on the trials field to the watching townsman, its intelligence and ability to reason have astounded even hardened sheepmen who have known it all their lives.

And as you watch them on Monday remember too that without them vast areas of moorland would be unproductive. For these moors are only suitable for sheep grazing and without his sheepdog the shepherd could not manage live flocks there.

For man for all his genius has still not been able to produce a machine to do the job of the working sheepdog.

The post Wisest dogs in the world appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

HOW does a homing pigeon find its way home? There are as many theories flying about on that score as there are racing pigeons in The Fancy, which is the name experts use for their sport.

And there are about 3,750,000 racing pigeons — not to be confused with the fat, strutting variety that inhabit Trafalgar Square and public places in most of the cities of Britain.

Granada’s Animal Parade on Monday tells of the life of the racing pigeon from the moment it pecks its way out of its shell.

Training methods are shown which can develop a bird’s speed to a fantastic 90 miles an hour.

The popular image of a pigeon fancier is a miner or a docker, but many prominent people, including the Queen, Sir Gordon Richards and breakfast foods millionaire Frank George, have been “bitten”.

Mr. George is one who has been puzzling over this homing instinct ever since 1919, when he bought his first pair of birds.

Today, with about 400 birds housed in his luxury lofts at his home in Wellingborough, Northants, he confesses himself defeated

“All I know is that they are wonderful creatures. They are often 15 hours on the wing. They get home tired — but they get back. Don’t ask me how or why,” he told me.

One theory is “astronavigation” — a system whereby the pigeon is said to use the position of the sun to plot its course.

This, it is believed, gets the bird to within a few miles of its home loft when “visual reckoning” takes over. The pigeons keen eyesight, and

many hours of practice flying near its loft, enable it to pick out the tiniest identifying objects.

Mr. J. W. Selby-Thomas, secretary of the National Homing Union, believes that the pigeon possesses a magnetically-attuned mind and flies a magnetic course. He cites an area around Penzance, in Cornwall.

“This district is rich in metal ores and these upset the finely attuned brains of the flyers so that they cannot strike a homing course. They fly round and round until they are exhausted and lost,” he claims.

Wing Commander W. D. Lea-Rayner, wartime head of the Air Ministry’s Pigeon Section, believes the whole of this controversial homing instinct centres on the brain-power of individual birds. He said:

“It is just like pilots in the days before radar. All flyers got the same sort of information from their instruments. The good pilots deduced the right result and flew to their right destinations; the indifferent pilots came to wrong conclusions and found themselves off course.

“Similarly, all homing pigeons get the same information and can see the same objects. Some have the strength of their convictions and fly straight back home. Others dither and dither until all sense of direction is lost.”

No true-blue pigeon fancier derides the theory of another, but Sir Gordon Richards came near to disagreeing with Wing Commander Lea-Rayner.

“Some birds are brainier than others, but how can you account for some pigeons returning to their original lofts two or three years after they’ve settled down in another?

“Several birds I bought in the North of England eventually found their way back home and birds I sold to fanciers in far-distant places came back to me,” he pointed out.

Sir Gordon, who gave up keeping pigeons when horse training claimed his full time, remembers with sadness the time he demolished his lofts.

“For months many of the pigeons I had to get rid of came back and sat around the place looking bewildered. The amazement on their faces had to be seen to be believed,” said Sir Gordon.

Sifting out all the theories (and carrying out his own research) is Cambridge zoologist C. Pennyquick. Ultimately Mr. Pennyquick will, no doubt, come up with a learned and scientific theory, but I doubt if it will settle the arguments that rage in Britain’s 3,000 pigeon clubs and associations.

Pigeon fancying goes back to the Ancient Egyptians and for nearly 5,000 years these game little flyers have been finding their way home, often over distances of several hundreds of miles.

The history of pigeon racing is patterned with rich stories. N. M. Rothschild, of the banking family, is said to have made a big “killing” on the Stock Exchange after getting a “scoop” on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo — by pigeon post.

The Duke of Wellington, who had an extensive loft and many famous birds, regarded them as part of his military equipment. Pigeons have been on the military strengths of many countries. During World War II, the Air Ministry had more than 30,000 on its “feed” roll.

Ounce for ounce, top-class pigeons are probably more expensive than star soccer players.

In Mr. George’s Wellingborough lofts are the Flying Dutchman, which cost him £750 [£13,500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed], King Pin (£350 [£6,250]) and News Lad (£500 [£9,000]) and a few years back he paid an all-time high figure of over £800 [£14,300] for the winner of the pigeon racing classic — the Barcelona-Holland race.

A record of another sort was the 900 miles which a Swedish-owned bird flew in one day. The longest recorded distance in this country was 725 miles flown from sun-up in the North of Scotland to dusk in a remote part of Cornwall.

The post Flying home with the pigeons appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN a clearing in the African jungle a duiker, an antelope-like animal, is cowering. Beside her is her newly-born baby, his legs still wobbly.

In the undergrowth a pack of wild dogs is scavenging. Two lives hang in the balance. If the dogs catch the scent the duikers will be torn to pieces.

A minute-by-minute account of this exciting and terrifying drama of the wilderness is one of the incidents in the first of a new series of Granada nature programmes, The Animal Story.

“Monday’s episode is entitled ’Family Circle’ and the plight of the duikers is an excellent example of the problem we are dealing with — the method of bringing up a family in the wilderness.” explained the man who will be doing the commentaries, Dr. Desmond Morris, Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo.

“If the duiker is to survive in the jungle it has to be able to outpace its natural persecutors almost within hours of being born.”

If you want to know the fate of the duikers in the film watch Monday’s episode.

Dr. Morris went on to talk about the other features of the programme — the big cats, the monkeys and the fishes.

“For the big cats, fear of aggressors isn’t a very acute problem,” he said. “But other dangers await the cubs. Until he is old enough to hunt for himself, the baby is dependent on the parent for food, and a cub that wanders away from home will not survive long.”

To illustrate the point, Dr. Morris uses some fascinating film about a leopard and her cubs in the mountains of Northern Asia.

The babies are adventurous and inquisitive, but the way in which the mother bundles them back into the cave when they wander makes it clear how well aware she is of the danger awaiting them beyond her immediate vicinity. Personal experience of danger has probably taught the snow leopard her mothercraft. But who taught it to Toli, the orang-utan who has been in captivity since she was a baby?

This question arose recently when Toli’s baby was born — the first orang-utan to be born at London Zoo in 130 years.

“Although she had no previous experience of handling young, Toli instinctively knew just what to do,” explained Dr. Morris. “It was fascinating work, watching and filming her as she washed and tended the baby as if she had been doing it for years.”

Survival for the young monkey in the wilderness depends usually on the baby’s ability to cling on to his mother’s fur when danger threatens.

For sheer novelty, so far as protection is concerned, the mouth breeder fish takes some beating.

In the savage underwater jungle of the tropics, the female mouth-breeder takes her eggs into her mouth after they have been laid — and “gargles” with them until they are hatched.

“This not only keeps them safe from aggressors — but keeps them properly oxygenated.” explained Dr. Morris.

Even after the eggs are hatched the mother’s work isn’t done. Her brood follow her through the underwater jungle in a little cloud, and the slightest hint of danger will send them speeding for safety, straight back into her mouth.

The post Babes in the Wood… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

In the unpopularity poll the most disliked was the snake followed by the spider. The lion, eighth in the popularity poll, was also third in the unpopularity poll.

Then came the rat, crocodile, skunk, gorilla, hippopotamus, rhino and in the last place, the tiger.

It took me several weeks to check almost 50,000 votes from young viewers and also to choose the two most original suggestions for new features in future programmes.

Choice for the junior prize (the model zoo) was the entry sent in by eight-year-old Janice Ironmonger of Harrow-drive, Hornchurch, Essex. Janice — an accurate observer of animal behaviour—described strange goings on in the penguin pool and asked to see this item again.

The senior prizewinner (who wins zoo books) is 14 year old Carol Hill of Bridge-road, Trent Vale, Stoke-on-Trent. Carol would like to see a feature on prehistoric animals and of animals of the future.

Finally. I would like to thank all the boys and girls who sent in their suggestions, many of which will find their way into new animal programmes.

The post Chimps are Champs appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

CONGO, London Zoo’s three-year-old chimpanzee, known to millions as a TV personality, has retired from the public eye to settle down to the more serious and less public problems of married life. He shares a nice, semi-detached cage with his wives, Diane and Jenny.

In the past, many viewers will have seen him at work and play with Desmond Morris, who will shortly take up his new appointment as Curator of Mammals at the Zoo.

As an artist, Congo often painted pictures when appearing in Zoo Time, and today his name is almost as well-known internationally as that of Picasso.

In fact, Picasso himself has bought a Congo painting, and examples of his work are in the possession of the renowned biologist, Sir Julian Huxley, and the Director of London’s Natural History Museum, Sir Gavin de Beer. I, too, am the proud possessor of a “Congo.”

What is so special about the paintings of a young chimpanzee which has won both the interest and admiration of such great men as Picasso and Sir Julian, and the ridicule and condemnation of Sir Charles Wheeler, President of the Royal Academy? And what are his pictures all about? After all, there doesn’t seem to be much in them except a series of bold slashes and strokes of gay colour.

The fact remains, however, that Congo’s paintings are almost unique in world history. Only two or three other chimpanzees have ever done anything comparable, while none has produced such a sustained and progressive series of drawings and paintings as Congo has turned out during the past three years under the guidance of Desmond Morris.

It was soon evident to Morris that Congo possessed a highly developed sense of pictorial composition. Although the strokes of colour did not, of course, represent anything in particular, the overall effect of a completed Congo painting was one of a vigorously painted, brilliantly coloured design.

Just what I mean will be seen, at least so far as composition goes, if one considers our reproduction of a Congo painting. See how the dark strokes in the righthand corner balance the cluster of dark strokes on the left. That’s composition, and not even a President of the Royal Academy could do better!

On Thursday, in Granada’s People and Places, I’ll be showing some brand new film of Congo at work. In this, the obvious concentration and control which he puts into his painting will be seen. In the same programme. I will be discussing with John Cohen, Professor of Psychology in the University of Manchester, my exhibition, The Lost Image, which is on show at the Crane Gallery, Manchester, this month.

Why is it called The Lost Image? Until recent times the most important thing in painting was the image — a recognisable subject. That doesn’t mean that a painting should look like a photograph. But it does mean that you should be able to see what the artist is getting at — even if you don’t like it!

During the past few years a type of painting called Tachisme — from the French word “tacher,” meaning “to spot, splash or stain” — has arisen. Tachiste painters are at liberty to dribble and drip their paint on to a canvas laid flat on the floor; to throw it at a canvas and then, if they wish, to ride over it on bicycles, stamp on it, or set fire to it.

In fact, they can do anything at all that might help to produce, accidentally, some sort of interesting or attractive effect, devoid of any recognisable image. The Lost Image sets out to shame and explode the whole idea of Tachisme — or Action Painting, as it is also known — by showing how absurd, even lunatic, it is that an adult artist should try and work without an idea in his head, when even Congo and young Timothy Vaughan, aged three, whose “train” I also reproduce, appear to have something quite definite in mind. Timothy’s train is certainly no photograph, but the idea of the carriages and the engine puffing up its smoke, are quite clear.

The post It’s Chimpicassoesque appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

OXFORD graduate Ramona Morris would like a young wolf to bring up at home. For she is making a study of wolf signals in an attempt to communicate with these animals in the only language they understand.

Ramona’s interest springs from co-operation with her husband. Desmond Morris, who presents Granada’s Zoo Time.

Viewers may recall having been shown in a recent programme the proper way to “talk” to a chimpanzee. Recordings of various chimp noises were played and the relationship of these different sounds to chimp behaviour explained. Since then, Morris has been making further research.

“People who make a point of talking to animals almost always use the ‘Hullo. Aren’t you pretty!’ sort of approach,” he complains. “But, of course, it doesn’t mean a thing to the creature that’s being addressed; although sometimes an animal does pick up something from a tone of voice. If one must talk to an animal the sensible thing is to try to imitate the language of its species.”

Tigers and eagles are the latest creatures with which Morris has established some degree of direct communication. Every day as he walks from his nearby flat to The Den at London’s Regent’s Park Zoo he pauses for a word with the tigers in their own tongue or exchanges greetings with the eagles.

“The tiger’s particular greeting noise is a sort of loud, stuttering purr,” says Morris, as he gives an impressive imitation of this jungle sound.

“Of course, if people hear you doing this outside the cages they stare as if you’re crazy. They stare even more if, for some reason, the tiger isn’t interested at that moment and doesn’t reply.

“The African sea eagle’s idea of a friendly word is a cry like a high-pitched scream attempted by someone suffering from laryngitis, while the Bateleur eagle’s ‘Good morning’ is more of a growling scream. These fellows and 1 have quite a big session as I pass their cages.”

Morris’s eagle mimicry is even more terrific than his tiger talk. But it was through practising chimp chatter that he stirred up a spot of trouble in a pet shop.

“I was in the shop with a friend,” he told me, “and started to have a word with a lonely looking female chimp. The result was pandemonium. Instantly, the animal got into such a state of frantic excitement that she began flinging herself about and shaking the bars of her cage with tremendous violence.

“That set off all the monkeys in the shop in a hullabaloo. Puppies began barking and birds screeching, and in seconds the place was in such an uproar that my friend pulled me away.”

As to those wolf signals, Morris emphasises that they are visual, not aural. Not a whistle in the language!

The post Ramona Morris wants a wolf – to talk to! appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

On 22nd November, 1963 John F. Kennedy, thirty-fourth President of the United States was shot dead in Dallas, Texas. For a cataclysmic moment it was as if the sun had gone out. The world became suddenly unfamiliar; the darkness of evil seemed to close in on it. Without Kennedy what would happen? There was horror, anger, shock, sorrow, fear. And bitterness too – bitterness that the first modern man to reach world leadership had been so cruelly destroyed.

Tim Hewat flew out to Dallas with the World in Action team and a few days later, Thanksgiving Day, he presented this portrait of the city where Kennedy was murdered.

This is a special day in the city of Dallas in the State of Texas, U.S.A. It is what the Americans call “Thanksgiving” – the 342nd anniversary of the day the first British settlers put aside to give thanks to God for their new home, new life, new hopes. But in Dallas, where the people probably have more riches to give thanks for than any other city on earth, there is no thankfuness. For it was here that President Kennedy was shot down. And it was here – in the basement of a police station – that the man accused of killing him, Lee Oswald, was shot down in turn by the operator of a strip-tease joint, the Carousel burlesque house.

In Dallas this Thanksgiving Day, the people know that the eyes of all America and indeed the whole world are upon them. And those eyes see not just the outward signs of affluence, of violence, and of sheer bigness which they might expect of a city whose citizens rejoice to call it Big D. Instead they see a city of fantastic opposites. Dallas is rich all right. It is also grinding poor. Many a home less than a mile from the central post office looks out on an unmade dirt road. One in five of Dallas’s million and quarter people are Negroes. Another forty thousand Mexicans, peasants who came north across the border. A further handful – perhaps four thousand – are Red Indians, Apaches and Cherokees. The riches of Dallas are not for them.

Dallas has not always been rich. 120 years ago when Queen Victoria was on the English throne, it was a township, an unimportant part of the Lone Star State – the independent Republic of Texas. Fifty years ago it was what they call a cow town, a rough, tough centre for ranching. It was only thirty-three years ago that one Columbus M. Joiner brought in a gusher, struck oil in East Texas and started the richest field in America.

Dallas grew up on oil and became perhaps the biggest boom town of all time. Today the oil fortunes of just one generation have been directed into making Big D one of the most important banking, insurance and space-age industrial cities in the U.S. The Chamber of Commerce cannot say how many millionaires live in town, certainly run into thousands. And they tend to live up the Texas legend for bigness. Many of them use aeroplanes in much the same way other people use the family car. At their own particular shop, Nieman-Marcus, they can go shopping for a £7,000 midget submarine; or a £4 their dog. At the fine art shops scattered everywhere they are able to satisfy their expensive hunger for culture.

