February

Hugh, Maurice and the Bushmen’s quest — page 10 February 2010 Number 1

BACK TO THE FUTURE BH as you’ve never seen it – centre pages

With highlights from Ariel

News

As the BBC prepares to move out, historians focus on the literary tradition at Bush House

PROSPERO February 2010 Prospero is provided free to retired BBC employees. It can also be sent to spouses or dependants who want to keep in touch with the BBC. It includes news about former colleagues, pension issues, and developments at the BBC. Prospero includes classified advertisements. To advertise in Prospero or the BBC Staff magazine, Ariel, see page 11. Subscription information for Ariel is on page 16

To the onlooker, a selection of books by Bush House writers may seem a curious choice of gift from World Service to an outgoing director-general. So the recent seminars featuring BBC poets and authors from a variety of cultural backgrounds provided a useful reminder that writing is integral to broadcasting, and that Bush has a long-standing and unwitting tendency to foster literary talent. The seminars were conducted by academics in partnership with World Service, and the testimony from the writers they assembled will form part of a lasting record of the BBC’s 60 years at Bush. Among contributors was Nick Rankin, who was with the BBC from 1986 to 2006 and has written a number of books. He pointed out that World Service began in 1932 with a Christmas message from the King – penned by Rudyard Kipling. ‘I loved it when the Nobel prize for literature came up. We had no idea who was [nominated], but the wonderful thing about this building was it didn’t matter who they were, you were going to find somebody in the building who knew them, was taught be them, knew their cousins, translated them, married them. There was always going to be someone, be it Hungarian, Russian…’ The range of writers who identified themselves for the purposes of the seminar is remarkable. Just a few of them... • Annabel Dilke, Sunday Times ‘pick-ofthe-year’ novelist, a scriptwriter at Bush from 1972-86 • Achala Sharma, head of the service from 1997 to 2008. She was awarded the World Hindi Honour for her contribution to the development and popularity of the Hindi language • Isabel Wolff, one-time secretary to Leslie Stone, chief commentator. She has since written eight novels • Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek poet and writer. He was forced to flee Uzbekistan in 1992. His novel, The Railway, was published in English in 2006 • Priyath Liyanage, head of the Sinhalese

Writers’ block... ‘The legacies that Bush House left in me are the perception of time in seconds and minutes, and the possibility to indulge your curiosity’ Hamid Ismailov Service. His screenplay Ira Madiyama was screened in the London Film Festival and shown on Channel 4 For Russian Service broadcaster Zinovy Zinik, being at Bush was inspiration. ‘As a writer and as a human being, broadcasting was the only way for me to talk to those I left behind in Russia. I was dead sure at the time I’d never be able to come back to the USSR. ‘Bodily I was here, in London, but my voice, my soul was with them, in Moscow – a perfect gothic scenario which gave rise to a number of plots I have exploited in my novels.’ Zina Rohan, novelist, remembers being ‘blessed with a department that allowed us pretty much to follow our talents... we had some eccentric enough managers to allow that’. Like correspondent Humphrey Hawksley, she relied on the swapping of ideas and contacts between departments. It was a feature

of Bush that Hawksley didn’t find elsewhere in the organisation. BBC Ukrainian producer and presenter Svitlana Pyrkalo admits that she squeezed some of her writing – both fact and fiction – into quiet night shifts. And Waheed Mirza, Urdu Service editor and, out of hours, novelist, joked: ‘There is an epidemic in the Urdu service. Too many people are writing books, and we might have to ask them to hold on and concentrate on their day jobs.’ For the academics – led by Marie Gillespie of the Open University, working with Zinovy Zinik and World Service Secretary Hugh Saxby, the research feeds into a bigger project about cultural disasporas. Marie and Zinovy said the seminars had highlighted the ‘creative energy’ catalysed by Bush House. That energy was a source of pride for former World Service managing director John Tusa (he presented Mike Checkland with the aforementioned gift), who remembered with pleasure the literary activity he discovered when he came to Bush House. ‘I found [it] extremely attractive because it seemed to me to add to the overall intellectual strength of what the World Service was about. It wasn’t a question of me encouraging them to do it, because they were going to do it anyway… It seemed to say that [World Service] had intellectual and cultural terms of reference in addition to its journalistic terms of reference.’

Writers of distinction: Anna Horsbrugh-Porter; Colin Grant; Salah Niazi; Hamid Ismailov; Zina Rohan; Miguel Molina

CROSPERO 145

Editorial contributions

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Devised and compiled by Jim Palm

Write to Robin Reynolds The Editor, Prospero BBC Pension & Benefits Centre Broadcasting House Cardiff, CF5 2YQ Tel: 020 7765 1414 [email protected] Please make sure that any digital pictures you send are scanned at 250 dpi Design & production editor: Ann Ramsbottom

Mixed Sources

Product group from well-managed forests, controlled sources and recycled wood or fiber WWW.fsc.org Cert no. SA-COC-1468 c 1996 Forest Stewardship Council

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Complete the square using the clues; these apply only to words running across. Then take these words in numerical order and extract the letters indicated by a dot. If your answers are correct, these letters will spell out the name of a well-known actor.

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Solution to Crospero No. 144: atop; wench; led; gas; had; ore; ask; ete; enrol; fen; lac; methodology; par; big; noses; uta; Mae; are; set; apt; via; mesne; meet. The topical individual was The Ghost of Christmas Past The winner of Crospero 144 is Mr T W Thompson of Derbyshire.

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Please send your answers in an envelope marked Crospero to The Editor, Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Broadcasting House, Cardiff CF5 2YQ by February 19. Clues: 1. Prepared meat (3); 2. Gave (7); 3. Cattle sound (3); 4. Mate (3); 5. Underground part (4); 6. Cultivated areas (4); 7. Measurer (5); 8. Item of property (5); 9. Melody (5); 10. Short note (5); 11. Vegetable (5); 12. Quip (3); 13. Slow pace (5); 14. Keen (5); 15. To sheltered side (4); 16. Twelve to the Scots (4); 17. Distant (3); 18. Tennis term (3); 19 Thoroughfares (6); 20. Directed (3).

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News

Climate of change Music and Arts executive producer Richard Leeming’s picture of the redevelopment of Broadcasting House was commended in a recent staff photography competition. See centre pages to find out more about the drama unfolding beneath the cranes

Pensions news

Tougher discount for early retirers Taking your pension early will be less attractive for current staff and those with deferred pensions, following changes announced by the Pension Trust. In future benefits earned after April 6 this year will be discounted according to a revised scale to ensure that members who take their pensions early do so at no extra cost to the Scheme. It means that a person retiring at 55 – the statutory new minimum pension age from April – will see a 24% reduction in benefits, as against the current 4%. The new scale has been introduced following a review conducted by the Trust and the BBC in the light of the 2007 actuarial valuation. The Scheme website explains: ‘Following the 2007 Scheme valuation the Trustees highlighted that to keep increases in member contributions to a minimum it would be appropriate to review the early payment reduction factors ahead of the 2010 valuation; in light of this, the BBC and the Trustees have agreed that the early payment terms for Old and New Benefits Scheme members are changed to reduce pension costs and risks ahead of the 2010 scheme valuation. This will also apply to added Years

purchased by Old Benefits members, other types of service credits as well as main scheme pension.’ The purpose of the changes are set out: • For current and future deferred members, to make early payment factors cost neutral from April 6 2010 except for those with agreed preferential terms. • For active members, to make early payment factors cost neutral for future service (including added years and service credits) from April 6 2010. • For active members, to then make early payment factors cost neutral for past service (as well as future service) from April 6 2015. The updated scale will see reductions ranging from 24% for those opting to take their pensions at 55 to 6% taking their benefits at 59. These changes only affect members if they choose to take their pension early, i.e. before age 60. Explaining the objectives, the site says: ‘[It is] unreasonable and unfair that this benefit is provided to a limited number of members.’ • Visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mypension/en/sites/updates/pages/091211.shtml

Actuary takes the long view By Bud Evans

Analysts must think 80 years ahead in calculating the state of the BBC’s pension fund. That was just one of the statistics to emerge in a presentation given by a representative of the BBC’s actuary to the committee of the Pensioners’ Association. Peter Ballard, of Watson Wyatt, emphasised that he was speaking in general about the need for assumptions about pension funds being made for the long term. He said this included not only investment returns but predictions about life expectancy. Pensioners were living longer now; would that trend continue? While some experts claimed it would, citing improved treatment of diseases, others argued there had to be a natural lifespan limit and that the trend would not continue. By law, valuations of pension funds are made every three years. Our next is in 2010.