But at the other end of town, down Deep Elm Street where the shops are mean and garish, people go shopping for other merchandise. They go shopping for gun. Strangely, while one can buy a gun and ammunition for dollars in Dallas, one cannot buy whisky or gin in a bar. For the power of the churches – and there are all sorts in the city, including separate ones for Negroes – is such that their campaign for temperance affects the law. To drink spirits legally it is necessary to buy a full bottle from shop. This you carry into the bar or restaurant which sells you ice and soda water. It is only from the sale of beer and wine – and soda water – that the bars make money.

Odd frustrations like this help to explain, perhaps, why Dallas not only has the very rich and the very poor, but also the most outspoken political extremists in America. Men like General Walker, who, during President Kennedy’s administration, flew the Stars and Stripes upside down on his front lawn, who constantly attacks the United Nations, and sets about the churches.

There are more dangerous people. Like those who distributed in Dallas loathsome allegations about John Kennedy’s private life – all of them lies. Like those who spat on Adlai Stevenson. Like those who roughed up Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife.

On the day of the assassination, the Dallas Morning News, itself right-wing, published an unknown committee’s advertisement, which is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after Congressmen described it as: “Vicious, cruel and abusive; the kind of verbiage that tends to incite fanatics.”

The most extreme group of all is the John Birch Society – militantly anti-Negro, anti-Government, anti-United Nations.

World in Action visited the home of Mrs. Beth Anderson Rachel who has done publicity work for the Society.

“I feel keenly the personal loss of Mr. Kennedy among my friends,” she said, “but I disagreed with him diametrically politically and I don’t feel the loss in that respect. We disagreed with the extensive Federal programme of aid, financial aid, to the people of the States. We feel this should be handled primarily by the States if there needs to be any aid. We think the American people are quite capable of shouldering their own responsibilities whether it be their school lunch programmes or aid to their aged or dependent relatives, or aid of whatever nature.

“We certainly disagreed with Mr. Kennedy on foreign affairs particularly in his support of the United Nations which many of my associates and I feel is just about the worst instrument to have hit this earth. We disapprove of sitting down and collaborating with people who are known to be our enemies. We would not think, at the local level, of sitting down and conniving, if you will, with robbers, murderers, thieves, and we do not feel we should do this on a national or international level.

“Federal aid or the shouldering of the people’s responsibilities, taking on the responsibilities that people should assume for themselves, leads we feel quite strongly to a police state. This is the threat of the Federal shouldering of persons’ responsibilities. We think of it and often refer to it as ‘Big Daddy Government’.”

World in Action talked about extremists to the Mayor of Dallas, Earle Cabell, who is, inevitably, a millionaire:

“We have extremists on the one side who want no participation whatsoever by the Federal Government in the affairs of the nation that are not matters of national defence, for instance. These are the extreme right. We have another group on the other side of that spectrum that want the Federal Government to take over all of the operation of business, and railroads, and let the Federal Government operate a municipal and State government – these are the extreme Liberals. Although all these groups are definitely in a minority in so far as our whole population is concerned, they are rather articulate and the fact that they make a lot of noise sometimes gives the impression that they are greater in numbers than they actually are.”

The Mayor was echoed by Captain Glen King, spokesman for the Dallas police department: “We have within the Department a Criminal Intelligence Unit whose responsibility it is to investigate the activities of these groups. We have people who are racists who believe in the supremacy of one group over another group. These are not unusual. We haven’t any kind of an extremist group that you won’t find anywhere else.”

Another man keen to talk about the political outsiders was Tom Howard, the cigar-smoking lawyer who defended Jack Ruby, accused of murdering the assassin Oswald. Mr. Howard’s office is opposite police headquarters and more than fifty alleged murderers have come to him for help. He has saved them all from the death sentence.

“The extremists in Dallas are quite fierce,” he said. “They are primarily the John Birch Society group. They have received a great deal of encouragement particularly from one of our local newspapers. I might say that this group is a very small group and do not represent the views of the majority of the people of Dallas by any means, but as I said, they have been encouraged by people that have a great deal of wealth, that have very extreme right-wing views.”

Of course, extremists are not typical of the people of Dallas; but they have their influence. For all, however, the highpoint of Thanksgiving is the family dinner party, usually held at about half past five in the afternoon. The almost obligatory dish: roast turkey. World in Action went to a typical wealthy family’s dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Wisenbaker on the outskirts of Dallas. John Wisenbaker is a geologist and runs an international oil engineering business. He is, of course, a millionaire and he has furnished his home with oriental furniture, an indoor garden and a valuable bird. At gratce before the meal he said, “Now let us observe a moment in silent meditation. Our Father, we thank Thee for this wonderful land of ours. We thank Thee for peace and for freedom. We thank Thee for this lovely sunny Thanksgiving Day. We thank Thee for our family and for our friends. We thank Thee for this food and for good health. We pray that Thou will continue to bless this household and ail mankind throughout the world – Amen.”

Very different, but certainly not an isolated case, was the Thanksgiving dinner of Mrs. Pearl Fuller, a 79-year-old Negro widow whose two children have moved to California. Her menu, in her shack among acres of shacks, was tinned meat and boiled beans, beans provided free by the Government.

The newspapers reported that in his cell in the City court house, Jack Ruby ate a hearty Thanksgiving meal. Rut shortly afterwards his lawyer, Tom Howard, said: “He’s always, to my way of thinking, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He is just the type of man to be affected by the events that occurred in the forty-eight hours before Oswald’s death. He’s just the kind of man that would become terribly mentally disturbed and mentally deranged by a thing like this.”

But in every Dallas home Thanksgiving dinner was haunted by three questions. First, why did it have to happen here? Some Dallas people, like the Reverend Wilfrid Bailey, Minister of the Casa View Methodist Church, say that the climate of the city was such as to encourage a fanatic; that years of extreme politics had poisoned the place. Also, it was a fact that Mr. Kennedy knew he was venturing into enemy territory – his trip was designed to rally again his waning supporters.

Second, was 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald the man who killed Mr. Kennedy, and if so, why? The evidence – of fingerprints, of opportunity, of the rifle itself – suggest he did. Certainly he was capable of killing, as the honour role of policemen killed on duty testifies, for, in the last remaining space, is the name of patrolman Tippett, seen by witnesses to be shot dead by Oswald. Why might Oswald do it? It is now clear beyond doubt that he was not only a most unpleasant young man, but an unstable one. He was clearly unbalanced. Most observers on the spot reject the idea that Oswald was either a hired assassin or that he acted as key man in a cruel plot. He was too unreliable for either proposition.

The third and last question is: how could the police allow another unstable man with criminal tendencies, Jack Ruby, to shoot Oswald in the basement of police headquarters. The Mayor, Mr. Cabell, offered one explanation:

“There was a terrific amount of confusion due to the hundreds of media people, television cameras, and so on. Permitting these television and news media people in wasn’t done for purposes of publicity, but was done in order to let the world know that Oswald was properly treated in order that when he was brought to trial there could not be the accusation that he was brutally treated or that his rights were in any way taken away from him. He was shown to news people regularly so that they know that he was being treated properly. Then, of course, when this one man was able to break that cordon, that is just one of those things that can sometimes happen. May I say that sometimes in football a full-back can break a terrific line where you would think it would be impossible. That would be comparable to this situation.”

For Big D families who stayed at home on Thanksgiving night there was a macabre piece of film on television. Dallas police reconstructed the assassination – using two stand-ins in a car similar to that used by Mr. Kennedy – but substituting a camera for the rifle in the right-hand window fifth floor of the book warehouse.

Many people did not stay at home, however. By Thanksgiving Night, the assassination was six days old and, like so many of Dallas’s businessmen, newspapermen and hotelmen, people were anxious to forget and to believe that Big D was a swinging town still. They filled the clubs and the late-night restaurants — remembering, of to take their own bottles.

Only in Jack Ruby’s Carousel was business slow. The girls worked to a handful of curious sightseers from out of town.

The fact of the matter is, that, try as it may, Dallas will find it hard to forget what happened here at half-past twelve on 22nd November, 1963. Indeed, it never will.

The post Big D appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

The Church of England is the third largest landowner and one of the biggest investors in the country; its total assets are incalculable. It is our national church. Its task is to care for the spiritual welfare of 42 million people. In 1963, although 47 per cent of all marriages were in church, 53 per cent of all children were baptized, and 23 per cent of all young people were confirmed, only 7 per cent of the population can be counted as active adult members of the Church.

To find out how well it is doing the Church commissioned a sociologist, Leslie Paul, to write the first comprehensive report on the organization of the Church at parish level. After two years research he concluded that the Church has been “a bad steward.” The Paul Report made two fundamental observations:

That there are not enough clergy – only one for every 6,000 of population.

That because of an outdated parish system, those there are are in the wrong place – one third of the clergy are in the country whereas four-fifths of the people are in the towns.

Like the Paul Report, World in Action was not concerned with the spiritual aspects of the Church – aspects which Christians would say is the Church’s ultimate justification. Like the Paul Report we were concerned with how the Church works in its front line, the parish.

What is a parish priest for? World in Action went first to a typical English village to find out.

Francis Barrie Flint, aged 59, educated at Dulwich College and London University, has been a clergyman for 34 years. He writes books on moral education and letters to The Times newspaper. He has worked in six parishes and is now Rector of Longborough in Gloucestershire. He describes his parish thus:

“This is a Cotswold village of roughly 600 people. I am in charge of two parishes, two separate parishes, run as a single living. One is 300 or thereabouts, and the little one is a hundred. These two churches are separate in that they have their own parochial church councils, their own wardens everything is separate – and I take separate services. The parish is entirely rural. The people are nearly all farmworkers or farmers themselves.”

On a Sunday in Longborough you may well find Morris dancers. On a Sunday, too, Barrie Flint has his most clearly defined job to do – to take services. But only one in ten of his parishioners attend.

“There’s definitely a decline in church-going,” he said. “I’ve noticed a decline in the five years I’ve been here. Our numbers are very small, although proportionately to the town parishes, proportionately we do better; but that better is not very good. There are various reasons for this declension of interest in and support of the church. There is, of course, the very large number of alternative interests on a Sunday. When I go down to Evensong on a Sunday night I frequently see a group of my own people waiting for the bus to take them to the nearest town and the cinema. When there were no buses those people would most certainly have come to church.”

In cities like Sheffield the problem is even more acute. The Reverend Flint has 600 parishioners – the Reverend Frank Hone of a Sheffield parish has 12,000. Few of them have ever been near the church.

“We have an evening service, Evensong – it isn’t as well attended by a long way as the Morning Service. This seems to be the pattern in these kind of areas,” Hone said. “People tend to come in the morning and not in the evening, and we don’t particularly mind this as long as we can create a group of people who come regularly to their communion on a Sunday morning. It’s a very small number – it’s only about 60, an average of 60 out of a population of round about 12,000 in the parish. But that isn’t too bad, I suppose, in comparison with the other denominations and similar parishes of this kind.”

Whether people use it or not, most parishes are dominated by the church building itself. Barrie Flint not only has one ancient monument to look after, but two. Whatever value they have as works of art, the Church of England’s 18,000 churches are in many ways a liability. As Flint said,

“I do feel that many people would regard it much more favourably if they could see, for example, that the money raised is wisely spent; that the upkeep of our buildings is realistic; that we don’t hang on to churches which have out live their usefulness. In this Deanery practically all of our clergy are in charge of two churches. There is only one I can think of out of 15 clergymen, only one priest who is in charge of a single parish.”

Even if they want to, the clergy have enormous difficulty in discarding any of the Church’s priceless, yet obsolete, equipment. The Reverend F. S. Skelton of Bermondsey in London gave an example of this difficulty.

“Five years ago in this parochial area,” he said, “there were three churches – two proper buildings and one the remains of a bombed church that was still being used as a place of worship. This meant that within a very small area there were these three places of worship which really seems quite unnecessary. But it entails an enormous amount of fuss and bother trying to get a church pulled down and parishes united. In fact it’s taken at least five years to get this done. As a matter of fact this very week we’re getting an Act through Parliament to enable us to go ahead to unite the parishes and pull the church down. All over the country the Church is faced with this sort of business. It takes an immense amount of time and energy and money, and I feel it is quite unnecessary. There should be far simpler ways of doing this sort of thing.

“If I was starting off from scratch in a new housing estate,” he continued, “I would be very reluctant to start by building a church. I would proceed in quite different ways, I think, to try to make the Church live in people’s homes. One might have to have some sort of central building, a hall to begin with, but as soon as you start building an ecclesiastical building known as a church, this immediately seems to centralize everything on to that building and this continues the old pattern of church life which, it is being proved up and down the country, is not cutting any ice. We’ve got to be bold enough to experiment.”

One of the boldest experiments is actually going on in Sheffield. The Reverend Michael Jackson’s church is the shop floor at the English Steel Company.

“One of the problems of the ministry,” said Jackson, “is that it has to spend energy and money in keeping up expensive plant, whereas a functional ministry can be run in economic terms pretty cheaply. You simply need to put a man into the field and pay him and that’s that. He doesn’t need a plant. And if we’re to use our resources of men and money wisely we need to review the duties to which we send people and see whether we shouldn’t increase the number of men in functional ministries.”

Only 30 priests in the Church of England are doing work like Michael Jackson’s. 90 per cent of clergymen have at least one parish church to run and this is expensive. There is a dramatic example of this proliferation in the City of London. Within one mile of St. Paul’s Cathedral there are 30 churches, most of them of historic value.

Where does the Church’s money come from? At Longborough, the Reverend Flint gets a salary of £1,000 per year from the Church Commissioners, the Church’s paymaster. The Church Commissioners are one of the top ten property developers in the country. In fact, they own £118 million-worth of property, and £200 million-worth of stocks and shares. This brings them an income of £17 million a year, most of which goes in vicars’ wages.

To maintain his church and to contribute to charities Barrie Flint raises £900 per year by collections, fetes and appeals. In 1963 the Church as a whole collected £28 million in this way. But in 1956 it collected only £17 million. This increase of £11 million in seven years was due mainly to payments through what is called “planned giving” — regular financial contributions to the church. Planned giving has jumped from £2.6 million to £9.2 million a year.

The man who first introduced big business methods to fusing was a young American called Frank Wells.

“When we arrived in Britain,” Wells told World in Action, “we discovered that the churches in this country did not receive funds through direct giving the way they do in the States and other parts of the world. They’re dependent to a greater extent on fêtes, bazaars, and outright pants from central funds; and there’s quite a scope here for teaching the actual parishioners more responsibility and better habits of giving towards their own parish.

“Its a financial commitment which most of the fringe people understand more clearly than someone knocking on their door for a missionary appeal. They don’t understand the word to begin with and it frightens them. But if you say St. Bartholomew’s needs £30,000 over the next 3 years or 5 years; ten thousand of that is to go towards keeping the church open, another fifteen for providing a new hall, and another five for various restorations of the church, the people will understand that.”

At a fee of £700 the church at Deddington in Oxfordshire hired the Wells organization to teach it how to raise money. Apart from fund-raising the clergyman has sources of indirect income. He has a house, rent and rates free. But this can have disadvantages as the Reverend Flint explained:

“One of the things which not all parishioners realize is that a parson has, perforce, to live in his vicarage or rectory. It is a tied cottage, only an outsize one. He has no alternative – he has to live there. It may be a delightful house with extensive grounds, but a house of this size with such grounds has to be kept up and this is, of course, a costly business. Normally, unless a rector has private means, he must run the garden himself and his wife must run the house without help, and this is a very considerable chore which can very quickly become a burden. Indeed it does become a burden to many of us, especially as we grow older.”

When the Rector of Longborough is not taking services, what does he do with his time? He spends one hour a day on correspondence and administration; two hours a day reading, writing and praying; two hours a week teaching at his church schools; and several hours a week attending committees. But by far his most important and time-consuming job is visiting. He spends an hour a day being either friendly or helpful to his parishioners.

“I am on friendly relations with, I think, everyone in the parish,” he said. “I don’t feel that I am so much apart from them that I am distinct and separate, although I would very much like to feel that they would make more use of me pastorally than they do. You see, in this age in which we live, the age of affluence, apart from sickness or bereavement there aren’t a great many problems that seem to disturb people sufficiently to suggest that they should come and talk to the parish priest about them.”

With 12,000 on a bleak housing estate, the Reverend Hone in Sheffield has more people than he could ever hope to see.

“We would like to have more time for visiting because there are an awful number of people who quite clearly we’ve had no contact with at all over the period of years. When one has done the visiting attached to baptisms, marriages and funerals, and also the sick visiting and then the other kinds of visiting where there are problems in which you try to help people – all this takes a good deal of one’s time and doesn’t leave very much time for getting round the parish to visit people who have never been visited, probably for years, by a clergyman.”

What is most depressing for the clergyman is that he is often providing a service that people don’t want. The Reverend F. S. Skelton explained:

“In an area like Bermondsey in the old days there used to be quite a number of people coming to church, and the church really did do social work – provided a centre, provided much of the care and welfare which nowadays is provided by the State; and what we found in the old days was that a lot of people came into Bermondsey because it was an area of need, and they came and did a great deal of good work here. Now, I think that the younger generation still associates in its mind in some way — hearing it from its parents – the church with charity; charity which was needed in those days, but is not needed now, and there’s a sense of prosperity and independence and not wanting to go back to the old way of receiving and being on the receiving end of being done good to.”

The clergyman’s problems are not confined to churchgoing in his parish. He is a human being. Barrie Flint’s first reaction to the Paul Report was that it may remedy his personal feeling of isolation.

“We are moving towards a grouping of parishes,” he said, “although not exactly on the lines of the Paul Report, because there – and this is the strength of the suggestion of the Paul Report – it says that parishes should be so grouped that the individual clergyman should not be left alone. It’s this aloneness of the priest that can be so devastating during the passing of the years. The loneliness of his reading, his prayer life, every side of his life; if there is one other priest who can be his colleague, he will probably administer five or six churches more effectively than administering two by himself. He doesn’t mind how hard he works, provided he’s got spiritual and intellectual stimulus and that is one of the weaknesses of the present system.

“The parson is in a peculiar position. He is a member of a group of people who have been trained along certain lines and his interests are in a measure, could one say ‘technical’ rather like the medical fraternity – I think he needs to have the impact of other clerical minds to stimulate his own thinking.”

In Bermondsey, F. S. Skelton is luckier. “I’m fortunate – I have three colleagues here, and in fact I wouldn’t work in a place like this if I was working alone. I think I just couldn’t take it – I wouldn’t cope at all, I know. Many of the clergy, like myself, come from a different background to those amongst whom we live and work here in Bermondsey, and this can lead to the danger of patronizing people unless we’re very careful. And if you do patronize a person – well, you isolate yourself from them.”

The same can be just as true of a country parish.

The Church of England is concerned with the need for change. In London at Church House, the centre of its administration, calculations are made on modern machines, and commissions and committees sit discussing everything from divorce to the appointment of bishops. But for an organization set up 1,500 years ago change is not easy. What makes change even more difficult is the fact that the Church is “by law established” – in many ways the servant of the State, as Sir John Scott, the Secretary of the Church Assembly, the Church’s Parliament, explained:

“At the Reformation the picture was this – every man, woman and child in England had, by law, to be a member of the Church of England, and therefore the conception which Hooker and others had at the time of the Elizabethan Settlement, that the Crown and Parliament could represent not only the English people but also the Church of England was a perfectly reasonable conception. Since that time there’s been the Toleration Act which has resulted in membership of the House of Commons being opened to members of all faiths or no faith, with the result that many members of the Church of England now feel there is a very good case for a modification of the establishment to meet these altered circumstances, and a modification of the establishment which would result in the Church having greater freedom than it has now to order its worship, and certainly its doctrine, without reference to the House of Commons which they would regard as being basically unsympathetic.”

In July 1964, the Church’s Parliament under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury met, as it does three times a year, to discuss among other things, the Paul Report. But no action can be taken on the decisions it reached without the consent of both Houses of Parliament.

Just as the Queen, the head of State, chooses the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church, so many of her Ministers of the Crown still have their traditional responsibility of choosing parish priests. The Lord Chancellor chooses 600; the Prime Minister – 160: the Home Secretary – 40; and the Admiralty too has some. This is State patronage. In addition there are 2,780 private patrons. Barrie Flint at Longborough has a private patron who not only chose him for the job, but also pays him his traditional wages of £120 a year.

“I am not particularly happy about private patronage,” he confessed, “I think it would be better if patronage were concentrated in the hands of either the Bishop or Diocesan boards who are in a much better position to know the needs of the parishes and the qualifications of individual priests, rather than patrons, some of whom may live in their village and others of whom may be absentee patrons or patrons who have no religious convictions at all.”

The desire for reform in the Church of England is stronger now than it has been for over 100 years. One of its mos outspoken reformers is the Right Reverend Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark. He told World in Action:

“We need greater freedom than we’ve got now to implement our ideas of reform and to run the Church m a more business-like way. Let’s face it, if a business concern tried to run itself as the Church does, it would probably bankrupt and have to pack up. I want the freedom to close churches which aren’t wanted, to use our resources in best possible way, to meet the needs of the people, organize ourselves along new lines of development in new housing areas. Time and time again we are prevented from doing these things either because some law of Parliament stops us or because of the Charity Commissioners or the Church Commissioners. Well, so much of that needs to be scrapped. Give us the freedom and let us get on with the job.”

The final word was with Barrie Flint’s own Bishop speaking at a Diocesan Conference: the Right Reverend Basil Guy, Bishop of Gloucester.

“We cannot go on much longer in our own way of thinking about these matters without doing enormous damage to our witness in the world. We cannot, I believe, claim to be the Body of Christ talking about the ideal of service in the world, bringing to people the gospel, the good news of salvation, inviting them to join with us in the joyful discipleship of our heady religion, and on the other hand, and at the same time, go on begging people for their support, taking our money from under their noses, begging them for subscriptions, selling them raffle tickets, talking about the burdens of church maintenance and generally giving the impression too often that our chief concern is not in the Church but in the preservation of our own class.”

The post A Cure of Souls appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

“Chambers coffins are just fine
Made of sandalwood and pine
If your loved ones have to go
Call Columbus 690.

If your loved ones pass away
Have them pass the Chambers way
Chambers customers all sing
Death, O Death, where is thy sting?”

That advertisement comes from America where funerals, like nearly everything else, are big business. In the United States, funerals cost an average of £500. In a year this adds up to a total of £750 million – big business indeed.

The unashamed commercialization of death in the United States might shock and even horrify many people in Britain. Here people prefer to think that the British Way of Death is more dignified, more respectful – and less commercial. But there are signs that, like the American Way of Life, the American Way of Death is crossing the Atlantic. In one of its editions, prepared by James Hill and Mike Hodges, World in Action examined the Business of Death.

Not so long ago in Britain the local undertaker was the man who, perhaps, usually drove a taxi or made furniture. He fashioned the coffin himself and polished it. He hired a hearse, chaulfeured the mourners, and so provided a simple funeral at moderate cost.

Today there are still a few such part-time undertakers. But in Britain, as in America, undertaking is becoming increasingly big business. The average spending on a British funeral is £150. The average number of deaths each year for British undertakers to cope with is 600,000. So, at £150 each, the annual gross income of the British funeral industry is £90,000,000.

The cost of £150 per funeral is an estimate generally agreed by the undertakers themselves. Our researchers give this general breakdown of where the money goes:

• £55 is the average undertaker’s bill for providing the coffin and carrying out the funeral arrangements.
• Another £20 goes to the cemetery for the grave.
• Another £40 is usually spent at the monumental mason’s – on the gravestone.
• And the remaining £35 is spent at the florists, by family and friends buying wreaths and cut flowers.
• Cremation generally costs the same as burial when a manorial stone or urn for the ashes is bought.

The paraphernalia of death is clearly expensive. The question is: is it too expensive? Examine the costs more closely to see exactly where the money goes.

First, cremation. Mr. Horace Carter is managing director of a London Crematorium. He explained the costs.

“The average cost of a cremation is nine guineas. This provides for the use of the chapel, attendants, and also provision of an organist to play for the service. There are, of course, other extra charges, one being that the ashes can be dispersed on the Garden of Rest for a fee of two guineas.

Then there is the Book of Remembrance, in which names are recorded under the date of death. The average cost of an inscription is three guineas. In the Chapel of Memory at Golders Green, and so far exclusive to this crematorium, is an alternative type of commemoration vase – a slim long vase to hold a small posy of flowers with its own name plate. For a fee of four guineas a year a vase can be used at will.”

But cremation can and often does involve other and more expensive extras. For example: If relatives wish to keep the ashes, they must buy an urn. These cost anything from nine pounds to ninety guineas. If the urn is kept in crematorium it will cost still more – anything up to £200 to rent a niche for 20 years.

Some relatives like to remember their dead by having, say, a rose tree planted. This costs anything from twenty-five pounds to fifty pounds. And a garden seat memorial can cost another sixty pounds – with a further charge for the nameplate.

Cremation in Britain, introduced in the face of intense public opposition, is still less than 80 years old. The first crematorium – at Woking, in Surrey – was opened in 1885. The idea of cremation was not popularly accepted until after the Second World War. In 1945, fewer than one in ten funerals went to a crematorium. Today in Britain it is four in every ten – and increasing steadily. But the growth is still held in check by certain personal and religious convictions.

Next, examine the costs of burial. The charge for a communal grave can be as little as two pounds. Private graves normally start at sixteen pounds, but can go as high as £100 for, say, a quiet corner with a good view. But it costs time – and more money – to keep graves neat and tidy; and relatives complain that this is often not done by cemetery authorities. This, in fact, is another reason for the declining popularity of cemetery burial.

Twenty years ago, 500 acres of land were taken over every year for graves. Today this has fallen to 300 acres a year – a trend welcomed by local authorities desperately short of building land for houses for the living. It is estimated that all the graveyards in the land would cover an area roughly as big as the City of Birmingham.

Further, gravestones and memorials are expensive. The director of a firm of monumental masons told us about prices:

“The average, I suppose, is about £40 to £50. Of course you can have any price – you can give three or four hundred pounds if you wish. But the general run is about the fifty pound mark. There are still quite a number of people who want carved figures of various sorts and sizes. We do, in fact, what anybody wants us to do.”

So much for the last resting places. What of the funeral itself ? Although the direct costs are generally paid by the dead person’s family aided by a £25 National Insurance Grant, mourners at most funerals also spend large sums at the florists. One florist listed the prices for us:

“A wreath costs from thirty-five shillings to £2 – and that is a small wreath made of small flowers with no spray at all. Then they rise up to about seven or eight guineas according to the choice of flowers. We have made a horse recently of all small flowers, and then we made a Gates of Heaven which had a spray of roses and carnations in it.

“We find that the poorer people spend much more on wreath work because they think that’s their way of giving respect to the person that’s dead. They can spend anything up to thirty and forty pounds. But I always think that they should give it to the people remaining – not to the people that have gone,” the florist concluded.

Beyond doubt, the biggest single expense remains the undertaker’s bill. So look now at how the undertakers of Britain operate; how much they charge, and how they draw up their bills.

There are some 4,300 undertaking firms, large and small, in the country today. Most of them belong to their own trade association, the National Association of Funeral Directors. Every year the N.A.F.D. holds a get-together. In 1963 it was at the Hotel Majestic in Harrogate. It publishes a handbook – giving vital information about such things as cemeteries, coroners, hospitals and institutions, public mortuaries, and Registrars of Deaths. The Association also has its monthly trade magazine, full of items of peculiar interest to undertakers. Further, the Association trains undertakers and holds examinations and tests. For instance, customer relations are regarded as a highly important part of the undertaking business. So the Association takes particular care to teach its members how to deal with relatives. World in Action attended one of these training sessions.

The Association is deeply concerned with raising the status of the British undertaker to that of funeral director. The President of the National Association of Funeral Directors is Mr. Stanley Gilman.

“Very many years ago,” he said, “the undertaker was almost invariably a tradesman employed in some other business and he could do little more than perhaps just provide the coffin and arrange for its conveyance to the cemetery or churchyard. The modern funeral director assumes the whole responsibility for the funeral service. He will make arrangements with the church, the cemetery, press notices and the hundred and one other things that the family requires.”

Despite their efforts to create a new image, undertakers have always had their critics. In 1938 Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., and Professor Herman Levy had this to say in their book Burial Reform and Funeral Costs:

“The manufacturer or seller is in a far stronger position than in any other trade. The buyer does not and cannot know the true value of what he buys. He can seldom compare prices.” They went on to say, “The instinct of the masses for a ‘respectable’ funeral is pampered to by the industry. Those who can least afford to spend money in this way are encouraged to do so. There is little evidence of profiteering, but none of any attempt to reduce expenditure.”

Today, 25 years after those words were written, World in Action found that there is still little attempt to reduce spending.

Obviously the next-of-kin, grief-stricken and distressed, want the best funeral possible. Said one relative, asked by World in Action how much a recent funeral in the family had cost.

“I suppose it was somewhere about £130 to £140 – that was with the stone and the surround, and the ground we had to pay for, and the funeral expenses. But the undertaker done us well.”

Said another, “Well, my father got this stone from Italy, you see; he ordered it from Kensal Rise and it came from Italy. It cost £300, the headstone and border. And then the statue of St. Patrick came from Italy – that cost £78; and then under the wreath is a holy bible costing £78.”

A third epitomized the common attitude, “We could only ask the undertakers for the best they could give us. We said ‘The money’s no object, it’s the last thing we can do for her’ – so we said ‘Give her the best.’”

And a fourth summed it up for the majority of those bereaved, “I mean, when you love them and that, you just want them to have the best of everything.”

Clearly, money is often of secondary importance to relatives at the time of a funeral. Canon Thomas Fitzgerald works in a poor London parish. We asked him if undertakers do, in fact, encourage over-spending.

“To some extent they have to,” he replied, “by which I mean that many of them are the employees of big combines and they get commission on these extras. If, for example, you put a rug under the coffin in the church – well, that’s an extra. The widow says ‘I think I’d like my poor husband to have a carpet under his corpse’ – well, that’s 30/-, at any rate it used to be; it’s probably gone up now. But those and many other accessories – a walnut coffin rather than an oak coffin, bound with brass or aluminium as the case may be; I don’t see how you can avoid a good salesman from trying to persuade people to have them, because he gets commission on it all – it’s part of his livelihood.”

But Mr. Lawrence Ashton, head of a chain of undertakers, sees it differently:

“Well, experience tells me that people are so widely different that I have to decide what particular class of funeral, what particular charge to make to them, and I have the greatest difficulty in doing so. Consequently never would I arrange any form of funeral service, and never do I, without finally mentioning an approximate cost of the entire service before they leave my office, or before I have finished the interview. I make the going and they don’t.”

Can all undertakers be trusted to make the going? Some people seem to think not. In 1944 Dr. Edith Summerskill, M.P., asked for government control of funeral charges because families of air-raid victims were, she said, being overcharged. In 1947 Mr. Garry Allighan, M.P., demanded that the whole undertaking business should be taken away from private concerns and nationalized. In 1949 the Labour Government agreed with the National Association of Funeral Directors that a simple, minimum-priced funeral – £20 was the cost at the time – must be available to everyone. But this agreement lasted only four years, for in 1953, after repeated petitions by the undertakers, the fixed minimum charge was scrapped. The undertakers maintain, however, that despite the ending of the agreement, cheap funerals are still available. Their President Stanley Gilman, explained:

“Our Association plays no part in price-fixing but our members do voluntarily agree to provide a basic simple funeral service for not more than £35. I must add, of course, that this amount can’t include grave fees and other amounts that the funeral director actually pays out on behalf of the family.”

The minimum £35 funeral is simple. It is also completely adequate. It includes a straightforward but dignified elm coffin, generally with brass handles and fittings, a hearse, four bearers, and one car to take the mourners to the cemetery and back home again. It also includes the undertaker’s services in preparing the body for the funeral and arranging all details. More elaborate coffins obviously cost more. And it seems that the cost of services goes up hand-in-hand with the price of coffins.