Peter Ballard explained that changes in legislation had given fund trustees and employers a greater role in the valuation process. But with input from the trustees, employer, actuary and, finally, the Regulator, it now took 15 months to prepare a valuation report. This was the first presentation Watson Wyatt had given to the BBCPA. It followed a meeting between Jeremy Peat, chairman of the pension trustees, and members of the committee. • The financial position of the UK’s 7,400 private final salary pension schemes has improved sharply, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has said. It said their collective deficit fell from £93bn to just £33bn during the course of December. That was a big improvement on the position a year ago when the deficit stood at £191bn, the BBC’s website reported at the turn of the year.

Senior salaries in the spotlight Director-general Mark Thompson has been under pressure over executive pay and star salaries. Greg the axe-grinder had a go in his RTS Christmas lecture; PD James quizzed him in her capacity as guest editor of Today; the NUJ said ‘up to £8 million of unacceptable cuts in the news budget could be reversed if top salaries were reduced’; and at an internal conference Stephen Sackur compared Thompson’s salary [£834,000] with the £400-£500,000 being offered for a new Channel 4 chief executive. Thompson, himself a former Channel 4 chief, argued that running Channel 4, with fewer than 1000 employees, did not compare in scale and complexity. and he told PD James: ‘We’ve been tougher on bonuses and executive pay than any other public company or broadcaster.’ ‘The public sector pay debate will continue… but we’re not a county council. If you want someone to run BBC One or develop iPlayer, you need the very best people in the world. And they’re paid much less here than they would be at ITV or Sky.’

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February • 2010 •

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Memories

Memories 60 years of the BBC Riding Club

What ‘RH’ did for HRH Dressed up... he name of R.H. Wood is part of the earliest days of radio and Savoy Hill. As a young apprentice with Cammell Laird in Sheffield he had become increasingly interested in the development of radio and the British Broadcasting Company, so in 1923 he broke his apprenticeship to join the BBC as an engineer at its newly opened Manchester station. By 1925 he was in London at the Savoy Hill station, and one of his early tasks was to broadcast King George V’s opening of the Empire Exhibition at Wembley. This was where the King first met ‘RH’, as he was always known. More and more outside events were broadcast and, with RH in charge, the OBs department was born. From the beginning they broadcast regularly from London theatres. The first was a whole act from Yvonne at Daly’s Theatre. When Me and My Girl was put on at (I think) the Victoria Palace, it was so unsuccessful the management decided to close it down. But OBs went in and broadcast an excerpt, and the next day the box office was overwhelmed and the show was saved. The early pre-war television outside broadcasts were also part of the department, and Wimbledon was one of its big events. It was a great disappointment when this part of the department was not returned to RH’s control after the war, but obviously TV was soon going to out-run sound as a medium.

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From her nursing home in Yorkshire, Marion Holledge sends a remarkable account of her time in Radio OBs

R H Wood

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Christine Cooke and Jimmy Doyle at the Summer Festival I have so many happy memories of my riding days and wish the club a long and happy future. Christine Cooke (known in the BBC as Christine Brettell)

when it was decided that the horses should have a summer holiday, we rode them from London to Windsor, and I arranged with the AA to put buckets of water at their roadside boxes en route.

And a dressing down

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uring the war OBs played a major part in keeping up the morale of the nation. Several outside venues were considered safe for audiences, such that the Paris Cinema broadcast dance bands and light music, and the Criterion Theatre took ITMA. Monday Night At Eight, a very popular non-audience show compered by Richard Murdoch in his RAF uniform came from an underground cinema near Marble Arch, and drama came from the Grafton Theatre in Grafton Street. Since technically these were outside broadcasts, they too were added to R.H. Wood’s control and the department must by now have grown to around 60 engineers. It was at this time that I joined the OBS department, in 1943, as RH’s secretary, having only just passed my 18th birthday. The commentators of pre-war days and also in wartime were household names. In wartime the department lost its director to the services, and it was temporarily headed by Michael Standing, son of Sir Guy Standing, a wellknown actor both here and in Hollywood. Raymond Glendenning covered racing and football, while Rex Alston and John Ellison were there for cricket. After the war, as soon as Brian Johnston left the Army, he too joined the department as a cricket commentator. Wynford Vaughan Thomas and Stewart MacPherson were away as war correspondents but always spent days in the department when home on leave. Even Gilbert Harding spent a short time in the department. Unlike his later reputation for extreme rudeness in TV game shows he was then a very quiet man, totally lacking in selfconfidence and convinced he was no good at the job. He left for Canada soon after, and I believe he acted as BBC representative in Canada. The great American broadcaster Ed Murrow was also a visitor to the department at this time.

Further to the article on the Riding Club’s 60th anniversary, I was a member of the club from the 1950s to 1968, and indeed was treasurer for most of those years. During that period the club bought us two horses, photographed at the summer festival at Motspur Park in 1961. It was decided to have the gentleman, Jimmy Doyle, dressed in hunting pink, and me riding side-saddle, which I learned from a text book, and I practised walking trotting and cantering in Rotten Row, Hyde Park. The outfits were hired from a costumier, unaware that the costumes were to be worn on live horses. But Gay, the horse I rode, was wonderful, and took to the experience as if she was trained for it. In those days we used to hold a horse show once a year in the car park of the Windsor Race Course, and competitors came from near and far. There were two show rings, and it was always a great day in spite of all the hard work setting it up. After the club bought us a horse box, it was a joy to take the horses to Windsor and ride in the Great Park. Prior to that,

Top: Gilbert Harding Above: Tommy Handley and Dorothy Summers (Mrs Mopp) as Air Chief Marshall and Leading Chair Woman in ITMA, in 1944 Top: An OB of the Scottish Command Tattoo, 1929 Above: Outside broadcast engineers and equipment with crowds at the arrival of Sir Alan Cobham at the Houses of Parliament in 1926 Left: Savoy Hill, 1928

uring the summer months of 1994, Glenn Miller and his band, part of the US Army, were in London, planning to move to Paris once it was recaptured. They broadcast once a week from the Paris Cinema, and I never missed being one of the audience, including the evening when Bing Crosby took part before going over to France to entertain American troops. When Paris fell, Glenn Miller’s band travelled there ahead of him and was actually on stage facing a packed audience when it was announced that his plane, which he was piloting himself, had disappeared over the Channel, and he was presumed drowned.

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hroughout the war there would have been some six or seven OBs daily – cinema organ recitals, church services, Workers’ Playtime concerts from factories, theatre excerpts, the Proms in the summer, late-night broadcasts from dance halls, night clubs and hotels – the Grosvenor Hotel, the

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Ritz, the Mayfair, Ciro’s – plus football, racing, cricket, rugby and even a sound commentary on snooker from a venue near Leicester Square. Christmas was especially busy. RH would already be at Windsor for the King’s Christmas broadcast, with one of the three senior engineers who were his back-up, Horace Gregory, Sam Fleming and Alan Scott Dack. H had personally handled all the royal broadcasts since King George V’s first one in 1932. The King had taken a liking to the young engineer he met when he first broadcast from the opening of the Empire Exhibition, and he ruled that henceforth contact should always be made from the Palace or Downing Street direct to RH, so it was usual to take a call from the King’s private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles or Sir Eric Melville or Sir Piers Leigh. From Downing Street it would be John

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Colville, later Sir John, and it was then up to RH to pass their requirements upwards to his senior at the BBC to notify control rooms, book Post Office lines etc. More than anyone else at the BBC, RH had been part of radio history. He was beside George V for his first Christmas broadcast, with Edward VIII when he made his abdication speech, with George VI for every speech he made, with Neville Chamberlain when he declared war, and throughout all Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches. When Clement Attlee so unexpectedly won the 1945 election, he had his Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, beside him and after the broadcast Attlee ordered beer and sandwiches, and along with RH and Scott Dack, they spent the rest of the evening talking over the events of the war. For all RH’s services, the King made him a member of the Victoria Order, and presented it to him in a private audience at the Palace.

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fter the inauguration of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1946, the first meeting of the delegates, with Trygve Lie as Secretary General, took place in London. Central Hall was used as the venue. There had to be huge coverage by OB engineers to provide broadcasting services to the world.

Above: G. Larkby (Television O.B. Engineer), and Leslie Mitchell. The wedding of H.R.H. Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh, 1947. The ceremony in Westminster Abbey and commentators' descriptions of the processions between Buckingham Palace and the Abbey were heard in world-wide BBC broadcasts. In addition, BBC Television units were in operation opposite Buckingham Palace and outside the West Doors of Westminster Abbey.

RH took me to see one session because he said I must not miss this moment in history. I stood on the balcony of the upper floor running along one side of the hall, and looked down on the handful of delegates below. Behind me were the rooms being used as studios. Some weeks later someone in Broadcasting House thought it would be a good idea to include in the BBC Year Book the amount of broadcasting time each country took to cover the meeting. So I had to get out all the engineers’ logs and laboriously extract every minute, allocate it to the appropriate network and then manually add up the total for each country – no calculators then! I never did know whether the results appeared in that Year Book.