Few people ever buy the cheapest funeral. Most are even unaware that the £35 one exists. On average people spend more than twice as much. And the undertakers fight fiercely among themselves for this money. Already there are indications that the American pattern of big funeral business has crossed the Atlantic. Consider these two examples of the finance of the British undertaking world:

The London Necropolis Company, recently taken over by the massive Alliance Property Company, owns Brookwood Cemetery covering 500 acres of Surrey. Brookwood’s net profit in 1962 was £18,309. But the Company’s accounts also show a further £36,060 received in dividends from seven subsidiary companies also in the funeral business. Some of these dividends were contributed by Frederick Paine & Company, an undertaking firm with fifteen branches. Their net profit in 1962 was £36,617.

Next, the case of Golders Green Crematorium, one of the best known in the country. Together with the Woking Crematorium it was taken over in 1937. The buyers: a tobacco company. Five years later the tobacco company sold its holding to the Cremation Society. That year the cremation profits were £36,412.

The American Way of Death is coming to Britain in another form – in the trappings and equipment used for funerals. American undertakers complain that “England is fifty years behind us”, and they want radical changes in the British Way of Death. An official of the American National Selected Morticians, one of the big undertakers’ associations, even made this suggestion: “I think we should send some missionaries over there – we would do them a world of good.”

The main aims of these American undertaking ‘missionaries’ would be to encourage us to use more embalming; to use caskets instead of coffins: Chapels of Rest instead of having the body lying at home – all highly profitable sidelines. Mr. Colin Cocks, of one London undertaking firm, agrees with his American colleagues.

“We are trying to break away from the old-fashioned idea of the gloomy undertakers.” he said. “In fact this firm once had as its telegraphic address, ‘Gloomy, London’. We are trying to break away from this; indeed, we have broken away from it. The emphasis is more on service to the relatives and those who need help at this particular time, which has not been given by many firms in the past, and in effect isn’t being given today.

“Our service is typified by the fact that we have light, cheerful, bright premises always supplied with fresh flowers. Relatives coming here can have coffee in the morning if they like. Our bearers are dressed in normal dark grey suits – we don’t use mourning coats, top hats and high wing collars any longer – and generally the whole atmosphere is one of a business-like presentation. We also have a white ambulance, which goes to hospitals or nursing homes. This we feel is a lot less distressing to to relatives or passers-by, or observers from windows of the particular premises.

“We do, of course, offer a conventional coffin, but we would sooner use the casket shape. It has, we think, a nicer line and it is again less harrowing to look at as against the shoulder tapering to the foot. The caskets are purchased in America; we buy them in America and have them shipped over; they are really for export only. They are hermetically sealed, with an interior-sprung mattress.”

Mr. Cocks also showed a casket of Bermudan mahogany with a metal liner, produced in England. “It has a glass lid, full length glass lid inside, with hermetic sealing once again, and is used for vaults in this country. Another facet of the service that we offer,” he went on, “is a private chapel with fresh flowers on the altar, and candlesticks. We find that many people today prefer to use this method of having the deceased available to be seen at any time of the day or night, as against having them retained in their own homes. I must, of course, add that embalming is a normal part of our service.”

Indeed embalming is becoming more and more popular as part of the British Way of Death. An expert embalmer talked about his job to World in Action.

“In this country,” he said, “embalming entails quite a simple injection of preserving and disinfecting fluid. The features are composed and set to a restful condition. Cosmetics are not used unless they are requested by the relatives – apart from a little powder to take the shine from the features, perhaps. The relatives should be left with a pleasant memory for the rest of their lives, and not an unpleasant one.”

It is clear that British undertakers will stress more and more their service to the living as well as to the dead. It is clear too, they are likely to find an increasing number customers who believe that even in death it is important to keep up with the Joneses.

The last word, as always, was with the undertaker.

“No one,” said Stanley Gilman of the N.A.F.D., “would expect a funeral director to say that he found his work enjoyable; but nevertheless it can be, and is, immensely satisfying.”

The post Mourning Business appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

“These men,” the model story began, “are creating a modern goddess. For creating goddesses the pay is enormous – up to £50,000 a year.”

“These men” were some of the world’s most famous fashion photographers. Their goddess is the model girl, the face on the cover. The top goddess of them all is Jean Shrimpton – “The Shrimp”. It is her face which stares at you from every newstand. In one single week she was on the cover of all the eight top fashion magazines of the world. Other models, photographers, fashion editors and those who just look at her with admiration, all testify to her queenship:

“Well, she is just the most beautiful girl I know, that’s all.”

“I think Jean has more influence than anyone else in my time.”

“I think she has got the most marvellous body.”

“I think she looks so terrific – I don’t think anyone’ll ever be able to beat her.”

“You can put her in any shape you like and she still looks elegant.”

“There won’t be another Jean Shrimpton for a long time because it’s like trying to top the Beatles.”

This is Dick Fontaine’s and Jenny Isard’s story of The Shrimp.

Jean Shrimpton is 21. She’s also 34-23-35. Height 5 feet eight inches, mostly legs. Weight 114 pounds. She has mousey hair, blue eyes and a mole in the middle of her back. With this conveniently packaged equipment she can earn more money than Dr. Beeching by simply standing very still and looking beautiful. Her fantastic success is something new. It’s the result of a fashion revolution which has made her the front girl for an industry with an annual turnover of £800 million. She is the world’s top model because she represents the Girl of the Age. Everybody wants her.

To stay at the top a model girl has to endure hours of tedious preparation before each photographic session. “I don’t really feel about the day at all,” Jean told World in Action. “I am miles away a lot of the time. What does anyone think about? Tick-tick-tick-tick – nothing special, nothing specific. When they’re doing my hair, it’s just a job to me. It’s probably less tiring than standing up posing – at least I’m sitting there and I haven’t got to think and I haven’t got to bother. I’ve done shots where they’ve put nine pairs of eyelashes on me, sprayed my hair gold, and I’m in agony and they keep fiddling and then I could scream. You feel like saying “Christ, I’m human!” I’m not here to project Jean Shrimpton. I project what I’m paid to project.”

Where do goddesses come from? Jean Shrimpton comes from a farm in Burnham, Buckinghamshire. Her father is a builder who does farming on the side. She has a brother and a sister. Said her sister, “I was terribly jealous of her when I younger, of course – I suppose anybody would be. I should think most girls would be.” Said her mother, “She was very much a country girl, you know – pets. I think she still is at heart. She’s always liked dogs. She’s not terribly interested in clothes or anything.”

For a time Jean thought only of ponies. Then, like lots of others, she went to one of London’s biggest model agencies. Twelve thousand girls apply to London’s twenty model agencies each year – ready to go through a ruthless inspection. If a girl is accepted it takes her four weeks and 28 guineas to learn the first steps of the modelling business. The average working life of a model is eight years. At twenty-five you are getting old.

Most of London’s 3,000 working models would like to be photographic models. But 2,500 of them have jobs as showroom models at an average of nine guineas a week. The photographic model is a rarity; top photographic models can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

After four weeks of pummelling themselves into the shape of the moment, many girls start their modelling far from the world of high fashion. One showroom model described her work:

“I come in about nine o’clock in the morning, and I clean coats – that is taking off stray threads and little bits of fluff. Then we allocate them to the models they’re to go to. Meanwhile you’ve probably got six or seven customers coming in. You’ve got to try the coats on, model them in front of the customers, and then when they’ve gone you get the designer down and he comes in and then you stand for hours and hours while they sort of pick the coat to pieces on you and your feet are aching, but you mustn’t show it.”

A few years ago two plump unknowns were luckier. The day they left model school they got their pictures in the paper. Their names were Celia Hammond and Jean Shrimpton. Today Celia Hammond is one of Jean Shrimpton’s closest rivals. She remembers how they both began:

“Jean left me behind. She went to Vogue and immediately she got started. But for about 18 months nothing happened to me at all, and I very nearly gave up.”

Lady Wrendlesham [sic – Rendlesham], then at Vogue, also remembers how Jean started; “When she went there somebody said ‘You’d make a good model’ and she came in and we looked at her and she was rather fat and she didn’t know what to do in front of the camera.”

No one realized straight away that Jean was a goddess – nor did Jean herself. “I didn’t take it seriously,” she said. “It was just that it seemed easy money. I’d get on the set and go through my routine of posing and it didn’t mean anything to me. I wasn’t aware of clothes or shape or feeling or mood or the atmosphere that different clothes have to project a different feeling, and I wasn’t aware of the photographer or anything.”

But within two years the fashion trade realized that Jean Shrimpton’s was the face it had been waiting for. The Shrimp had made a perfectly timed entrance. The top models of the past recognized a new star. Madame Saignon, famous model from Norman Hartnell’s, said: “Her timing was right. Her face was required, and the clothes at the time were being made for a girl like her.”

Barbara Goalen, the most famous English model before Shrimpton, said of her, “I think Jean Shrimpton has an enchanting little face. I don’t know her so the fact that I say this shows that it means quite a lot to me. I think she’s very much part of her time; it is a face that just appeals at this particular time. Because of the young feeling in clothes, everything is for the under-25s now, which is quite the opposite from how it was in my time.”

And John French, one of the “greats” in fashion photography commented, “It was wonderful that at that moment this live figure appeared with her own way of putting across her own personality. Instead of making the clothes into a certain shape she made them part of herself, part of her own life.”

But until photographer David Bailey took a deep personal interest in her no one had seen in her the makings of a goddess. Jean Shrimpton’s partnership with David Bailey was so close that they became engaged to be married. Between them they probably earned about five times as much as the Prime Minister.

“Just being with David is an influence,” Jean said. “And then he began to influence my movement and my dress, and then when he’d get me on the set he’d put me into shape, you know, and he’d encourage certain expressions, and then I began to feel something inside that I didn’t know existed. And it gradually sort of builds up and when it’s going well there’s a lot coming out of you and there’s a lot going on between you and the person photographing you, and the clothes are good and you know you look good. You work much better than if you think you look awful and nobody’s particularly interested.”

Norman Parkinson, another of the great English photographers, has discovered several of today’s top models. For it is the photographers who transform the raw material into the finished product. Like other leading photographers, Parkinson works in close partnership with a few favourite girls – Celia Hammond is one of these.

“I don’t think anyone can get started.” Celia told World in Action, “until they get someone who is prepared to spend really a long time with them, and get them through all the bad bits, because if you don’t find someone who is really interested your first pictures are inevitably appalling and you lose confidence.”

“When I see dozens of girls,” Parkinson said, “I just sit there rather like a pudding, rather like the dullest reader of any magazine you know, and I just sit there, and I look at the girl and I say to myself ‘This girl must send me some signal.’ I don’t make an approach to the girl. She has got to send a signal of looking different, of reacting to what I say, because the whole model-photographer relationship is one of reaction of one to the other.”

David Bailey confirmed this. “I think the only way you can get a really super image and a super model is if a photographer takes a personal interest in the girl. Otherwise she’s going to wander around and work for this fellow and for that fellow, and she’s not really going anywhere. I mean he’s got to sort of fall in love with her – not love like taking her to bed, but love the image, you know, and the image he wants to create. 1 think this is very important. I think each time you have a girl in the studio and you’re taking pictures against a piece of white paper, you’ve got to make the girl feel she’s loved and that she’s wonderful and beautiful. When I first met Jean she just walked into the studio that I was working in at the time and it was sort of instant, you know. I knew that she would be great. She was just the country waif then, you know, and not much at all. She didn’t know a thing, really. But she’s a born model. There’s not many. Her legs and everything – she’s got the longest legs I’ve ever seen, I think, and the very big mouth. The weaknesses are the small eyes, and the bags, I suppose. She won’t like that.”

David Bailey’s grooming paid off. Jean Shrimpton is now the most sought-after model in the world. In New York everyone wants her at their parties. Not that she is a great party person. “I don’t find conversation easy,” she said. “It’s difficult to talk to people. I can’t bear those cocktail parties for cocktail talk, you know, where nobody really wants to talk to anyone. I don’t think I react frightfully well to new people. I’m just quiet and polite, I think.”

Where can Jean Shrimpton go from here? How long can a goddess last? Her throne is a shaky one because she can keep it only as long as her face stays in fashion. Already people are naming successors. Unlikely girls get predicted because glossy magazines like the Queen have a problem. The Editor, Jocelyn Stevens explained:

“There’s this tremendous restless search for new faces. I think part of the thing from a magazine proprietor’s point of view is that one’s always trying to make one’s editorial better than the advertising, and if you have your advertising photographed by the same photographers using the same girls as the editorial, the magazine has a sort of curious sameness; it goes right through. So we’re always trying to find a new girl for editorial, and as soon as you find a new girl the advertisers want to use her, and as soon as they start to use her the Americans want to use her, so there’s this terrific turnover of girls.”

And Clare Wrendlesham, Fashion Editress of the same paper was “terribly glad that Jean has gone to New York because the photographers will have to train new talent.”

A goddess can lose favour. But worse still, a goddess can start believing her own myth. “If you’re told every day how wonderful and how fabulous you are and what a wonderful person you are, and you’re the best, the most desired girl in the world – the fashion world anyway — it’s very difficult to keep control and this,” said David Bailey, “this is going to be Jean’s problem. What she must watch now is this image thing. Top Models become this sort of great image, and then they start believing they really are the image. That’s the terrifying thing.”

Jean Shrimpton was to have married David Bailey on 2nd June, a week after the programme. The wedding did not take place – but the photographs go on being taken — every day, every hour. At twenty-one, Jean Shrimpton has become an international name with a five-figure income, simply by looking beautiful. She can go no farther as a model. Where can she go?

Said Jean herself, “I’m not very bright at making decisions, but I think I’m shrewder than I was a year ago. If I’m in a film it’d have to be a film that had a character like me in which I could be almost myself, you know. In ten years time I’d like to be married and have a home of my own – I could have animals there and I’d have a donkey in the field or something – I love donkeys.

“Life’s been pretty good,” she added.

Indeed life has been good for Jean Shrimpton who had the luck to have the face of 1964.

The post Top Goddess appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

Smugglers are international: the Englishman, the Belgian, the Siamese, and the man from Andorra, high in the Pyrenees. Of course, they never meet. But they are partners in the trade which for every pound invested, pays the biggest profits of them all. They operate with sampans, with mules, with fast cars, and by plane. They smuggle anything from bullion to butter, from diamonds to opium.

To the smuggler it doesn’t matter what he carries; only the profit counts. And the profits are immense. For every year, according to Interpol – the international police organization – the smugglers of the world swindle the customs with such rich loads as: £300 million of gold, £100 million of drugs and narcotics, £30 million of diamonds, and £70 million of such highly taxed goods as cars, radios, and perfume.

Britain, as befits a nation of traders, is an active smuggling centre. The illegal import of watches alone tells the story. In 1963, the Customs seized watches valued at £200,000. But for every watch they confiscated, it is reckoned ten more got through. So, about £2,000,000 of watches were smuggled into Britain in one year. How?

Of the 20,000 people who arrive in Britain every day, most come by air. They are people like the businessman, the housewife, the holiday-tripper. They sit in the arrival lounge of London Airport awaiting their summons to the Customs. To the Customs officer this collection of passengers is fairly typical. The woman says she has nothing to declare, but in fact she has. For she fails to mention the new skirt bought in Paris for herself and the purse brought back as a present. The Customs man decides that this is a case of genuine misunderstanding, needing no more than a warning. The young man, the holiday-tripper, is next. Slung casually over his shoulder is an expensive new camera. He says he bought it last week just before leaving London. But he cannot produce a receipt. So he is taken away to see a senior officer who will find out if the camera was really bought in Britain, or whether it was another amateur attempt at smuggling – an activity many travellers consider fair sport, without realizing it is also a dangerous one. Coming to the businessman, the Customs officer decides to examine his suitcases carefully. He feels for hidden compartments in the lid and sides. Next he searches the contents. A first batch of watches is found between scooped-out hairbrushes. But the bigger haul comes from the tin of talcum. For, packed under a top layer of powder, are two dozen watches – a load which would earn a smuggler around £250.

The main watch smuggling routes from Switzerland into Britain are through Belgium and across France. To make watch smuggling profitable, and at the same time to keep the risks down, the professional smugglers try to bring in very big loads at a time.

One favoured way is to hide them in cars with specially built secret compartments. The holidaymakers’ car route from the Continent – the Cross-Channel ferries arriving at Dover – is used by the professional smugglers, hoping to pass undetected among the tourist cars. World in Action showed a special reconstruction of such an attempt being made:

A Customs man asks what there is to declare. The driver produces the normal 200 duty-free cigarettes. His brief-case yields no contraband. Nor does his luggage, brought out from the car. But the Customs man, having been told by the driver that he had come from Paris, spots yesterday’s date on a Swiss hotel bill. He calls over a colleague and a search of the car begins. First the boot, inch by inch, till a secret compartment containing boxes of watches is discovered. Then on to an inspection pit for a thorough look at the underside. The exhaust silencer and the petrol tank are tapped to make sure they are not dummies, too. Mirror and torch are used to look inside the wings to examine the upper side of the chassis. Then inside the car another secret compartment is uncovered. Here are 100 more watches, making a total haul of 250, worth around £4,000. Finally the driver himself is taken to a private office and searched.

Like all confiscated goods, the watches eventually find their way to a warehouse in London’s dockland. The door is number 007, but it belongs to the Queen’s Warehouse, not to James Bond. Here there are rooms crammed with thousands of pounds worth of contraband: cigars, cigarettes and leaf tobacco, wines and spirits, and, of course, watches. All the goods find their way on to the market in the end, for when the Warehouse is full the Customs auction them off to reputable dealers.

For nearly seven centuries the British have been building traditions in smuggling as eccentric as most of the nation’s other cherished traditions. Smuggling has been with us since 1275 when Edward the First first levied Customs Duty on the export of wool. As the levies increased in number the smuggler came into his own, mainly running brandy and wine from France at a handsome profit, and not hesitating to fight it out with the British Customs man if necessary. And because he supplied black market liquor at cheap prices the smuggler was popularly regarded as a hero not a criminal-an attitude which is still widespread.

In Britain today the Customs men no longer have to learn how to shoot it out with the smugglers. Instead they are scientifically taught such things as the design of ships, and where and how to search them. They are taught how to recognize all the apparatus of opium smoking, the pipe, the lamp, and the hard wooden pillow used by the addict. They are shown how cigarette lighters can be smuggled in body belts, how watches can be hidden away in hollowed-out books and shoes.

Britain, of course, has no monopoly on smuggling. It is a truly international racket. Indeed the smallest state would go bankrupt if it were not for smuggling. Sitting astride the snow-covered Pyrenees between France and Spain is Andorra, only 18 miles long and 12 miles wide. It has no income tax and even the fountains in the streets supply hot water, free. And it is a smuggler’s haven. For on either side are countries with high taxes on luxury goods. The shops of Andorra are stacked with cheap tax-free whisky, tax-free razors, tax-free lighters. But official frontier posts are closely watched and every car is searched.

There are, however, other routes into Spain. Late in January, 1964 World in Action cameras joined a smuggling expedition.

First we watched as goods, bought openly in Andorra’s tax-free shops, were assembled and stowed in packing cases. Cameras, sparking plugs for cars, cosmetics, and long-playing records-all high-tax luxuries in Spain today. From Andorra La Vella, the capital of the pocket republic, the packed crates were driven up the icy roads to a mountain village to be handed over to tough mountain men for the crossing over the 10,000 feet high Pyrenees. This particular load was worth £300 in Andorra. Its price just a few hard miles away over the mountains: £630 – more than double.

No one turned out to see our mule-train set off: for convoys such as this are a regular happening. And to Andorrans smuggling is just another way of earning a living. At the summit, the unposted frontier, there was a moment’s rest before the down-hill slither to our rendezvous on a Spanish mountain road, where the contact man from Barcelona was due to meet us. When he did arrive, he was at first, and not unnaturally, surprised and worried to find a camera team with the Andorrans. But the leader of the smugglers managed to reassure him. So we recorded the loading of the goods into the Spaniard’s van – though he prudently insisted that he cover up his number plates!

Without doubt the most loathsome though certainly the most profitable form of smuggling is the squalid traffic in drugs. In Far Eastern ports, such as Hong Kong, the Customs Officer’s main task is to try to stop this traffic, mainly in opium. A constant check is kept on all junks putting into port. But much of the opium still gets through. Some of it is smoked locally, sending its addicts into stupefied sleep. The remainder filters along the Dope Route to the West. Starting in far-off places like Siam (Thailand) further supplies are fed in from the poppy fields of Turkey. And thus to France where the stuff is processed into heroin and morphine, and then smuggled across the Atlantic to the main customers – the dope addicts of America.

Recent laws in America have made dope-peddling a crime almost as serious as murder. But many still consider the risks worth while. According to Interpol, an ounce of opium which is worth ten shillings in, say, Hong Kong or Turkey is worth £300 by the time it is refined in Europe, and no less than £1,500 an ounce to the drug addicts in New York.

The dope growers and exporters do not want payment in money. They prefer gold. So the other main smuggling route runs West to East. Gold flows out from America to France. Some is filtered to Turkey to pay for opium. But the main stream flows eastward via India to South-East Asia.

Certainly the oddest form of contraband in the world today is smuggled within an hour’s flight of any British airport. On the frontier, between Holland and Belgium is the small town of Kieldrecht, centre of a thriving industry for smuggling, of all things, butter.

One side of Kieldrecht is in Holland; and here butter costs sixty-four francs, fifty centimes a kilo – that’s 4/6 a pound. A few yards away is the Belgian frontier post. Here Customs Guards check all cars to see if they are carrying butter, for on the Belgian side of the border butter is heavily taxed and costs no francs a kilo-that’s 7/- a pound – half-a-crown more. Not that many housewives of Belgian Kieldrecht buy it at that price; they have only to walk around the corner, down a side-street where there is no customs post, and stroll into Dutch Kieldrecht to buy cheap butter.

But most Belgians don’t live near the frontier. So smugglers run van-loads of butter from Holland into the interior of Belgium, reckoning to make anything up to £100 for a two-hour drive. Once the van is loaded, as a World in Action reconstruction showed, the smuggler rigs an improvised but effective self-defence system against Customs patrol cars. Boxes are filled with nails soldered together in pairs in criss-cross fashion so that when they fall to the ground hundreds of sharp points stick upwards to puncture the tyres of the pursuing car. The boxes are set, ready to be tugged open by a piece of twine.

At nightfall, the vanload of butter is driven out of the garage, passing along quiet country lanes to cross the frontier into Belgium at one of the many places where there are no custom posts. The smuggler knows that even when well inside Belgium he cannot count himself safe from Customs cars on patrol. Such patrols in 1963 arrested 85 smugglers, confiscated 221 cars and seized half a million pounds of butter. Sometimes the smuggler wins. But, after all, it’s only butter. The pity is that too often it is the dope smuggler, quite apart from the gold smuggler, or the watch smuggler, who wins in this the most profitable business on earth.

The post Nothing to declare appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

On Easter Saturday, 28th March, 1964, a new sound spread over East Anglia and south-east England; or rather, it was not so much a new sound as a trad sound from a new place. On Easter Saturday, Radio Caroline, the first of Britain’s radio ships, broadcast its first programme of pop music. This broadcast was like a bolt from the blue-in more senses than one! The launching of Caroline had been a well-kept secret.

But there was another surprise to come: a second pirate ship with a different group of backers was nearing completion. This was Radio Atlanta.

At 6 o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, 12th May, Atlanta went on the air. At 10.05 that night, its usual transmission time, World in Action presented a report on these new type pirates showing who had got them on the air, and who was trying to get them off it.

Among those who welcomed Radio Caroline and Radio Atlanta – which later joined forces to become Caroline North and Caroline South – were some pop music publishers who saw in the ships an opportunity to get more of their music played on the air. One of these publishers explained to World in Action, “At the present time,” (this was before the pirate ships had started to operate) “at the present time there are only two outlets in sound broadcasting into England. One, of course, is the BBC and the other is Luxembourg. Luxembourg is held by all of the major record companies. A third and alternative outlet such as a radio ship arrives on the scene; it can be appreciated how very undesirable this could be from the record companies’ point of view because they cannot control it.”

The pirate ships are only one aspect of a business that is big and booming – so big that in 1963 the pop business took £22 million in record sales alone. Six months after Radio Caroline’s first broadcast, on the night of the Beatles’ return from one of their American tours. World in Action went back to the pop business to take a look at another side of it – the flip side. This report, like the earlier one on the pirates, was prepared by Mike Hodges.

Symbolically, this edition of World in Action opened with a shot of a goldfish. “With luck and skilful judgement,” said the narrator, “this fish will sell a million pop records.” The fish belongs to Roy Tempest, a trader in Britain’s fastest growing industry – pop groups.

Roy Tempest speaks lovingly of his fish. “I’ve got a tropical fish tank with my Top Twenty fish in. I call them my Top Twenty fish because they represent my Top Twenty rock ’n’ roll groups. Now these fish, the first one of them to enter the Hit Parade … what I will do? I will isolate the fish in a little bowl and I will give him all the tit-bits, and naturally this will make all the other nineteen fish rather envious and they’ll be hopping mad and hoping like hell to get into the Hit Parade.”

The pop business as the customers see it is one thing. The groups and the fans see pops as one long swinging ring-a-ding rave-up, a ball, a good time. But the agents, the managers and all the other promoters see it differently. To them it is business and the pop groups are the human merchandise.

It all began with the Beatles. Thousands of British teenagers bought guitars and drum kits on the never-never. They let their hair down over their eyebrows and the group stampede was on. But at the same time another, and a quieter rush started. The operators moved in too.

Eddie Rogers, author of a book about Tin Pan Alley, and an old hand in the pop business told World in Action, “Everywhere you go there is a group and what’s more important, every group has a manager – oh, and they’ve all got the greatest group in the world. Every group they manage is the greatest discovery since penicillin. Since the advent of the Beatles everybody thinks they can get on the bandwagon.”

In the pop business they talk about the flip side – that’s the tune on the other side of a hit record – the tune not usually played. But the whole pop business has its own flip side – the side not usually talked about.

A typical group, recently turned professional, is the Four Plus One. Keith is the group’s vocalist – he’s nineteen. Junior, who plays lead guitar, is sixteen, and used to be a sheet metal worker. Boots, the bass guitarist, is nineteen. Ken, the drummer is seventeen and gave up a place at college to play with the group.

When these boys first got together a youth club worker moved in on them quickly, waving a contract. We looked carefully at this and found:

It tied the boys up for the next five years.

It could tie them up for another five years after that.

For all of these ten years the manager would have complete control.

In all this time, no matter how much they earned, the manager would take 20 per cent, a fifth, of all the money.

The manager would also control all the advertising and publicity – but the group would pay the bills.

The boys would also have to pay a 10 per cent agent’s fee for every booking, so that, in all, they stood to pay out at least ten shillings of every pound they earned.

Luckily the Four Plus One read every clause and threw the contract out, and signed up with another agent. These four boys form one of the 10,000 beat groups fighting to get to the top. It’s a struggle, and a hard one at that.

Said Ken, “We are working about seven nights a week now, earning about £30 to £40 each. That’s not much though, when you consider we are doing concerts every night, also rehearsals all day.”

Boots agreed that it wasn’t all that much. “I think it’s very expensive starting a group,” he said. “I’ve got about £300-worth of gear. Keith’s got £300-worth, Ken’s got £200-worth. But it’s the HP as well, you know – it drags you down a bit when you have to pay out a lot every week.”

To Junior it was well worth it. His ambitions were clear: “Wanna be known when I walk down the street, sorta thing, instead of just working as anybody else – regular hours. Get up when I want, finish when we’re able to, have something to show for it instead of nothing at the end of the week, you know. It’s better all round and you enjoy yourself when you’re on stage – you have a big rave-up and everything, you know. It’s a right giggle.”

Keith agreed. “We have a ball on stage, one of the main things. We all sort of rave about and everything and the kids like it and everybody enjoys themselves, you know, and it’s great, you know – great life.”

All of today’s up-and-comers depend heavily on their promoters. And the promoters are always enthusiastic about their latest finds. Eddie Cox is one agent who does not restrain himself in describing the fine points of a young man named Rhett Stoller.

“Rhett Stoller,” said Cox. “Yes, I think you’ll be hearing about Rhett Stoller one of these days as I think he’s the greatest – what shall I say – multi-guitarist in Europe, if not the world. He’s already done quite a number of recordings which have absolutely astounded electronic engineers who say he can’t do more than nine, ten, eleven or twelve dubbings on one tape, but he’s already recorded twenty-two guitars on one tape and it’s a noise that sounds like a symphony.”

Any one of today’s newcomers might make the Top Twenty by next month. But the chances are that when they get there they will find the middle-men have moved in ahead of them. Roy Tempest is one of the new-style pop impresarios: a man who backs the outsiders. He described how he does it:

“We look through the charts, we buy the new records of the new releases of the groups which are not signed with our agents, and if we like the record – if we think they’ve got a fair chance of going into the Hit Parade, then we buy them for ballroom dates from their agents, and if they do hit the charts in a big way, then we’re on a very good profit.”

Having bought a group when they were unknown and cheap. Tempest waits till they become successful and expensive. Then he moves in. World in Action listened to Tempest on the phone to a ballroom manager:

“I don’t know if you’ve seen these guys perform, but they go over like there’s no tomorrow. Now I’ve got a Thursday for you, Peter. You know what they’re going out for, don’t you. They’re asking now £200. Well, now. I’ll tell you what I’ll do – they’ve got a date, if you’re interested. It’s in November – I’ll give you the date, Peter – Thursday, 19th November. The only Thursday they’ve got left. I can let you have it for £120. That is an absolutely unbelievable price, because they’re number five in the charts next week. I’ll be honest with you – I’ve had about seven offers, quite seriously, but as I offered them to you in the first place… At that price Peter, I’m practically giving it away to you.”

Peter accepted the present.

“That’s fine, yes. Fine – I’ll put it in the book,” said Tempest. “You’ll ruin me, Peter; my life, you will.”

Roy Tempest gauges the value of his stars by their place in the record charts. Indeed the success or failure of any pop hope lies in the record shops. A star is as big as the sales of his last disc. Each week the musical papers publish a guide to these sales known as the Charts. These are the barometer of success – the Stock Exchange list of the pop world. They are all compiled from weekly lists supplied by record shops selected by each of the musical papers.

But many people in the business doubt the reliability of the charts. Walter Beaver, a Mersey-side record dealer is one of them:

“For instance, a little while ago the record by the Animals called ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ was first published. Immediately it shot into the charts but into the chart compiled by the Musical Express it came in at number ten. The Melody Maker showed it at number nineteen, and the Record Retailer at number thirty-one – all of these, mark you, on the same day and all of these are national charts. Now who is correct? I don’t know, but two, possibly all three of these charts, must be hopelessly inaccurate.

“A dealer can be over-enthusiastic in his ordering,” Walter Beaver continued, “and there’s no surer way of getting rid of stock than by putting the record in question into the dealer’s return to the charts and hoping that it will climb. Believe me, this can be very successful. I think the simplest reason for these discrepancies is merely the fact that in most record shops the girl is simply asked to send her returns to the charts and this she does by writing down fifty record titles as fast as she possibly can.”

But Jack Hutton, editor of the Melody Maker, defends the chart published by his paper.

“This is the cheapest and quickest way that we can think of,” he said. “On compiling such a list you could spend a fortune. I don’t honestly think there is a fairer reflection of record sales in the country; but it must be remembered that this can be only a guide to record sales and through that a guide to the popularity of different artists and groups. We can only reflect the trend of sales in the country as far as we can see them.”