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left the BBC in 1947, just as plans were being made to cover the wedding of Princess Elizabeth. I suppose it was obvious even then that television would replace sound as the main broadcast medium, for how could the spoken word ever compete with the actual picture? However it has to be said that for many years, from the earliest days at Savoy Hill until the end of the war, the OBs department played a major role in entertaining and informing the public.

I joined the Riding Club in 1954. We met in Knightsbridge Barracks indoor school on Thursday evenings. The instructor was Ken Hughes of the Mounted Police. He left in 1957, and Geoff Dorsett took over. He was also a police officer. In 1956 we hired some horses in Windsor, from Richard Stilwell’s stable, and decided to have a little Horse Show. Some local children came with their ponies, and we had a great day. However the British Horse Society heard about it and accused us of holding an unregistered open horse show, because the children were not members of the riding club. We apologised and decided to hold an Open BBC Riding Club Horse Show. Mr John Knight of Windsor Racecourse offered us the car park, and the jockeys’ room served as a dormitory for members over the weekend. The first show had one jumping ring, one show ring, and gymkhana. We dropped the gymkhana the next year, due to lack of support because of local Pony Club events. The show as very popular, and ran for about ten years, getting bigger each year. The final one consisted of two jumping rings, including foxhunter, a show ring, a dressage ring and pony-and-trap through Windsor. When the Barracks were closed and demolished to be modernised, the Club was homeless. However Major Satow of the BHS wrote to say Her Majesty would be pleased to allow the BBC Riding Club to use the indoor school in Buckingham Palace while they looked for new quarters. This was a great honour. The Civil Service Riding Club were not permitted to use the school. Major Satow said it was the show that had brought our club to the notice of the Queen. The members I remember were Mary David (who became Mrs Burrell Davis), Sheila Raven, Wendy Malet, Margaret Graham and Sandra Coombes (with whom I am still in contact). Clare McCarthy

Clare McCarthy (right)... but who is the girl on the fence?

How Max Jaffa broke the ice When I joined the BBC in 1956 there were two small orchestras based at Aoelian Hall, New Bond Street. The conductors of the orchestra were Harry Rabinowitz over the Revue Orchestra, and Paul Fenhoulet over the Variety Orchestra. Up until that date there had been no women in the orchestras. In those early days we had a rehearsal for three hours, but in the Revue Orchestra, which I joined, we only rehearsed for oneand-a-half to two hours at the most, and then had a recording channel for continuous music, and no mistakes could be made. Only later did we have the facility to ‘rehearse-record’. We used other studios all over the West

End, viz The Playhouse Theatre, Charing Cross, B Station in Lower Regent Street, one in Piccadilly, and another in Farringdon. Later we went to Golders Green, where the Hippodrome was situated. Also there was a small studio, S2, in the bowels of Broadcasting House which always seemed very cold when we started a session at 9am on a winter’s morning. (Max Jaffa thought it was a very good idea to play the fastest piece first, to warm up, but in reality it was a sore test for cold fingers.) The Revue and Variety orchestras amalgamated into the New Radio Orchestra in the mid 60s and that was when we started to work at the Maida

Vale studios. The main studio at Maida Vale was Studio 1, which was home for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and was the largest studio in the building. Studio 2 was much smaller, and a section of the NRO used it. Studio 3 was medium sized, larger than Studio 2. Eventually the orchestra was simply called the Radio Orchestra. This orchestra did not use Studios 4 and 5, to my knowledge, but the jazz band of the orchestra could have used these studios. The string section used Studio 6 for sessions with guest conductors like Angela Morley (formerly Wally Stott), who worked with the Revue Orchestra in the 1950s to 60s. Joan Morris (née Adams)

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Letters Contacts

Digital gaps; Bradshaw’s promotion; when live meant live; leaving MHS...

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Demise of the old team spirit

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I read with great sadness Mike and Norman’s letter (London Lunch appeal, Prospero, December) talking of the demise of this group and their disappointment that younger people are not getting involved. Unfortunately I think that the main reason for this is the break-up of what used to be known as ‘the one BBC’ in which we all felt we were a part. Nearly every department has been sold off. Ranging from OBs,Transmission, Network and IT, Playout and even Premises Operations and most of Training. Most programmes are now bought-in, and studios seem to be mainly empty or hosting outside companies. As a result everyone works in little groups and there is no ‘team spirit’ left or interaction between departments. I am very glad that I was around when the BBC was in the forefront of progress and that I had friends in almost every area mentioned above. We have a very active London Ex-OB group at present but who knows what the future of that will be now that OBs have been sold.

Weighty project Your story of CMCR 9 in the last issue prompted me to have a look at some of my old slides that I have recently scanned in to the computer. Attached is a pic from 1969 of CMCR 4 being weighed at Kendal Avenue for a possible foreign deployment. The man in the dark suit and shades on the left is Charles Peyton our Head of Tel OBs. Ian Rutter • My recent article about the restoration of CMCR9, generated quite a lot of interest. Any Prospero readers interested in keeping tabs on the restorartion will find a full account and pictures on the owner’s website. Steve Harris’s website may be found on www.vintageradio. co.uk. Once opened, select ‘television’ then ‘projects’ and then ‘restoring North3’. Jerry Clegg

Mike Jordan (Ex OBs Kendal Avenue)

Patchy DAB I have been following with interest the letters about DAB radio and the proposed switch off of the VHF radio network. It is certainly true you can get BBC programmes via digital tv, although there are some popular commercial ones not present and as with the tv programme schedule, the situation seems to change regularly, not necessarily helping quality or choice. However there is a major omission on tv digital radio – local radio. This is present on DAB in many places and some stations are now off satellite, but the situation is very patchy; indeed some local radio stations are not on DAB yet. Also the signals often come from different places to the national network so reception can be patchy. When it comes to car radios there is the local radio radio data system that hasn’t really got a DAB replacement. Like the curates egg, good in parts but not a total replacement. Roger Harste

Auf wiedersehen Ben Ben Bradshaw’s recollections of his appointment to Berlin brought back memories for me too. At the time Ben was a reporter in the Exeter newsroom of Radio Devon; we had recruited him from the local evening paper because he obviously had promise as a broadcaster. As his manager, I saw his application cross my desk for the post in Berlin and thought he was being, shall we say, just a little ambitious. After all it was a post with a salary akin to that paid to my deputy and also, I had been told, came with a large house. When he was called for a board I was mildly surprised but a few days later I was totally staggered when I answered the phone to a lady from personnel. ‘We would like to offer your Mr Bradshaw the post in Berlin,’ she told me. ‘Really,’ I replied, the surprise perhaps creeping into my response. ‘Oh yes,’ said the lady from personnel, ‘he did a terrific board.’ Still not convinced that anybody so relatively inexperienced could have taken the London boarding system by such storm, I asked just what she meant by that. ‘Well apart from doing a good interview

he also excelled on the voice test,’ she told me. ‘He had to write and read a threeminute voice piece in German on the state of the economy in China. He did it with flying colours.’ Roy Corlett

Viennese faults In my dotage I begin to wonder if I am getting too pedantic. In my 41 years as a BBC Engineer I always thought that ‘live’ meant you heard and saw things in real time just as they happened. As far as BBC programmes are concerned this no longer seems to apply. Two examples on TV this year indicate otherwise. On January 1 on BBC One the New Year’s Day concert in Vienna, the second part was billed in Radio Times as live. I was watching the entire concert on German/Austrian Satellite. The BBC transmission started seven minutes later and was not therefore live. On Christmas Eve, on BBC One the midnight mass was also delayed because there was a problem with the sound, namely sudden changes in pitch of the organ notes and handbell chimes which does not happen with live sound. No apologies these days so no wonder many people feel they no longer can trust the BBC. Does anyone else think that ‘live’ should mean live? And if so should we apologise if, for any reason, it is not? Peter S Pearson

Riding recollection I am an ex-member of the BBC Riding Club and was most interested in the recent articles in Prospero. During the 1960s I worked in Music Division with Sheila Gatford. She joined the Corporation in 1962 and sadly lost her life in a plane crash in 1966. I seem to recall it being mentioned that she had been a member of this section, but I am not certain about this; is there anyone

who can help me with this enquiry? John Harman [email protected]

Sad tidings I sent a Christmas card to a former BBC colleague and was embarrassed by the pained reply from his widow. She was surprised that the sad news that he had died months ago had not reached Caversham. I find it absurd that a news organisation should be so useless at passing on news such as this about its staff and former staff. Is the reason that the BBC does not care for its staff as once it did? Surely Prospero could collect reports of deaths from the BBC Pension Fund and print a couple of lines on the obituaries page of each issue. Patrick Andrews