The charts are also closely watched by a band of men known in the business as song pluggers. It is their job to get records played on radio and television so that they become popular. Eddie Rogers is a professional song-plugger who distrusts the charts:

“I remember many years ago I was associated with a number. Four musical papers gave this a number one in their charts. The fifth musical paper didn’t even show it anywhere in the Top Twenty, so I phoned the man that compiled the charts in that paper and I said ‘Do me a favour, I mean every paper’s given it number one – give me a number thirteen or something.’ And he said ‘Why should I? You don’t advertise with us.’”

The song-pluggers today have one powerful target – the men who put the music on the air. Eddie Rogers remembers how it used to work:

“For instance, I have been in the studio and on a live broadcast and made signs at the artist on the stage about how much 1 was going to pay him if he did one more chorus of my song. But even if I paid him as much as forty quid, which I have paid for one chorus of a song, it wasn’t money thrown away because the next day I would sell 40,000 copies of sheet music.”

Today it isn’t sheet music that matters – it’s the records themselves.

The money spent on records in Britain explains why everyone in the pop business keeps a jealous ear on what is being played. In 1950, British record sales totalled a mere £3½ million. By 1960 this figure had risen to £15 million. In 1963 sales shot even higher – to £21¾ millions – nearly seven times up on the 1950 figure, and in 1964 it was higher still.

Two big companies alone have cornered four-fifths of this money. The smaller of these, which sells nearly four of every ten records in Britain is Decca under such labels as: Warner Brothers, R.C.A. Victor, Coral, London, Vocalion, Brunswick.

But easily the biggest is Electric and Musical Industries – E.M.I. – which sells just under half of all the records. E.M.I.’s labels include: Parlophone, H.M.V., Capitol, United Artists, Columbia, M.G.M.

E.M.I. is the world’s largest record company. Its chairman, Sir Joseph Lockwood, keeps a realistic eye on the competition.

“Well, it’s a free-for-all,” he told World in Action. “The competition is absolutely terrific and anyone who thinks this is an easy business should come and have a try. People who rush in knowing very little about the business can lose substantial sums of money very quickly. Last year (1963), for instance, in Britain there were 2,133 pop records produced. Of these only 80 got into the Top Ten. So that I should think about 1,700 of those records that were issued last year lost money.”

One man who tried to compete with the giants like Sir Joseph was Joe Meek, songwriter and creator of the hit record ‘Telstar’, one of the biggest pop sellers of all time. He started up his own company.

“This was a complete unit to produce and press the records,” he explained, “and the third record turned out to be a hit. It was ‘Angela Jones’ by Michael Cox. But this brought on a lot of difficulties because the major record companies decided that they didn’t want small operators and so they did their best to squash us out of the shops.”

Joe Meek now produces recording tapes only, leaving the giant record companies to make and distribute his records.

The middlemen of pop, each in his own way, keep on making money in a shifting market. Even the men who write the tune on the flip side do all right because the flip side earns exactly the same amount in royalties as the main side. Whenever the main side is played the flip side automatically earns a royalty too. But the stars themselves, the poods in thi smarket, fade – and then what happens to them?

Only three long years ago there were two young men who were making money for themselves and for lots of other people besides. One of them was Terry Dene, born Williams, once hailed as Britain’s Elvis Presley. He spoke to us as he walked, 24 years old and alone, among the empty dreams of Denmark Street in London – in Tin Pan Alley itself:

“I went to the top very, very quickly – in fact I think far too quickly. I was 18 years old and at the top, earning roughly £150 a week. Then, everything crashed. My stardom disappeared almost overnight. I went to various doctors and people for advice – I even spoke to some people in the business – but it’s very, very difficult sometimes to explain some things inside you that seem to go wrong. 1 tried desperately to get back on my feet again, but every time I made the attempt something seemed to go wrong again. It seemed to be a vicious circle.”

In 1960 – which is all of five years ago – Ricky Valance sang a song called ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’. The record sold a quarter of a million copies and so won a silver disc. Today Ricky Valance can walk along the crowded promenade at Bridlington in Yorkshire and nobody turns a head.

In a seafront cafe Ricky, aged 25, looked back on the young Ricky, aged 21:

“As one can imagine, at this particular time I made quite a lot of money from ‘Tell Laura’ and the records; but I was an idiot at the time because I felt that there was plenty more where this came from. Unfortunately this was my big mistake, and other people’s too. But, of course, by that time it was just vanished. Anyway, after that I went away from London and started trying to sell myself. I had a lot of heartbreak and worry and in the end I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“But anyway,” he concluded more hopefully, “the thing is at this particular moment I would like to say that I have learned from my mistakes – I really have learned and I feel that given another chance – I really feel this after studying it from quite a wide angle – that if I could just get another chance again, I could really make it again.”

The post The flip side appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

A TEAM of People and Places researchers and correspondents are scouring the north for interesting people who collect unusual objects. Each week the owners of articles ranging from handcuffs to cricket caps are being brought to the studios to tell viewers the story behind their hobby.

Programme producer David Plowright said: “People who collect unusual items have appeared in the show many times, but during the past two months we have been presenting one collector each week.

“We are looking for people who not only have an unusual collection but can tell an interesting story about it as well. We have in mind people who are well-known in some walk of life and have a hobby of which the public know little or nothihg.

“Many people have written in teiUng us about their collections, but few are suitable for the programme because they are the sort of things thousands of people collect — like foreign stamps.

“For us, it must be something out of the ordinary.”

The programme researchers did not have far to go for four people who have appeared in the show in the past few weeks.

Ernest Thompson, who is a technical editor with an engineering firm, went to the Manchester studios from his home four miles away to talk about his collection of religious figures.

Antique dealer Harold Gilbert and his collection of handcuffs were found at a shop only half a-mile from the studios, and David Drummond, who appears in the Biggies series as Lord Bertie, walked in from the studio next door, where he was rehearsing, to show his collection of walking sticks.

Drummer Amos Smith left his place in the People and Places Derek Hilton Trio to go before the cameras and discuss his coin collection.

Thirty-year-old Amos, who started his collection of more than 1,000 English and Roman coins 10 years ago, said: “I have had many letters from other numismatists since my collection was seen in the show.”

Has he been able to obtain any rare coins as a result?

“No.” Amos told me. “But I’ve heard from two dealers who want to buy the collection, which I insured for £2,500.

“The only coins I’m really interested in are about half-a-dozen English crowns. They are held by people not prepared to sell. But even if the crowns came on the market I wouldn’t be able to buy them. They would probably cost as much as my whole collection is worth “

The post People and Places collects collectors appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

AS a television personality Chris Langford is rare indeed. For she says: “I would not have minded too much if the chance to get into show business had not come my way.” And: “I have no particular ambition to get to the top.”

Two-and-a-half years ago Chris was a secretary at a modest salary in a Manchester office. Then “just for a lark” she entered a talent competition and won first prize.

That led to a job in television and, 15 months ago, to the regular singing spot in Granada’s People and Places.

Chris, 21, told me at the Manchester studios that despite her show business life she still enjoys “all the simple things in life, such as lying in bed late, listening to records, reading, knitting, shopping and an occasional trip to London.”

Chris must be television’s only singer who uses dancing lessons to help her singing technique. She said: “Although I don’t dance professionally, the dancing lessons and the daily limbering-up exercises I do at home help tremendously with arm movements when I’m singing.”

A year ago Chris married Jim Goldby, a television sound engineer. They settled down to a quiet life in an eight-roomed flat in Tynemouth, near Newcastle.

Said Chris: “It’s in a Georgian type house with French windows looking right out over the sea. We have wonderful views for landscape painting. Jim is a good painter and now I’ve decided to take it up.”

Chris added: “We are also both keen on Continental cooking and we love to experiment with French and Italian dishes.

“Jim is the better cook. He creates some wonderful meals.”

Visitors to the Goldby flat usually find Chris lounging in slacks and silk shirts, though she has between 50 and 60 smart dresses.

Some of these dresses she designs herself, but she admits that she spends a great deal of money at shops. “Clothes,” she said, “are one of my weaknesses.”

Chris has an impish sense of humour which, during rehearsals for People and Places, leads to much banter with interviewers Bill Grundy and Gay Byrne and the Derek Hilton Trio.

But she has no plans to become a comedienne. She said: “I love singing too much to think of anything else. All I want is to go on singing in People and Places and live quietly with my husband.”

The post Chris Langford doesn’t seek stardom appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WATCH out … People and Places is coming your way. From next week, thousands of Northerners on holiday at seaside towns in the region will be able to see how this Granada show goes on the air.

Twelve on-the-spot editions, under the title “Pier to Pier,” are planned for a four-week tour of the resorts.

The tour begins on Tuesday at Skegness. There, the 50 strong production and technical staff will work at top pressure to set up their mobile studio and put over the show before moving on to Mablethorpe and Cleethorpes on Wednesday and Thursday.

Then on to Bridlington, Filey, Scarborough, Morecambe, Blackpool, St. Annes, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno.

This meet-the-people series of outside broadcasts aims to provide something for everyone.

Holidaymakers will see and hear the programme personalities — interviewers Bill Grundy and Gay Byrne, singer Marion Keene and the Derek Hilton Trio — as the show goes on the air.

Viewers will also see show-business stars appearing in the seaside summer shows, a film of the town from which the programme is transmitted and they will meet some of the interesting people who live and work in the towns.

Cameras will be perched on piers and promenades, in pleasure grounds, on harbour walls and beside boating pools.

Interviews by Bill Grundy and Gay Byrne will present current news stories against a background of yachts, sand, sea and fairground bustle.

Marion Keene gets a num her of unusual settings for her songs. At Mablethorpe they pop her on top of a helter-skelter and at Morecambe on board the schooner Moby Dick, the one that was used in the film.

Producer David Plowright told me: “The content of the show will be the same as it is in the studios. The difference is that all the items in ‘Pier to Pier’ will have a holiday flavour.

“We shall be doing all the shows out in the open — whatever the weather!

“We intend looking at the main sport in each resort — water ski-ing, sand yachting, and so on — and see some kart racing.”

The double decker, open-topped People and Places bus, which will be heading Granada’s Travelling Eye fleet, will become a familiar sight to holidaymakers.

Last year the People and Places team faced a number of hazards — including the bad weather — that they hope they will not have to cope with this year.

One was the gremlin that turned up at Bridlington in the shape of a gust of wind. It blew the programme caption cards into the sea minutes before the programme was due to go on.

They were retrieved, dripping wet, with only seconds to spare, by three men in a small boat.

When the show visited the Quarry Hill Flats, at Leeds, some of the intended camera shots were obscured by an army of children.

Closer and closer came the children until the camera crews and artists — among them singer Marion Ryan — were surrounded.

And at Carr Mill, near St. Helens, the Derek Hilton Trio went adrift. The anchorage of the raft on which they were playing broke and they began to float out into the lake as hydroplanes whizzed past them at speed.

The post People on the pier appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF the supply is anything to go on, the demand for medical information grows and grows. Documentary medical programmes, fictional medical programmes — seldom even a straight play on radio or television without the intrusion of the doctor.

If you switch off to read the paper there it is again. You sometimes have a job to find the Test Match scores among the clinical details of players’ injuries.

And now, for 20 minutes each week, I’m at it myself!

What’s it all about, this apparently insatiable curiosity about illness and health? Are we a nation of neurotics or are we genuinely anxious to learn about things that can affect us and things that can help us? I’m afraid it’s a little of both. Were it only the former I would not be undertaking this present series nor would the British Medical Association have chosen “Health Education” as its Subject of the Year.

It is true that interest in matters of this sort is not always healthy, and that in some cases it may even have dangers. But I believe, as do most of my profession, that these dangers are nothing to the menace of ignorance, with its inevitable accompaniment of superstition and fear.

Indeed it is for this reason that doctors and hospitals are now so ready to assist with programmes like Emergency — Ward 10.

The old days of secrecy and mystery are over. The witch doctor is dead. So, if people are to he informed, then the more fully and accurately it is done, the better.

In the Evening Surgery series we will deal with all sorts of medical matters. Not merely illnesses, though there’ll be plenty of those, no doubt, but health as well, both from the individual and the community point of view.

Smoking, clean air, sport, food, feet — in fact anything affecting my profession which the public ought to know or which would be interesting or even amusing for them to know — and amusement isn’t as out of place as all that in matters of health.

Indeed, one of the first steps in cultivating a healthy attitude to illness is surely to learn to talk about it in other than hushed tones.

I shall make no attempt to talk as a “high-priest” and I hope viewers will not listen to me like a congregation.

Some people might wonder whether 6.40 p.m. is the best time for this sort of programme. Well, I suppose there are some things that children shouldn’t hear, but one can never be too young to learn sense.

It is in childhood above all that health education can really help. It is at this time that wrong thinking, false attitudes and fears begin. And they begin with ignorance, not with hearing “unsuitable things.”

Every child is aware of illness and even of death, and the more they are shrouded in mystery the more frightening they become. In other words, the problem is not “are they too young?” but “are they too old?” Are their prejudices and superstitions too firmly fixed to be dislodged?

Incidentally, don’t be misled by the title of this new programme. In Evening Surgery, I am not inviting viewers to take a peep at my patients or my prescription book, nor am I trying to diagnose or treat ailments.

I am not trying to be a Sister X or a Doctor Y of the women’s magazines, nor am I a means of dodging your own doctor’s waiting-room queue.

But I do hope that I may make your own doctor’s work easier. Not by teaching you to treat yourselves, but by helping you to heed and to understand what he tells you — and even to understand his problems as well as your own.

Finally, you won’t have only me to look at. As a general practitioner, I can hardly claim to be a universal genius in the medical field, and I shall bring along my “experts” and question them.

Patients, too, will have their say from time to time, both on film and in the studio.

The post Take a doctor’s advice… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

THE trim, white-painted motor cruiser chugged in from the open sea and made for its home buoy. When it had been safely tied up, its owner, tanned and weather-beaten as from a lifetime in the open air, disappeared down the hatch.

Minutes later he was back on deck, his shorts replaced by a well pressed suit. Shore was only a few powerful oar-strokes away, and soon he was in his car and starting on the 85-mile trip to Manchester.

The purpose of his journey was to go in front of a television camera and tell viewers how to make friends with their ulcers.

The boat’s owner was the People and Places doctor, whose homely chats about the more popular aches and pains are becoming a regular feature of the programme.

Because of the BMA restrictions on publicity, the name of this twinkling-eyed doctor with the manner so suited to television cannot be given.

He is a 42-year-old general practitioner with a bigger-than-average practice, a wife and two children (a third expected in November).

He is a keen believer in as much outdoor life as possible. In the summer he captains his local cricket team. His winter sport is golf (he has a handicap of four) and he likes to sail the boat he keeps moored beneath the ancient walls of Conway Castle.

It was during his summer holiday that he drove to Manchester to give his talk on ulcers — and he went off to Wales again as soon as he could. The 30ft Bendigo, which was a Rhyl pilot boat before he bought her four years ago, gives him the holiday relaxation his busy life demands — far from the incessant ringing of the telephone, from the midnight knocks on the door.

And a holiday afloat is a natural choice, for he is no stranger to the sea. Before the last war, as a 17-year-old waiting to go into medical school, he became a deckhand in a Hull trawler and knew the sea in its wildest moods while riding out gales in the Icelandic fishing grounds. During the war he served in the Mediterranean in a luxury liner which had been turned into a hospital ship.

His breezy television approach to medicine has developed from his earlier appearances in Granada’s People and Places, when it was a late-night show.

“Who,” the doctor asked himself, “is going to sit up and listen to a public health lecture at 11 o’clock at night?”

Now he makes a practice of treating his subject in the most lighthearted way possible. He says: “I don’t believe illness is necessarily a matter for solemn faces. Everyone is concerned about health in one way or another and I try to talk about different aspects of it in a way that is easily understandable.

“The fact that it’s a serious subject doesn’t mean it has to be dull. For instance, when I discussed disabilities I thought it interesting to instance famous athletes, among them Olympic gold medallists, whose disabilities did not prevent them from making great physical efforts.”

The doctor had his TV baptism in an interview with Douglas Warth in Granada’s Sharp at Four nearly four years ago. A doctor was needed who was capable of standing up to Warth’s hard-hitting arguments, and this general practitioner, former president of Manchester University Union and a noted debater, was picked for the verbal battle.

“It very nearly developed into a standup fight,” he recalls, “but it was great fun.”

Since then he has been called on to appear in This Week, What the Papers Say and Under Fire. It was in the last that he led the doctors’ protests about their promised pay increases.

“The MP I was attacking said it was most unfair of me to accuse the Government of delaying tactics and assured us that there was going to be no delay at all in doing something about our pay. That was more than three years ago, and it is only now that we are going to get our increases.”

How does the doctor’s family view his TV appearances?

“My four-year-old boy saw me in one programme recently,” he says, “and when I got home he told me he liked Yogi Bear better. I must say that is a point of view with which I have every sympathy.”

The post The sailing doctor makes it breezy appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

RUSH. That’s what it is. All rush. From the minute I set of for Manchester every Monday morning to the minute I get home to Birmingham 10 hours later.

Jump off the train at Manchester and into a speeding taxi. I wonder why Manchester has such comfortable taxis? But there isn’t lime to enjoy it. I’m there before I know it. And up the steps into the Granada Television Centre.

A quick chat with the producer. I tell him what Bloggs is doing this week. Bloggs is my favourite cartoon character. He’s based on my father, but don’t tell him. will you?

And then it’s off to the studio for a brief camera rehearsal.

What a chaotic jumble! Can they really produce a programme out of this maze of wires and cameras and microphones? We haven’t lost one yet, says one of the cameramen.

Things are already under way. Gay Byrne is casually awaiting the start of the programme. Bill Grundy is having an amiable chat with a fellow he’s going to interview. You have to keep the chap happy, don’t you?

So we go through the motions of the programme to get the camera angles ironed out. I think of all the things that can go wrong.

Like me falling through a piece of scenery. Or ruining one of those expensive cameras. Or getting hit on the head by a microphone.

What do you say when that happens? Even worse — what would Bill Grundy say? Worse still — what would the producer say?

Goodbye?

Camera rehearsal’s soon over. Time to relax a bit, I think. But Gay gives me a word of advice. If you want some food I’d snatch a bite now, he tells me. We’ll be starting again any time.

So I dash down the corridor to the canteen. Was that Ena Sharpies I just side-stepped? I haven’t the courage to find out. Or the time!

I never can get used to eating in this canteen.

You never know what nationally famous face is going to be facing you over the table. And you know what?

They eat and drink — just like real people.

My next stop is the make-up department. This is the pleasantest part of the day, being made-up by all those pretty girls. I’m surprised they don’t get on television themselves. And they’re so understanding, too. They don’t even object to my three day beard

But the rush is soon on again.

I whirl back to the studio. Everybody knows what he’s doing. Except me. I feel like a piece of luggage standing about. The Derek Hilton Trio are behind me — chatting nonchalantly about music. Nice to see artists working together in harmony.

I’m on any time now. Evelyn Rose is just finishing her recipe. That woman can talk even faster than I can draw. Will my chalk break? Will I knock over the floor manager?

The cameras move in. I’m on. Idiot thought — as I, go down for the last time … why do they make up all my face, when the viewers only see half of it?

Maybe if I had only half a face to make up, I could snatch a crafty smoke before going on.

It’s all over before I know it, I put down my chalk thank fully. I’m suddenly very hungry. Evelyn Rose’s recipe! If I can get my hands on that bowl of stew without being seen.

But Grundy and Byrne are there ahead of me. And all I get is an apologetic smile from Evelyn. You have to move fast in this business.

The post Chalk this page up to lightning Larry appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

FOR one week in the year, the Yorkshire spa of Harrogate puts on a French accent. Out come the tricolours, the bunting, the pavement cafe tables and the striped umbrellas. There are wine tastings and cookery demonstrations, French cabarets and French films. Even a French poodle show.

But for French Week 1960, which opens on Monday, there will be an added attraction — an on-the-spot visit by the entire People and Places team, led by those celebrated Francophiles Bill Grundy and Chris Howland.

“What’s a Francophile?” asks Howland.

“Don’t show your ignorance,” says Grundy. “It’s Latin for a Spanish rasp. You need educating. And if we re going to give the right touch to Wednesday’s programme from Harrogate, the sooner we start teaching you a thing or two the better.”

And that is how they came to be raiding the Granada wardrobe department (for Basque berets and Marseilles type T-shirts), the make-up room (for waxed moustaches and goatee beards), ending up over a cooker opening a tin of snails.

“Of course, eating snails is nothing new to me,” says Bill, spearing them from the tin and lovingly placing them one by one into the shells that come with them.

“Remember when you nipped over to visit me in Germany at the end of last year?” asks Chris, who is a top disc jockey on Cologne radio. “It was the time we went for a trip on a Rhine steamer.”

“Ah, yes,” muses Bill. “I remember getting off at the village of Unkel and buying two plates of snails and seven bottles of champagne. What happened next?”

“You spent the rest of the journey imitating an excitable Frenchman in front of a boatload of 600 puzzled passengers,” says Chris.

“It got rather embarrassing because most of them knew who I was but couldn’t understand how I had got mixed up with this ‘nana’ who was threatening to hit me over the head with a champagne bottle and screaming at me in a language he couldn’t speak.”

“I could,” objects Bill, who by now is filling the shells with a butter parsley-garlic mixture. “I’ll have you know that I can say My grandmother’s ear-trumpet has been struck by lightning without the trace of an accent.”

“Say it,” commands Chris.

“My grandmother’s ear-trumpet has been struck by lightning,” recites Bill in English, without batting an eyelid.

As the snails go in the oven to sizzle away in their aromatic sauce, the bitter friends, as they are known to the People and Places team, sit back to debate the form of Wednesday’s programme, which will come from the gaily-decorated, open-air market in the centre of Harrogate.

“I’m getting excited about meeting Maria Léa, the girl who heads the French cabaret,” says Bill. “She looks a peach.”

“I’m more interested in the French can-can girls,” says Chris.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” says Bill, pleased to air his superior knowledge, “but it’s only the can-can that’s French, not the girls. They’re as English as you are.”

“Let me tell you I have French blood in my veins,” protests Howland. “My ancestors came over during the French Revolution.”

“In that case, we ought to try you out with the French folklore group that’s coming to Harrogate,” says Bill, licking his lips as he lifts the snails out of the oven. “They dance a polka on stilts.”

“Is that possible?”

“Of course it’s possible. Their ancestors were shepherds who took to wearing stilts to keep an dye on their straying flocks. What did your ancestors do?”

“They were troubadours. They sang — and no one ever tried to stop them. People were nicer in those days,” says Chris, recalling the long standing feud about the exercise of the Howland vocal chords.

They move to the dining table, with Grundy instructing Howland in the gentle art of snail-eating as it is done in the better French families.

“Very clever,” murmurs Chris, admiring the swift manipulations of the Grundy fork as it probes shell after shell. “You must know France very well.”

“True,” says Bill. “I once spent a whole week there. In Paris. That was when I was a geologist. And the whole time was devoted to discussing a project for drilling oil in the Sahara.”

“In what language?” asks Chris.

“French,” says Bill.

“And what was the result?” asks Chris.

“We lost the contract,” says Bill.

“Oh,” says Chris, and tactfully changes the subject to his favourite topic of conversation — Chris Howland.

“Perhaps,” he says, “the producer will let me sing my current German hit record, because it’s very appropriate. It’s called Das Hab’ Ich in Paris Gelernt, which means ‘That’s what I learnt in Paris’.”

“But you’ve never been there,” says Bill.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” answers Chris. “I admit I only stayed 20 minutes between trains, but I proved a fast learner.”

“Then you’re out of practice tonight,” smiles Bill as he scoffs the last plump snail, leaving Chris nothing but a pile of empty shells.

“I don’t wish to be cruel.” says Chris, “but sometimes you make me wish that your grandmother’s ear-trumpet really had been struck by lightning.”

The post Howland v Grundy – c’est la guerre appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WHAT are you doing this Bank Holiday? Off to the seaside again, or the country, perhaps?

Or maybe you’ve decided to stay out of the way of all the hazards of August Bank Holiday? Perhaps the garden will get the going over you promised it weeks ago?

Bank Holidays have not changed all that much over the years — as Granada’s All Our Yesterdays on Monday will show, when Brian Inglis looks back 25 years.

What were they up to — the Bank Holidaymakers of 1937?

Well, there was a heatwave then. That’s worth remembering. And it was King George VI’s Coronation year. That might jog a memory.

But has the passing of 25 years changed the pleasures and pursuits of Bank Holiday all that much?

As you prepare for the weekend, heatwave or no heatwave, you’re probably more concerned about what to put in the sandwiches than about Mr. Macmillan’s reshaped Government, the Common Market, who is orbiting the world, or Berlin.

In the same way that people carried on regardless 25 years ago. when China and Japan were at war, and Neville Chamberlain, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, complained of “that fear of attack which is almost universal, but which may yet rest on nothing more solid than imagination.”

No, it wasn’t all that different, was it?

The newspaper headlines blared: “Most amazing Bank Holiday homecoming on record. Everything on wheels on the road.”

“Blackpool and the sun smash records. Record crowds by rail and road.” “10.8 hours sunshine. 76 in the shade.”

Not so many families had cars in 1937. But it was the same old story …

One newspaper demanded: “What of the roads? They are congested. We haven’t enough long, loud, straight, ugly roads … what’s the good of a motor car if you’ve no road to put it on?”

In fact, in 1937 there were three million vehicles on our roads. East year, there were 10 million. Goodness knows what sort of chaos we shall read about this weekend.

Of course, prices were different. Very different. As you fill up the tank at the weekend, consider that it could be filled up 25 years ago at 1s. 7d. a gallon.

In 1937, holiday-makers spent £1 million on ice cream. This year they are expected to spend £9 million.

A penny cornet bought on the promenade 25 years ago costs 4d. or 6d. now.

First-class hotels in Blackpool then provided fully inclusive accommodation from 12s. 6d. a day.

A good three course lunch, with coffee, cost 2s. A large breakfast cost the same, and a fish and chip supper with bread, butter and tea was 1s.

But what were the other attractions? There was a great thing about keeping fit. Walking holidays were popular with young people.

In London, the advertisements said: “Come to ‘appy ’Ampstead … all the fun of the fair.” The new Marx Brothers film A Day At The Races was showing.

In Blackpool, the stars at the Grand Theatre were Gracie Fields and Frank Randle. George Formby was at the Opera House. Roy Fox and his band topped the bill at the Palace (now demolished). More than 100,000 people visited the Tower to dance, tour the zoo and listen to Reginald Dixon at the organ.

Harry Porter, Blackpool’s publicity director, told me: “Today, you see more and more bikinis, shorter shorts, and the youngsters on scooters and motor bikes are more exuberant. But things haven’t changed much. People still enjoy themselves in the same old way.”

Talking about bikinis, there was a great fuss over the beach fashions in America in 1937. Men’s bathing suits that season were of the topless variety.

And bathers on Long Island beach were asked by officials: “Why isn’t your chest covered, sir?”

In Britain, the youngsters were dancing the Lambeth Walk and a popular dancehall version of Knees Up Mother Brown. Now they have the Twist.

They were listening to “pop” records of a popular crooner called Bing Crosby. Now it is more likely to be Cliff Richard.

For the stay-at-homes, radio was a big thing.

This year you can take your choice of television programmes, which include a huge coverage on ITV of the day’s top sporting events. The Lancashire v. Yorkshire cricket match, for example.

In 1937, visitors to London were able to watch television at a big demonstration at Olympia, which was billed:

“Judge for yourself what television can do.”

Today, of course, we are judging what Telstar can do.

A friend of mine suggested that the habits and manners of holiday-makers have changed drastically in the past 25 years.

“Going to the seaside was a big thing in those days,” he said. “Now it isn’t. People just accept it as they would accept the fact if the Americans landed on the moon tomorrow.”

But I don’t know. Basically. I don’t think Bank Holiday has changed all that much. We’ll still be doing the things this weekend that we did 25 years ago.

And. who knows, we might even be blessed with a heatwave.

The post All Our Yesterdays looks back on Bank Holiday 1937 appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

RAIN lashed the Shannon River and a strong, cruel wind rocked the flying-boat as we prepared for take-off on that early July evening 25 years ago.

But the weather didn’t worry the four of us who had been chosen to crew the Caledonia on her epoch-making Transatlantic flight.

All we wanted was to be off. There had been months of preparation. Take-off and landing spaces had to be chosen. We four had to be specially trained.

The boat had to be strengthened, prepared, tested retested … and tested yet again.

The waiting had taken its toll. We were eager, impatient almost, to go.

And we couldn’t get through the formal ceremonies with the Ministers and the mayors and the Press and the officials soon enough.

It had been a trying time. But it was worth it. Because the exhilaration and relief we felt as we watched the Irish coast disappear behind us was indescribable.

We were away — doing something no one had ever done I remember thinking: “I only hope Newfoundland is where they say it is.”

The final decision to make the flight had not been taken, until the afternoon we left.

“You will have low cloud and rain for the first 500 miles,” the weather men predicted. “Then it will be clear and stay fine to Newfoundland.”

It wasn’t the weather at take-off that worried me. I just wondered how accurate they were about conditions at the other end. But I needn’t have bothered.

We took the bad weather with us for nearly 1,500 miles. We couldn’t go up because the wind was too strong, so most of the time we were flying at about 1,000 feet. And it was raining.

But by dawn we ran out of the bad weather and found ourselves flying over fog around the Grand Banks. For the rest of the trip it was like flying over the Med on a summer day.

Throughout the flight we used vessels to check our course. We had to do so — radio navigational contact with land each side ran out 250 miles from the coast.

Wc were on our own — and that meant any ships we flew over were useful for course reference. For example, we used the Empress of Britain for two or three hours, and we were jubilant. It all fitted in with our dead-reckoning navigation and we were never in doubt as to our position or course.

This was a tremendous relief for me, because we earned fuel for only 21 flying hours — so if we missed the southern tip of Newfoundland there wouldn’t be much hope.

As it was, we had reckoned on doing the flight in 15 hours — and it took 15½.

By about two in the morning we were able to take our first navigational fix from the stars — and we were bang on course. After that it was simple.

Our reception at Batwood, in Newfoundland, was fantastic. Everyone seemed to go crazy. I had expected the place to be cold, but the temperature was in the top 80’s. And in my blue uniform I just fried.

This was the first serious commercial flight across the Atlantic. And it proved that this gigantic ocean presented no problems.

If the war had not come, flying boats would dominate the air today. It was only because of the war that so many airfields were built — and airfields are so expensive that aircraft which operated from the water would, but for the war, have been the only economic method.

As it is, I feel sure that the flying-boat will come into its own for the carriage of world trade. Small countries have to build bigger and bigger air fields to accommodate aircraft they don’t operate themselves.

Suitable landing areas are more plentiful on water than on land. In my days we didn’t need much water to launch a flying boat — a mile long by 300 yards wide was enough.

After a lifetime concerned with flying-boats I was bitterly disappointed that Britain’s Princess boats never came into general use. They were marvellous craft.

But I am glad to see something will be done with them. I understand all three of them were recently sold to America for less, than £1 million — about a tenth of what they cost this country.

They will at last be put to good use. They are to be used as laboratories to test atomic aero engines. And with the wider use of atomic power in the future, I don’t see why you can’t have a Queen Mary of the air.

Flying-boats are in the same stage now that sailing ships were in before luxury liners were dreamed of.

The post A pilot remembers… appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IF you are planning to go to Wales next summer, here’s a phrase you must remember — “Sut Mae?”

Roughly translated, it means “How are you?” But there’s a lot more to it than that.

It’s the current catch-phrase in clubs and pubs and schools and tea-rooms from Cardiff to Caernarvon.

And the man responsible for it all is Tommy Eyton Jones.

I met Tommy the other day in his bungalow which overlooks the Conway Estuary.

Tommy announces the sport in Granada’s Welsh programme, Dewch I Mewn. He is big and cheery — and utterly Welsh. You might describe him as the Gerry Loftus of Wales.