A service of the kind suggested causes more problems than it solves, as Peter Gearing discovered when he was editor. The Pension Centre confirms that it can produce a monthly list of names of the deceased, but without biographical detail. In any four-week period the number could be as high as 100, so the potential for confusion and distress is considerable. While there is, at present, no perfect solution, I would urge readers to make use of the obituaries page in Prospero. They are welcome to flag up the passing of a colleague or relative in just a few lines making clear the identity of the deceased, while leaving scope for a tribute later. Editor

Rolling on I noted with interest your news item in the December Prospero magazine concerning the BBC quitting the Marylebone premises after almost 73 years. It is indeed a little known fact that if you roll a copy of the Radio Times up and hold it to your ear you can hear the tide going in and out at 35 Marylebone High Street. Jeff Cant

Money

MONEY MONEY MATTERS MATTERS

Taxing times ahead – and not just for bankers By Matthew Truran December’s Pre-Budget report (PBR) was perhaps more notable for what it didn’t do to personal taxation rather than what it did. There had been expectations of politically-expedient rises in capital gains tax and inheritance tax (IHT) but in the end neither was forthcoming. The only significant change to personal taxation was a 0.5% hike in National Insurance contributions for those earning more than £20,000 – in addition to the 0.5% rise already announced – which will come into effect in 2011. This rise, plus the rise in National Insurance for employers, is likely to make salary sacrifice options more attractive in the short term, particularly for higher-rate taxpayers who may be worried about the further erosion of pensions tax relief in future Budgets. Capital gains tax had been expected to rise but, with the Chancellor not mentioning it, it remains at 18%, with an annual exemption of £10,100 for 2009/10. A huge differential now exists for higher-rate taxpayers between payouts taxed as income and those taxed as capital gains. It might therefore make sense for them to invest for capital growth rather than income. At the very least, it should galvanise them to ensure income-generating investments are sheltered in ISAs as far as possible. The threshold for IHT was frozen at £325,000 – a reversal of an earlier announcement of an increase to £350,000. The issue is less pressing, given house prices have stalled, but ensures IHT will still catch many of those in the South East where the Office of National Statistics suggests median household wealth is £287,900. The Chancellor did introduce two

Matthew Truran explains the Government’s Pre-Budget report in the first of a regular slot in Prospero, in which financial advisers offer their perspectives on matters affecting pensioners

specific measures designed to close IHT loopholes. The first loophole had allowed individuals to make a large transfer to a trust, which meant the assets were deemed to be a potentially-exempt transfer rather than a chargeable lifetime transfer. The second was the ability to exchange an asset for an interest in possession of a family trust. This meant the amount was removed from an individual’s estate for IHT purposes.

BBCPA opts for a brighter look By Bud Evans

When the Pensioners’ Association website, www.bbcpa.org.uk, was revamped in the new year, the management committee’s main aim was to attract more of the 3000-plus members to it by providing up-to-date information in an easy-to-access form. Comments so far suggest the re-launch is hitting the mark, but the man who designed the new site, committee member George Gimber, says this is just the starting point. Having had considerable experience in his BBC career as a webmaster, he says a successful site is where people logging on can always find something new. Providing it, he says, will be a real challenge to the committee. Ideas are emerging. For example, George has seen what he describes as a fascinating story an association member has written on his own website about his colourful life. He feels others may have interesting stories to tell and perhaps share their experiences on the BBCPA pages. The association’s membership secretary, Nicholas Whines, hopes the new-look website will have a wider reach. ‘Any BBC pensioners considering investing £10 to join the association could do worse than log on,’ he says. ‘They will find a full account of our activities over the past couple of years and might well conclude that sub-

scribing to the BBCPA represents excellent value for money.’ The re-launch comes soon after a survey from Oxford Internet Institute threw up another challenge: it suggested that only half of the over-50s in Britain has access to the internet, leaving ten million older people unconnected. The older the person, the less likely he or she is to use the internet. But Nicholas Whines points out those even pensioners who do not own a computer can and do go online in other ways. One route is through families; another is to take advantage of the help given these days at libraries to anyone who wants to access a website but doesn’t know how to go about it. Meanwhile, as George Gimber settles down to think of more improvements to the website, he says the work is never done. ‘It should always be evolving and I am hoping that other contributors will come forward to make this happen.’ Bud Evans is a member of the BBC Pensioners’ Association committee Right: Pages from the new website

However, the Chancellor left alone most IHT planning tools. Discretionary trusts, loan trusts and discounted gift trusts were untouched, so all remain planning options. Finally, there were no changes to the 50% tax for top earners. This means ISAs could become a better choice than pensions for those people only receiving 20% tax relief going in and subject to 40% or even 50% coming out. The new higher ISA limit, £10,200, which becomes universal in the new tax year, makes this a more realistic option. Alongside existing plans to restrict higher rate pension tax relief and to withdraw the personal allowance for those on higher incomes, the PBR may well have had less tax bite than expected. However, whether you’re a top earner or in the middle income bracket, you will soon feel the Government’s hand reaching even deeper into your pocket. With any significant change in tax treatment, a review of your plans is always advisable. After all, you don’t want to pay more tax than you need to. If you would like to evaluate your exposure and options in relation to these changes please don’t hesitate to call us on 0845 795 9112. Please note that tax advice is not regulated by the Financial Services Authority. • Matthew is an independent financial adviser with AWD Chase de Vere. AWD Chase de Vere is one of a panel of independent financial advisers selected by the BBC. Further details can be found on the Benefits site of Gateway AWD Chase de Vere Wealth Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Classifieds Elba island Beautiful private apartment in Porto Azzurro,overlooking the sea. Sleeps 5-6 All inclusive rates Tel:01260227262 or email [email protected] Seaview, Isle of Wight. Wanting to get away for a break? Pleasant ETB 4* Studio Annexe, sleeps 2 comfortably. Near Beach and Village. For details contact [email protected] or Tel 01983 812180. Dunoon, Argyll, Spacious house(sleeps 8) & cottage(for 4) directly on sea-front, with large garden, private parking, & panoramic sea views. All modern comforts. STB 3-star. Discounts for longer stays. See www.lyallcliff.co.uk or tel 01369 702041. Pembrokeshire Coast: Two bedroom cottage with panoramic sea views. One minute from beach and coastal path. Tel: 020 8449 7816; or contact [email protected] Brittany, Dinan. Delightful medieval riverside town with many restaurants. Attractive apartment in old merchant’s house; quiet, central. Beaches, walks close. Near St Malo channel port and Dinard airport (Ryanair). Sleeps 2, double or twin. From £185pw. 020 8995 8543 [email protected] Menorca: Beautiful beaches, restaurants, walks, villages. Well appointed 2 bed sleeps 4 apartment, Port Addaya, Pool etc. telephone 01386 760065 Menorca: Detached villa with private pool, sleeps 2-7. From £498 p.w. For brochure/prices 01621 741810 or visit www.menorcaholidayvilla.co.uk Rambler’s retreat, Niton, I.O.W. Holiday chalet set in peaceful and private landscaped gardens at the southern tip of the Island. Sleeps two; double bed. Ideal base for walkers - coastal path passes our entrance. 01732 462732 or www.cottageguide.co.uk/ramblersretreat

How to advertise Prospero Classifieds, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Broadcasting House, Cardiff, CF5 2YQ Please enclose a cheque made payable to: BBC Central Directorates. Rate: £5 for 20 words In a covering letter please include your pension number To advertise in Ariel, contact: Ten Alps Publishing Ltd, Tel: 020 7878 2313

020 8752 6666

TVC makeover The TVC Club (including the gym) will be closed from Friday February 13 to Thursday February 18 for a makeover.