He started the catch-phrase craze when he first used it to introduce his weekly sports item in Dewch I Mewn.

“It wasn’t a deliberate choice,” said Tommy. “It seemed the natural, friendly thing to say, that was all.”

The combination of Tommy’s bluff appearance and the phrase itself, however, caught viewers’ imagination.

“We didn’t realise just how popular it had become until Granada asked me to drop the phrase,” he explained. “They thought the programme needed to change, so I started with something else instead. We got hundreds of letters complaining — so back went Sut Mae!”

Now Tommy cannot go anywhere without being greeted by it. It has become his nickname in Wales.

“I even got it in the boat across the Channel on my way to Italy,” he grinned.

When he isn’t talking sport on television Tommy is kept busy as sports editor and news editor of the North Wales Weekly News, which is printed in Welsh and English.

He started with the paper at the age of 14 as a printer’s assistant. Before long he was promoted to the editorial department, and his journalistic talent soon emerged.

He met and interviewed the Duke of Windsor — then the Prince of Wales — when he visited Penmaenmawr. And he covered the story of the sinking of the submarine Thetis, off Llandudno, in 1939.

“I think the future of Welsh soccer is very bright indeed,” he said enthusiastically. “There are some really promising youngsters coming up.”

The post SUT MAE Tommy Eyton Jones? appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN mid-Atlantic a storm rages. Two men in an open biplane fight for their lives. They are caught in the flier’s nightmare — cumulo-nimbus cloud. Gales threaten to tear their plane apart. Their air-speed indicator has failed. Their radio transmitter has failed. The heating in their suits has failed.

Down, down, down — the cloud-blinded pilot can do nothing. Suddenly the clouds break—only feet above the raging sea. The plane skims the waves. Spray splashes the fliers.

Their lives — and history — hang in the balance. Then, miraculously. the plane pulls out and zooms back into the sky …

All this happened to John Alcock and Arthur Whitten-Brown in June, 1919, when they were the first men to fly the Atlantic non-stop. Today more than 500,000 people fly by commercial air line between Britain and America each year.

They travel in foam-rubber, air-conditioned, pressurised luxury. Pretty girls wait on them. They can drink champagne and enjoy a six-course meal.

The hazards of an early Atlantic flight are vividly recalled in Granada’s All Our Yesterdays on Monday, when the newsreels of a quarter of a century ago remember the unsuccessful Transatlantic flight of Merrill and Richman.

On September 14, 1936, the fliers set off from Liverpool in a Vultee II called Lady Peace. Destination: New York. They never made it.

Their plane ran into trouble over Newfoundland, and they had to put down in Musgrave Harbour.

All Our Yesterdays traces the Transatlantic story — from the pioneering of Alcock and Brown to the last days of the great airships.

The flight of Alcock and Brown, both Manchester men, has been claimed to be the greatest flying feat of all time. This is understandable.

Time and again they escaped death by inches.

Time and again only sheer courage carried them through.

After escaping from the cumulo-nimbus cloud, their plane flew into rain, ice and snow — and the port engine iced up.

Brown crawled across the wing and used a knife in his bare hand — in the freezing propeller slipstream — to chip ice away.

Brown climbed out on to the wing six more times before landing.

And even the final touchdown was dramatic.

The fliers thought an Irish bog was a landing field — and put their plane down in the middle of it!

First solo flight of the Atlantic was by Charles Lindbergh in his single engined monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis in 1927.

After a completely uneventful journey, Lindbergh nearly lost his life — being mobbed by admirers.

When his plane landed at Le Bourget 120,000 people were waiting. They trampled down fences, broke police cordons, and hauled Lindbergh from the plane in hysterical adulation.

He was in danger of being putted to pieces until the French pilot, Raymond Orteig, came to his rescue. He put Lindbergh’s flying helmet on the head of a journalist.

Before the astonished journalist realised what was happening he had been swept upon the shoulders of the crowd and acclaimed as Lindbergh, while the flyer was smuggled away.

But if Lindbergh was the darling of the crowds, James Mollison, the first man to fly both the North and the South Atlantic solo, was the darling of the Press.

Mollison was in evening dress in a New York night club when he was told that weather conditions over Atlantic were favourable.

Mollison went to the field, climbed into his Havilland Puss Moth, and flew the Atlantic — without even bothering to change.

The post Courage in the clouds appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WOMEN waiting anxiously at the pit-head for news of their husbands and sons … rescuers going down the shaft with a canary to detect poisonous fumes … a clergyman praying for the entombed men … Salvation Army workers serving tea to the waiting families as the agonising suspense drags on …

… These are the poignant scenes which will be recalled in Granada’s All Our Yesterdays on Monday when the newsreels of 25 years ago tell the tragic story of the disaster at Wharncliffe Woodmoor Colliery near Sheffield.

At 3.30 a.m. on Thursday, August 6, 1936, an explosion in the Lidgett Seam, more than 1,000 ft. below the surface, trapped 58 miners.

The force of the blast was so great that it lifted the heavy coal tubs like match-boxes and flung them in a heap. When rescue parties reached the seam they found bodies huddled together. Only one of the 58 miners was still alive and he died later in hospital.

Since 1936, fortunes have been spent on modernising the mines both under private ownership and under the National Coal Board.

But does all this modernisation, mechanisation and improved efficiency mean that the man at the coal face is any safer?

A leading expert in mining safety, Mr. James Fletcher, North West Divisional Safety Engineer of the National Coal Board told me: “The hazards are the same, the human failings the same, and there is no doubt that—given a certain set of circumstances or mistakes – a pit disaster is still a possibility.”

Apart from major explosions and fires, British miners are still paying — with their fives — the terrible price of coal. In the Lancashire and North Wales coalfield alone, an average of 30 are killed and 170 seriously injured every year.

Research is continuous. At centres like the Safety in Mines Research Establishment near Buxton. Derbyshire, coal dust explosions are simulated with a fierce realism in specially-constructed galleries in the hills. The blast, which sends flames leaping long distances, becomes doubly horrific when the imagination transfers it underground.

In recent years there has been a mass of legislation on mining operation, and some of it is confusing even to experts. But they do not object to it. They say: “If every regulation were properly observed all the time the risk of disasters would be greatly reduced. But we are always up against the human element.”

Safety in British mines today is on two levels. First, there are the specialist advisers headed by the Chief Safety Engineer of the National Coal Board in London and by his nine divisional safety engineers. Second, there are the pit safety officers responsible to the pit managers, who are ultimately answerable at law for safety precautions.

It was during the 1930’s about the time of the Wharncliffe Woodmoor explosion, that the idea of specialist safety engineers first gained ground and some mining companies began to employ them full-time. A Royal Commission on mining safety made recommendations which, though delayed by the war, have become accepted practice.

A great deal of work has been done on fire-damp (methane) ignition, which causes coal dust to explode, as in last year’s Six Bells pit disaster in South Wales when 45 miners were killed.

Modernisation has led to one great safety improvement — the widening and heightening of the “roads”, which has brought freer ventilation. Most pits have their own ventilation officer.

The danger from coal dust is being reduced by the infusion of water, under pressure, into the face workings. In some cases, the rich methane is being drawn off through pipes driven ahead of the workings and sold to the Gas Board. One of the first pits to introduce this idea was Point of Air, in North Wales.

Disasters caused by conveyor belt fires, as at Creswell, near Worksop in 1950 when 80 men died, are less likely today because the belts, once made of rubber and other inflammable material, are being made of materials that will not ignite.

What, if anything, has disappeared from pre-war mining, apart from antiquated cutting methods? Not much.

Canaries, like the one used by rescuers at Wharncliffe Woodmoor, arc still kept in case of need, because a canary will succumb to carbon monoxide, which has no smell, before a human does.

A safety engineer said: “If all the safety recommendations made even up to 1950 were faithfully put into force, we should be well on the way to cutting the accident toll.

“But there are always those who take risks, don’t bother, or simply forget. In mining, more than in most industries, it is human weakness that is the most dangerous.”

Memories it seems, are short. Even for pit disasters.

The post The tragedy that struck 1,000 ft down appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

WITH his incredible exposé of the activities of “The Organisation” in Granada’s new People and Places, Peter Jones is at last beginning to shake the complacency of the Great British Public.

His tingling allegations about the ramifications of this octopus-like movement are intended to shock viewers into believing that there really is some guiding force behind the seemingly-inexplicable misfortunes of daily life. And he is succeeding.

Already people are starting to wonder whether it is possible that such an “Organisation” actually exists. I know that was the question I asked myself after the first edition of People and Places, only to dismiss the whole affair as just a figment of Jones’ brilliant imagination.

But now I’m not so sure… I began to have my doubts when I heard from Jones and fellow-investigator, Peter Moore, how they discovered the insidious way “The Organisation” operated.

Said Jones: “It began two years ago when we were thinking of doing a radio serial about a man who was trying to get a telephone for his house and who at every turn faced with some obstruction.”

“We felt,” added Moore, “that this was organised obstruction. That all the difficulties were there by design, not accident.”

“Since then we have carried out detailed research,” continued Jones. “There have been hazards, of course, but they have been bravely faced. We have suffered like martyrs to a cause. But we have secured evidence to show that “The Organisation” does exist, and that its aim is to make life intolerable for those who are not members of it.”

He opened his safe and let me see some examples of the more everyday activities of “The Organisation” which have already been shown to viewers. The banana skin that had been placed where someone was bound to step. The fish knife with the hollow decoration in which bits of food could lodge and cause poisoning. The tomato sauce bottle in which a lump of sauce had been wedged so that an attempt to coax it out flooded the plate.

The two Peters were making it sound horribly real. I tried to argue with myself that it was all too far-fetched, that they had conjured up a mythical “Organisation” because it was a paying proposition… until I found the cheques they are getting from Granada for telling viewers about it are being ploughed back to finance further investigation.

Peter Jones may have made a name as a comic, but I found that in this crusade he is deadly serious.

Some of the examples of “The Organisation’s” work he takes from his files may appear amusing. But, as he grimly pointed out, they were far from funny to their victims.

Already they have secured a mass of evidence. They have films, tape recordings, affidavits. Many witnesses have been interviewed. Some are being persuaded to appear on the programme.

But their main catch is a deviationist who has seen the light. Said Peter Jones: “We cannot divulge his name, not only for his own sake but for that of his wife and family, who are still in “The Organisation.”

They have pieced together some of the history of “The Organisation.” From revelations associated with the Mopungo Fragment, they have evidence that it was operating as long ago as 4,000 B.C. And they have frightening news of the way it has been building up its membership, particularly since the war.

“Watch your neighbour closely,” said Peter Moore. “It is quite likely he is in ‘The Organisation’.”

“Be warned if one of your family tries to switch off this programme,” said Peter Jones. “He is obviously trying to suppress evidence.”

As may be expected, these disclosures are worrying “The Organisation” and strenuous efforts are being made to plug the leak. There have been several attempts to stop the programme going on the air.

Said Peter Jones: “When we were engaged to come to Manchester for People and Places we were put on the wrong sleeper-train and woke in the morning in a siding at Rugby.”

This, and later occurrences they told me about, were in themselves convincing proof of “The Organisation’s” existence.

But any remaining doubts I might have had vanished as a result of things that happened while I was interviewing the two Peters.

On three occasions my photographer’s negatives were spoiled because the flash mechanism refused to operate, although it had worked without a hitch when he tested it. Then my pen ran dry.

Finally, after the photographer had managed to take the pictures on this page, he found the viewfinder of his new camera had mysteriously shattered.

And even now, back in the office and typing this story, I have horrible suspicions that I am being watched and that evertsya ghrбspo wijiity woooots.

The post It’s ‘The Organisation’ that does it appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

TAKE a pianist, guitarist, bass player and drummer. Give them a tune. Pick a rhythm that has an exciting beat. That’s the style of the Derek Hilton Quartet, which has been presenting a new sound on some Granada programmes.

Viewers have heard it in The Youngsters, People and Places, Sharp at Four and even in a Shadow Squad night club scene.

Welsh viewers hear it even more frequently. For Derek adds something new to traditional Welsh ballads for Granada’s Welsh programme Dewch I Mewn, seen on Channel 9 only in the North.

The quartet’s clear, haunting style reminds me of another group – the Modern Jazz Quartet. So I was hardly surprised when Derek said: “They are my favourites. I have many of their records, and like their style.” Derek admitted that this kind of music was not yet very popular. “But it will be,” he prophesied, confidently.

Certainly Derek’s modern jazz interpretations are keeping him busy, and his quartet is used in many Granada programmes. Derek himself used to play the piano in Spot The Tune!

He does the arrangements which are played by drummer Red Carter, guitarist Les Beavers, bass player Bob Duffy and Derek on the piano.

Derek Hilton, who is married to a Dutch girl he met when he was in the army, does not have a piano at home, so I was interested to know how he works.

“A piano would be no help,” he explained. “Arrangements that are good on a piano do not always sound well when played by a quartet. A piano would be a hindrance, and that is why I do not have one.”

Derek has a keen knowledge of music, gleaned since he began learning to play at the age of seven. “I read the music and can hear the tune in my mind,” the tall, bespectacled band leader told me.

Derek has to work quickly, for he spends so much of his time playing. Since his quartet first began broadcasting on the Welsh programme, he has arranged more than 30 Welsh ballads to suit his team’s style.

“I find Welsh songs are easy to arrange. They have a clear melody, and I enjoy playing them much more than some of the new songs which are being published today,” he said.

Derek explained: “The scope for arrangements in modern tunes is limited, but I can do a lot with Welsh tunes.”

He has the music for 60 Welsh ballads. “I think that most of the country’s folk songs have been published,” said Derek. “but I am on the lookout for some more.

“I would be glad if viewers would tell me of any lesser known Welsh songs which we could play in the programme.”

The post Modern music from bardic ballads appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

RHYDWEN WILLIAMS is the sort of man who is never stationary for more than two minutes. To hold a conversation with him or longer than that it is necessary to follow him round.

So I did. For a whole day. I followed Rhydwen, producer Granada’s Welsh-language programme Dewch I Mewn and company’s representative in Wales, on one of his whirlwind research trips.

Hs cream saloon car headed out of Manchester towards the hills of North Wales on a fresh journey of discovery. It was the beginning of a new chapter in the story of Rhydwen’s constant seach for talent for his own programme and for the Northern magazine, People And Places.

It was only 8.30 am. But 40-year-old Rhydwen had already had breakfast and done an hour’s writing.

Rhydwen, born a miner’s son in the Rhodda Valley, believes in keeping fit. So he weight-lifts.

“Wherever I happen to be,” he told me. “Even by the roadside, sometimes.”

Rhydwen’s first call on the 233-mile trip was in Mold to see an old friend, Dr Haydn Williams. He is the man who just won his two-year battle to bring National Eisteddfod of 1961 to Rhos, Wrexham, the place they call “the biggest village in Wales.”

After another call in Mold and a hasty lunch in Denbigh he was off again. Into the hills.

The car hummed along A543, which crosses Hiraethog mountain. It halted by county council roadman Bill Roberts.

Bill, 43 and a bachelor, has been keeping tidy his section of A543 since he came out of the Army in 1946. He told Rhydwen: “I can’t imagine being happy in any other sort of life.” A few miles further on Rhydwen stopped again. This time he talked to 12-year-old Gwenda Williams, who sat astride her pony, Goldie. With her on Goldie’s back were her brother, Eryl, four, and schoolfriend Haf Davies.

Farmer’s daughter Gwenda is likely to find herself in the TV studio playing the harp, sending Christmas good wishes to the children of Wales and talking of her life on the farm at Bylchau.

Later, the car left the main road and edged carefully along a rock-strewn path to the farmhouse home of 16-year-old Ann Roberts. The sound of singing came to our ears as we walked to the porch. Ann was at the piano, singing a traditional Welsh air. Rhydwen was impressed.

We visited several more places and saw several more people.

But even after we returned to Manchester it was not the end of Rhydwen’s day. There was more writing to do. Songs, poems, children’s stories. Rhydwen has written about 400 in three years.

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