Golf days The Golf Section is holding two open days at Hendon Golf Club. For £30 you play two 2 rounds, plus breakfast and lunch. The dates are February 26 and March 26. Contact Colin Kane, email [email protected]

Yacht soiree The Yacht section will be holding a soiree to celebrate the start of the season. It is on February 24 (location to be confirmed) and is open to anyone. Contact Simon Thompson [email protected]

February • 2010 •

•5

Features

Features

BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons (centre) joins the topping out party

State of the art

The end is in sight for an ambitious project that will transform the BBC’s London operations he first Broadcasting House Redevelopment Newsletter, in 2003, declared confidently that ‘before completion [of the project] in 2007/2008 there’s a lot of work to do’. There was. In fact, more than anyone thought. But Prospero readers will be pleased to learn that the project is on course to hit a new target date in 2012. The latest edition of the newsletter shows the distinctive ‘gull-wing’ roof going up, and staff have been invited to offer their views on the interior – including the spiral staircase and lifts connecting the basement levels and the vast newsroom with the floors above (see picture opposite). If all goes to plan the building will be handed over by the developers at the end of this year. Then news operations – Radio, Television and World Service – will begin to come together, although there will be a pause in the occupation programme for the London Olympic Games. Of course parts of New Broadcasting House have been in use for some time. Phase One, the refurbishment of the original Broadcasting House, was opened by the Queen in 2006, and the East Wing of the new building saw the launch of the BBC’s Persian television service early in 2009. The BH skyline has departed from this 2002 architect’s impression of how the building would look. In 2005 Breathing, an art work by the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa, was added to the roof of the East Wing, to complement the spire of All Souls and the 1932 radio mast at the top of old Broadcasting House. It was unveiled in 2008 by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon as a monument to journalists and crew killed in the course of their work. How the building will be used is posing a different kind of creative challenge. Andy Griffee, formerly head of English Regions, is editorial director of the project, charged with making it work. For the first time in the BBC’s 90-year history, he says, ‘frontline programme staff’ and specialists from the different live broadcasting divisions will sit together in ‘genre-specific multimedia clusters’. More than 20 ‘video ingest points’ around the new Broadcasting House will allow output to ‘go live’ from any of these clusters. ‘In essence, it’s about bringing together the continuous live broadcasting divisions under one roof,’ he says. ‘We’ve got the opportunity to step back and think about how we do things, and this is a good catalyst to do things differently. The decisions we take in the next two years are going to inform the next 20.’ The project flags the end of the old West One village that many Prospero readers will remember. Western House, Brock House and Grafton House remain, housing divisional support staff. But Henry Wood House is currently on the market, and Yalding may be knocked down and redeveloped by its landlord – in which case Radio 1, 1Xtra and Newsbeat could also be on their way to New Broadcasting House.

FACT FILE W1 will have • 13 floors housing 5,000 staff • A floor area equivalent to 10 football pitches • 15 lifts giving a travel distance of nearly half a mile • Five TV studios • Capacity to fit 90 London buses • 1,386 door sets in metal • 10,000 miles of cable • 10,500 lights

T

8•

• February • 2010

The distinctive ‘gull-wing’ roof The two lift shafts, which will be in shot as bulletins are presented, will carry the news brand colours

Right: The East Wing of the new building saw the launch of the BBC’s Persian television service early in 2009.

he design emphasises public access. A ‘piazza’ in what was T Langham Street will include a BBC shop, café and displays showcasing programme output. There will be public tours, and there are plans for a ‘newsroom classroom’ where school children will be able to practise production techniques and learn how BBC news works. Visitors will also be able to see for themselves how our journalists work, thanks to glass-panelled viewing areas looking over the newsroom.

Plensa’s Breathing comprises a 10 metre high inverted glass spire, etched with a poem, rising from the fifth floor roof of the new Broadcasting House buildings.

February • 2010 •

•9

Feature

Peter Hill has revisited an imprecise history of the BBC Bushmen, a cricket club schooled in the ‘arts of peace’

Fair play to the Germans The Bushmen were ‘founded in war, to celebrate the arts of peace’. They were originally members of the wartime German Service, led by Hugh Carleton Greene. They were fluent German speakers, lovers of cricket – and lovers of beer. They started a club which would both dine and play cricket. Initially membership was confined to men and limited to 30. They started by dining well, at the Waldorf, where for 17s 6d a head they ate Whitstable native oysters, Quartier du Boeuf Dubarry, and Canapé Favorite. Many of their guests were distinguished war leaders like Jan Masaryk, and they also included Harold Nicholson, Robert Sherwood, the US Ambassador, and Sir William Haley. Forty years later Maurice Latey, the muchloved historian of the Bushmen, and one of the twelve founders, sat down to write the official history of the club, but he had a problem: the memories of those who had played in the early matches varied considerably. As the police sometimes find, there proved to be no worse witnesses to the truth than those who were actually present. So he fixed the first match as having been played at Woburn in June 1942 against a team from the Political Warfare Executive. Psychological warfare by both teams was much in evidence. Maurice claimed to have taken a hat-trick, but there were no documents or scorebooks to prove it. All that is remembered is that at some point a messenger ran on to the field and panted ‘Tobruk has fallen!’ and that captain Hugh Greene, in the spirit of Sir Francis Drake said “Play on!” The next match, said Maurice, was in 1944. Somewhere in Oxford. At an anniversary dinner I once attended, several of those who played in that match disagreed violently about whom they were playing, whether it was raining, and in which pub they met to found a formal club with rules

The German Service farewell dinner for Hugh Greene in 1946. Several were founder members of the Bushmen. They are, standing: Christopher Dilke, Robert Lucas, Marius Goring, Fritz Wendenhausen, Edmund Wolff, Martin Esslin, Heinrich Fisher and Peter Illing. Sitting: Lindley Fraser, Julius Gellner, Hugh Greene, George Gretton, Hans Buxbaum and Walter Hertner. Several, like Goring (actor) Esslin (head of drama) and Gretton (head of European Service) went on to higher things. George Gretton’s two sons still play for the Bushmen today, 59 years after their first match.

Hugh Greene completes a stumping in the first ‘proto-Bushmen’ match. Maurice Latey’s drawing appeared in the Bush House ‘Overseas Rag’, an in-house magazine produced in 1941 by those working there during the war.

of membership. It was eventually discovered that the match had been played in July 1943, and that the pub was the Wheatsheaf. These two matches formed part of the Bushmen’s prehistory. But then an embarrassing event happened which shook one’s belief in history even further: the appearance of a copy of the BBC Overseas Rag no.3, dated 1941, which describes in hilarious detail (including cartoons) a cricket match against Electra House – the first London headquarters of the PWE. Like the thirteenth stroke of the clock, this cast doubt on all that had gone before. So Maurice labelled this match as one by ‘proto-Bushmen’. Nevertheless the club thrived after the war,

The Bushmen at Farleigh Wallop last season – when they won a record number of games

10 •

• February • 2010

with an ever increasing number of matches. They were mostly at villages in the home counties, Dorset and Suffolk, attracting broadcasters, like Corbett Woodall, Max Robertson and Trevor McDonald (who took a hat-trick in 1970, but the score book then went missing for twenty years) and even a former Test player in Sir Learie Constantine. Dining and good fellowship has continued, overseas tours are a regular feature each autumn, and the club has expanded to include women members (not ‘bushpersons’!) and cricket lovers from a wider field. It has been my task to bring the Bushmen story from the Dark Ages into the Modern Era, with, I hope, the humour, scepticism and affection of the original author.

Copies of The Quest for the Bushmen, by Maurice Latey, updated by Peter Hill, can be obtained by sending a cheque made out to The Bushmen for £10 plus £1.26 p.&p. to: Bennett Maxwell, Secretary of the Bushmen, 9 The Mead, Ealing, London W13 8AZ.

Feature

On top of the world 70 years on, BBC Monitoring is still shipshape in an ever-expanding ‘ocean of words, images and sounds’ ‘This remarkable body of men and women, endowed with the gift of tongues, has been assembled, member by member, into a modern Tower of Babel, where, with exemplary concentration, they listen to the voices of friend and foe alike…’ So said the BBC Handbook, describing the embryonic Monitoring Service established at Evesham as the war loomed in 1939. There were 30 staff then. Three years later, when the service moved to its present HQ at Caversham, the number had grown to 500. And by the war’s end around 1,000 people were employed to listen to and interpret broadcasts from Europe and around the world – notably, of course, the words of propagandists such as Lord Haw-Haw, and of the Fuehrer himself. So vital was their

Brian breaks the task down broadly into three eras: the war; the cold war; and the recent past – ‘a time of extreme regional instability’. Historical turning points in which Monitoring had a role ranged from the death of Stalin, reported on the Moscow Home Service, to the crises in Suez, Hungary and Cuba. From the Berlin Wall, the Soviet space flights, the 1968 Paris riots, the Prague spring, Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence, the Six-Day War, the Biafran war to the Cultural Revolution in China, the Vietnam War, the Pol Pot regime, plus wars in the Falklands, the Gulf and the former Yugoslavia... Brian’s ‘regional instabilities’ include Rwanda, the Middle East, the rise of Al Qaeda, 9/11, and the recent Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. The story is influenced by developments in the media themselves, including the use of short-wave radio, media regulation in closed societies, the emergence of FM radio, satellite television the internet. Brian studied languages in Germany and Russia before joining Monitoring in 1981. By the time he left in 2008, 1945: Monitoring’s he had been a member of the private telephone service’s Direction Board for exchange 12 years, and was responsible for new products, as well as

intelligence that Churchill himself would ring up and ask: ‘What’s that fellow been saying?’ But the end of the war was by no means the end of the service. For the next 40 years it would have a central role in the Cold War. So central indeed, that within a year four members of Monitoring staff had been mysteriously sacked. The reasons were never spelt out, but the press speculated that the four had been found to have ‘Soviet or communist sympathies’. The story of BBC Monitoring, told by former Monitoring executive Brian Rotheray in a web publication marking the 70th anniversary, is more than the story of an often overlooked division of the BBC. It provides a thumbnail sketch of significant world events from 1939 to the present.

Sub editors on a daily digest, 1941

helping in a series of reviews of the service with the aim of securing its future. So he is well placed to look at the service from the inside, describing BBC politics around the move from Wood Norton to Caversham, and some of the characters who worked there – including Ernst Gombrich and the Russian philosopher Victor Frank, who played table tennis wearing headphones with special extensions so one could listen to the crackling signals of Radio Moscow, the other to Radio Berlin. But they were more than just listening. The monitors added value with ‘lateral thinking’, says Brian. ‘For example, the crowd figures for football matches in the East German sports news indicated population build-up in areas devoted to uranium mining for the USSR.’ He explains the growth of monitoring operations abroad, and the historic partnership with the US monitoring service, and he sums up the ever-growing challenge of the monitors in a faster-moving world. ‘The work demands high levels of knowledge of the subjects, countries and languages involved, the ability to translate and report accurately and at speed and to spot what is new and important in an ocean of words, images and sounds… This publication has been an opportunity to salute their enormous contribution.’ • You can access the story at http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/about_us/BBC Mhistory%20revisions%20x.pdf

Looking ahead Brian Rotheray

BBC monitoring satelite dishes in Kenya

The Monitoring story closes with a glimpse into the future: ‘BBC Monitoring was not widely known about during the Cold War. Much has changed, with television, radio, press and internet coverage. Annual Open Days mean hundreds of people see the buildings and grounds at Caversham Park. BBC Monitoring’s role is important and the organisation needs support. A substantial reorganisation has been implemented, with a new Geographic Department responsible for all monitoring and production in the UK and abroad. Around 75% of BBC Monitoring’s own output now comes from overseas rather than UK operations. A Supra-Geographic Department handles subject-based production. New offices opened in Russia in 2003 and in the Ukraine in 2005. An operation started in India in 2007. A second major modernisation programme also started at Caversham in 2007. This involved the complete redesign of the West operations room, completed in 2008, and extensive work on the remainder of the building. A Technology Refresh Programme is in progress. This aims radically to enhance multimedia news production and the delivery of volumes of reporting that match the world’s top news providers. As this history shows, BBC Monitoring has continually reorganised itself and invested to be in a strong position for the tasks it has had to meet. Recent events, such as Georgia in 2008 and Iran in 2009, demonstrate the power and relevance of the service BBC Monitoring offers. The media are more varied and influential than ever.’

February • 2010 •

• 11

Back at the BBC

Now Tories look at ‘bottom slicing’...

Regions champ is out – but not down... Pat Loughrey reflects on his 25 years at the BBC ‘I’ve spent most of my career on the edges of the BBC,’ says Pat Loughrey, ‘starting off in Radio Foyle and ending up with World Service Trust in Juba. ‘But then, the green shoots don’t appear on the trunk, only on the branches … And I’ve been checking out the branches big time during the last 25 years.’ Not entirely true. In between jobs in Londonderry and Sudan, Loughrey was controller of BBC Northern Ireland and, for the last decade, director of Nations and Regions, until its dismantling earlier in 2009 when English regions merged with News. It was a logical ‘coming of age’, says Loughrey – but it was also a way to put himself out of a job. He continued to be a significant regional influence as the BBC’s ‘out-of-London champion’, before taking up a secondment as journalism trainer with the World Service Trust. Loughrey was in poetic flow as he contemplated returning to academia as warden (vice-chancellor) of Goldsmiths, University of London in the new year. His decade had been peppered with BBC milestones including Pacific Quay, Salford and a review of network progamme supply from the regions. There were disappointments – notably the BBC Trust’s decision to block his £68m plan for local video on enhanced BBC websites in 60 areas across the UK. ‘It was a personal blow,’ he told Ariel. ‘If you believe cross-platform, ondemand, multi-skilled content is right at international and national level, then eventually it’s bound to be the right answer at local level too.’ For Loughrey, the commitment to Salford and to moving 50 percent of tv production out of London by 2016, as well as ‘a degree of revolution in what the local relationship means to the BBC’, are the real landmarks. The network supply review is possibly the most potent of all. ‘Just look at the use made by the Welsh authorities of Doctor Who as an icon of contemporary Wales.’ Pacific Quay in Glasgow, Europe’s most advanced digital production centre, is certainly part of the Loughrey legacy. And the sheer scale of Salford and the spending power of self-commissioning departments, which ‘won’t rely on London to determine their destiny’, will ‘bring distinction to the whole BBC North idea.’ By far the biggest change he has seen is the shift to an open BBC: ‘The BBC I joined was a fundamentally different place. It had a degree of distance from its audience that we would now find incomprehensible. ‘In Northern Ireland, on a programme called Talkback, the audience was never actually heard. Any Answers was the preserve of the Basildon Bond brigade – actors read the letters. ‘There has been a palpable shift in accessibility, accountability and relevance, and it has all been for the better. I’ve no nostalgia for the more elitist, smug world that I joined as an education producer in 1984.’

12 •

Back at the BBC

A recent Policy Exchange report called for the BBC to stop chasing younger audiences with high spending on popular sports rights, US dramas and big name entertainment presenters. Whether the think tank, which has the ear of the Tory party, is of the same mind as BBC management should become clearer next month, when Mark Thompson hopes to publish his strategic review. The document will detail the first proposals for programmes and services that may be scrapped, and it may make the more telling contribution to the public face of a future BBC. Reflecting shadow culture minister Jeremy Hunt’s views, the Policy Exchange report called for a change in BBC governance. It deemed the BBC Trust ‘ineffectual’ in its regulatory role and unable to hold the BBC to ‘sufficient account’. It should be replaced with a BBC Joint Board, argued Mark Oliver, the report author, to which management would be accountable on day-to-day issues. The creation of a Public Service Content Trust, meanwhile, would be the external monitor of all public service spending and service delivery. The BBC Trust hit back, saying it had ‘been focused on protecting the public value and independence of the BBC against political or commercial influence. Anyone proposing change to the current governance arrangements must demonstrate that they won’t put either that value or that independence at risk’. The future of the licence fee is among the issues a Tory commission, chaired by former dg Greg Dyke, is considering. Its findings are also due early this year. Whatever its form, the licence fee should be shared, said the Policy Exchange report, with the BBC obliged to ‘bottom slice’ 5 percent of the next settlement (around £175m) for content on other channels. ‘The BBC might decide that investing £20m to £30m in Channel 4 programmes or E4 might be a better way to reach the 16-35s with programming of public value than spending £100m on BBC Three,’ it said. Meanwhile the industry was treated to the considered opinions of Greg Dyke in the RTS Christmas lecture. ITV managers were ‘corporate clowns’, Five’s days were numbered as an independent channel, the politicians who took us to war in Iraq were ‘self-seeking and dishonest’ and the governors who sacked him after the Hutton inquiry were ‘gutless’.

Broken rules The BBC’s coverage of U2 when it launched a new album last year breached editorial guidelines, an internal investigation has found. The Editorial Complaints Unit, has ruled that the use of the symbol in the graphic ‘U2 =BBC’ gave ‘an inappropriate impression of endorsement’. A pre-recorded interview between Zane Lowe and Bono of U2 was for the most part appropriate, but a reference to Radio 1 being

‘part of launching this new album’ was not. But while it upheld complaints from RadioCentre, the trade body for commercial radio companies, about undue prominence for a commercial product, the ECU did not

• December • 2009

In an interview with Ariel, Mark Thompson looks at the year ahead Funding

Greg Dyke’s imminent review for the Conservatives will call for the licence fee to be scrapped and replaced by funding from central taxation. But Thompson would be surprised to see any great change this year. ‘[Culture secretary] Ben Bradshaw has said he believes in the licence fee and [shadow] Jeremy Hunt, that the Tories will abide by the multi-year settlement.’

Ringing with confidence

IT systems

Content

The dg is candid about lessons to be learned from recent massive IT failures affecting phones and PCs. ‘The frailty of our overall systems has been exposed. We have a legacy of IT systems which we’ve been trying to do more and more with, and we’ve now had a series of warnings. We’re working hard to minimise the same thing happening again – thinking strategically to make sure we’ve got the infrastructure we need.’

Strategic review

Thompson plans to publish his first proposals this month. He has already suggested that the BBC website might be trimmed back and that there will be fewer acquired programmes. ‘For the public, the biggest question marks are always around programme quality and distinctiveness,’ he notes. ‘So our focus is on big impact, quality

uphold RadioCentre’s complaints about an edition of Jo Whiley (Radio 1, Feb 2009) and a News Online report of U2’s concert on the roof of Broadcasting House. The BBC/U2 tie-in was widely criticised – not just for the album plug but because some people believed it wrong of the corporation to align itself so closely to a group whose lead singer, Bono, campaigns on issues like poverty and climate change. Additionally, the ECU has ruled that the BBC’s handling of a Coldplay tour, which featured the ‘Radio 1 presents Coldplay’ online site, with direct links to the websites of ticket agents, was not in keeping with guidelines on links to external websites. • The ECU also found that two senior BNP members, who told Radio 1’s Newsbeat that England footballer Ashley Cole was ‘not ethnically British’, were not given a sufficiently robust grilling. The BNP pair, who in an interview referred to the black, London-born sportsman as ‘coming to this country’, should have been challenged more rigorously.

Seeing red As the BBC red button celebrates its most successful year ever, 2010 and the growth of internet tv should offer even more opportunities for the 11 year old service, says Rahul Chakkara. Interactive television from the BBC was used by more than 11m users each week in 2009 – 7.5m alone accessing the red button offering for Wimbledon, 6m for Glastonbury and over a million choosing Robbie Williams’s exclusive tracks on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. In October, the BBC had to close down

two of its three red button channels on Freeview, to make room for HD broadcast channels, but internet tv via broadband – as proposed through Project Canvas – will free up capacity, says Chakkara, FM&T’s controller, tv platforms. ‘The new internet connected platforms and devices are a big opportunity for BBC red button. We recently started trialling BBC iPlayer on Freesat via the red button, delivered over the open internet.’ So what else can we expect via red button in 2010? ‘We’ll innovate to build better services for some of the key events like the Winter Olympics, the World Cup and Glastonbury. We’ll also aim to deploy BBC iPlayer onto other connected tv platforms and devices.’

Language lessons Journalists whose first language is not English now have free access to the online English training courses, via the World Service and College of Journalism’s 30 foreign language microsites. Three new modules, written by WS trainer Mark Shea, offer guidance in writing, editorial standards, vocabulary and accuracy. They are particularly aimed at staff and freelances in BBC offices around the world, who can link to the courses from each microsite’s homepage. But English language development manager Sian Harris says they will also be useful to a wider, international, audience. ‘As an organisation that broadcasts and produces content in more than 30 languages to a wide variety of audiences globally, it is vital that staff are aware of the impact of the language they use on output and audiences.’

The World Cup and another F1 season will make it a great sporting year, Thompson says, and drama highlights will include Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth at Easter. ‘Radio 4 is on amazing form and internationally, Persian TV will continue to have huge impact.’ At home, the general election promises to be ‘one of the most interesting in my time in broadcasting’. content that makes a difference. In 2010 that will include R4’s A History of the World in 100 Objects and content around the Year of Science.’ What about the onward march of bbc.co.uk? ‘The website is an amazing media success, with 27m users a month, but it has grown like Topsy and some parts are less focused than others.’ Is it inevitable that broadcast services

‘ ’ TALKING POINTS

Mark Thompson has given his strongest defence of the BBC’s continuing connection with BBC Worldwide, arguing that it makes ‘no commercial sense’ without the BBC brand. Writing in Media Guardian, the directorgeneral says: ‘A Worldwide wholly separated from the BBC makes no strategic or commercial sense. Global audiences flock to BBC programmes and to the BBC brand; take those away and Worldwide becomes an empty vessel.’

In demand

Given everything on the horizon, can the BBC feel confident at the start of the new decade? ‘There was an interesting moment in 2009, after James Murdoch’s MacTaggart lecture. Yes, there was criticism of the BBC, but did people want to lose it? No, and that includes most politicians. There won’t be any less noise around us in 2010, but yes, we have room to be confident.’

The night shift, 30 years on

For some time I’ve noticed that your occasional item ‘What to Wear’ usually features young women. I’m a 61 year-old man so, in the interests of equality, I have interviewed myself for Ariel. Today I’m wearing a light blue striped Marks and Spencer’s shirt, dark blue trousers complemented by black socks and black Clarks laceup shoes with a rather natty Gortex lining (very practical in today’s rain!). The image I’m still experimenting with is ‘young man about town’ which I’ve never achieved in 40 years at the Beeb. Finally, if I were to be caught rummaging in someone else’s wardrobe for fashion ideas, I’d be arrested. Bob Clary, transmission and distribution, World Service

Worldwide bond

will close? ‘There is not one service that’s not there for a good reason, but when there are lots of ways to get quality content, it’s reasonable to ask whether there are other ways to access that content.’ On Worldwide: ‘It’s right to keep an open mind [on ownership] but continue to look at all the opportunities to develop BBC intellectual properties, not just simple privatisation.’

Presenters past and present gathered to mark 30 years of Newsnight recently. A special edition was broadcast on BBC Two. Standing: Kirsty Wark, Emily Maitlis, Olivia O’Leary, Jeremy Paxman, Gavin Esler, Francine Stock, John Tusa, and Sue Cameron. Seated: Martha Kearney and Peter Snow

Responding to Treasury suggestions that the BBC Trust should look at options for Worldwide, including partial sale, Thompson – like trust chairman Michael Lyons before him – remains open-minded. ‘A change [in the company’s ownership structure] is not inevitable or even necessarily desirable at any point in the future. But nor should it be automatically ruled out... ‘What we cannot envisage is a Worldwide in which the BBC does not continue to play a central role. Without the BBC brand, BBC intellectual property and the ability to deliver international BBC services, Worldwide

would only be worth a fraction of its present value. ‘And a BBC stripped of Worldwide would not only fail to capitalise on its present opportunities, but would struggle to maintain international visibility and relevance.’

‘Fixers’ at risk What more should media organisations like the BBC be doing to safeguard local fixers? After a year which saw one local BBC freelance producer killed in Afghanistan and others kidnapped or in hiding, the festival

was given an insight into the risks such journalists face, particularly after the western media moves out, from Afghan freelance Shoiab Shafiri. More collaborative working and less of a ‘them and us’ culture would be a start, said Shafiri at a BBC seminar. He has a longstanding association with the BBC in Afghanistan and was himself kidnapped for eight days. Something as simple as understanding that in Afghan culture, cancelling an interview is taken as a personal affront: ‘The response will be to blame the Afghan [who arranged it]…you’re puppets working for foreigners and you’re against me personally.’ Shafiri was especially critical of the term ‘fixer’: ‘I have 14 years experience in journalism…I’ve reported and filmed undercover, on front lines, covering violence and massacres. I have a master’s in international journalism, so why am I called a fixer? It really hurts.’ Giving local journalists equal status, and equal credits on air, would make a huge difference, he said. Panellists Ben Brown and Jane Corbin described instances in Zimbabwe and Iran where local colleagues had paid the price of working for BBC and other western media. Brown’s former driver had suffered years of ‘persecution’ by the Zanu pf and Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist who had worked with the BBC and Newsweek, was imprisoned and tortured before his release last year in Tehran.

Elephant tragedy The death of expedition guide Anton Turner, who was killed by an elephant while working for the BBC in Tanzania, was a tragic accident, a BBC investigation has found. He had been filming with a group of children for CBBC’s Serious Explorers, following in the footsteps of David Livingstone, when the incident happened on October 30. Turner was part of a group that was trekking in the Mbarika mountains. An elephant suddenly charged, and he was heard to shout at it and seen to point his weapon but no shot was fired. Experts indicated that the elephant reacted ‘in an unusual, unexpected way’, although the reasons for this are unclear.

Christmas cheer For a second consecutive year BBC One had nine of the ten most popular shows on Christmas Day. The biggest audience was for EastEnders, with an average audience of 10.9 million (11.9m peak), followed by The Royle Family with 10.2m (10.8m peak) and Doctor Who (average 10 million; 10.4m peak).

Bay drama centre BBC Wales has confirmed that construction of a new drama production centre will start within months, if planning permission is granted. It will be at Roath Basin in Cardiff Bay, forming a base that will bring together Doctor Who, Casualty and the BBC’s longest running tv soap Pobol y Cwm.

Licensing link TV Licensing has launched its ‘Push a Little Button’ campaign, designed to encourage people to think about using www.tvlicensing.co.uk for any licence issues. You can buy a licence, ask a question, change address, bank or direct debit details, or make a payment online on the updated site.

December • 2009 •

• 13

Obituaries

Obituaries

Fond memories of Bobby – the ‘Dear Old Boy’ of LE

Wisdom at the heart of Wales You cannot write about Patrick Hannan without that feeling that he is just behind you, weighing up your own judgments and polishing your language. He worried about every word. ‘Hmm…,’ he would say quizzically, before his well-honed professional scepticism prodded you in the ribs. It is hard to imagine BBC Wales without him. As a regular presence on air and on screen across nearly 40 years, his distinctive voice and distinguished reporting helped shape the place. He joined the BBC in 1970, in the formative years of Welsh broadcast journalism and, from the beginning, gave it an authority and depth that lived up to the challenge of the times. He was BBC Wales’s first political correspondent – a post he held for 13 years – although in a period when strikes and politics were more closely intertwined, his title at first included the word industrial. In very large part it was Patrick Hannan who daily told the people of Wales their own story, as the decline of coal and steel changed their society irrevocably, and the politics of identity took centre stage. In his own words, he began by reporting politics in Wales and finished by reporting Welsh politics. He always brushed aside any notion that journalism was a profession, preferring to call it just a ‘rough old trade’, but that carried a familiar self-deprecation that masked the vast knowledge of history, politics, literature, films, music and opera that gave him the richest intellectual hinterland of any journalist I have known. It was that hinterland, and an instinct for connections, that made him an almost unbeatable force on Radio 4’s Round Britain Quiz which, with his friend Peter Stead, he won five times in ten years. His career crossed newspapers – he had been industrial editor of the Western Mail – as well as radio and television, and when he became a freelance in the mideighties, he remained a constant presence on Radio Wales (presenting the weekly Called to Order that was at the centre of Welsh political debate), and contributing to Radio 4 with Tea Junction and Out of Order. He also spread his wings into radio and television documentary and wrote five books that brought into play all the colour and wit that broadcasting often screens out, and which always made him the very best of company. Not the least of his services to the BBC over the last decade was his unswerving support for his wife, Menna Richards. Is that OK, Patrick? ‘Hmm….’ Geraint Talfan Davies

14 •

I first met Bobby Jaye at the Camden studio in the early 1960s when he was producing the Joe Loss Bandbox and I was a trainee SM. It was a live programme and his secretary had got the timings wrong, so the show was under running. The closing signature tune had already been reached, when Bobby shot down to the stage and signalled to the band to repeat the tune not once but twice more. Saving the programme and loss of face for all. It was this thinking on his feet and a fast and witty mind which stood Bobby in good stead for all his career, whether as producer, or jousting later with other department heads at programme review board or

controllers at offers meetings. He knew how to keep one step ahead. His Sandhurst training and sevice in the 25th Dragoons must have played a part, certainly the military moustache endured. He joined the BBC as a programme engineer in the early 40s, meeting another PE, Rita, who became his wife, and apart from the army interruption, radio is where he stayed. He was the youngest of seven from an Isle of Wight family, and needing to stand out from his elder siblings must have made him an extrovert. For he loved to perform as a warm-up man on his audience shows and was never happier than holding the floor

Ups and downs of a BBC character I was saddened to hear about the death of Jack Gray at the age of 81 in November in Kingston Hospital, near his home in East Sheen where he had lived for many years. I didn’t know him when we were both in the BBC, but got to like him over the last six years as a volunteer visitor. We would meet in his home and go on to local pubs and cafés and he liked nothing more than talking about his days at the BBC, where he worked from the 1950s until his retirement in 1989 as an engineer in OBs, Studios, Vision Control, and later in Purchasing. Jack was a striking figure, with long, chiselled, acquiline features, fitting for a man so strong-willed and determined, with a beady-eyed curiosity about all sorts of things, especially any kind of practical challenge. Born in Chiswick, London, in 1928, he was educated at Guildford Grammar School, having been sent there to escape the wartime bombing. He gained electrical engineering qualifications at Battersea Polytechnic, after completing his National Service as a sergeant in the Education Corps. He joined the BBC as a trainee cameraman. Right from the start, Jack identified completely with the public service ethos of the BBC and the absolute requirement to maintain the highest possible technical standards. Yet he was actually surprisingly modest about his own attainments in those early days. He was proud to have worked on the first studio transmission from Television Centre in 1960, but admitted to me that he’d made mistakes that day and was later reduced to tears by a superior at his appraisal. For Jack that was the spur to professional improvement, not the occasion for bitter resentment. As his career progressed, he worked on an enormous range of output of course, but one highlight he still recalled with delight nearly 40 years later was on an OB for a natural history programme, observing the nocturnal behaviour of animals in the woods.

• February • 2010

They were hoping to confirm the legend that hedgehogs could carry apples on their backs but when after some hours nothing much was happening they were about to give up for the night. Then suddenly on camera they saw a spiky little creature tottering along to its nest under the weight of a huge apple. It was the first time such a scene had ever been recorded, and such moments were for Jack the essence of what the BBC existed for. Apart from his involvement in programmes, Jack also felt pride in his role in purchasing equipment and it gave him great pleasure knowing items he’d selected were still in use in studios many years later. After retirement he maintained contact with fellow engineers and he loved their regular reunion lunches. He was always fascinated by the history and culture of TV engineering and did his own research over many years into BBC staff involvement in World War II. He talked to those involved in the early days of Radar, including BBC staff seconded to the RAF at Alexandra Palace to deceive German bombers in the Blitz by interfering with their directional guidance radio beams. Jack also studied the technical and mathmatical side of the wartime Enigma codebreaking process at Bletchley Park and published a much respected booklet on the subject which was available for some time at the Science Museum bookshop. With typical generosity he seems to have given away all his own copies of the booklet, so his daughter, Deborah Neale, would appreciate it if anyone knows where one could be found for the family. Right to the end of his life Jack remained active in all sorts of things. He attended maths and computer classes with the University of the Third Age (U3A), and he began tutoring pupils in maths at the school near his house in East Sheen, helping numerous struggling pupils get over their fear and anxiety and go on to success in the subject. During his National Service he’d

with his never ending amusing anecdotes to admiring colleagues. He produced a wide range of programmes from Movie-Go-Round to the Ken Dodd Show, the radio version of Steptoe and Son and his favourite, The Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter. Latterly as head of Light Entertainment he adapted to the new wave of young comedy and was a kind and avuncular figure, dispensing help and advice not only to me but the rapidly changing group of bright young graduates using radio as a springboard to television. He addressed them all as ‘old boy’, endearingly telling me he did so because he couldn’t remember their names!

When official retirement arrived in 1984, Bobby handed over a healthy department to me, but continued working successfully on Radio Goes To Town and finally in staff training lecturing to overseas broadcasters. For many years he was a lively figure at reunions, his thirst for life, fun and anecdotes undiminished. My deepest sympathy to Rita, his daughters Vanessa and Amanda, and their families. Martin Fisher Barry Littlechild adds: When you think of radio Light Entertainment one man always comes to mind…Bobby Jaye…

I first met him in the Film Unit Library at Maida Vale, sweating over a Leevers Rich tape recorder dubbing more laughs into a Ken Dodd programme. ‘Hello old boy’ (he just couldn’t remember people’s names) ‘have a listen to this and tell me if the jokes deserve bigger laughs?’ I was a relief projectionist sent up to run films for Movie-Go-Round and it was the start of a friendship that lasted for 50 years. As well as running the film unit for Light Entertainment Bobby produced some of the top comedy programmes for the BBC. He became head of Light Entertainment, and what a head! His office was full of jokes

and tricks that would have made Tommy Cooper proud. One was the strange ‘hand’ that used to crawl out of his briefcase if office briefs went on a bit too long! Programme discussions were usually held in the Yorkshire Grey pub next to Broadcasting House. If he liked an idea, he was straight on the phone to controllers, and it all just happened. Bobby loved the microphone and would often bring young actors into the studios, interview them about their careers and then put it on Movie-GoRound… a young Alan Parker was one. Light Entertainment was Bobby Jaye, and his trade mark ‘Hello Old Boy’ will live on forever. Our thoughts with his family and Rita.

Executive with a talent for friendship Bob Phillis, who died of cancer before Christmas at the age of 64, was not a typical BBC man; he was a likeable media big hitter with a visionary business sense, who held top jobs at Central, Carlton Communications, ITN and the Guardian Media Group. As he admitted, on joining the BBC in 1993 as director general John Birt’s deputy, he just couldn’t resist a challenge. He was presented with any number of them during his four years with the corporation – not least in helping Birt and his board to secure a new Charter and licence fee settlement for the BBC via a massive overhaul of its structure and practices. Bob was tasked with forming a new World Service directorate in which radio and television operations – with their different funding arrangements – were

discovered a real love of teaching and he admitted wistfully in later years that in some ways he regretted not taking it up as a career. It is planned to establish an annual Mathematics Prize in Shene School in his memory. Jack was always a devoted family man, and, having married Barbara in 1957, he was heartbroken at her death in 2001, shortly before Deborah’s wedding day. He is survived by his sister, Sheila, and was very proud of being the grandfather of two boys, Benjamin and Harry. In so many ways Jack was a real character, and he will be greatly missed by friends and former colleagues at the BBC. Giles Oakley

He was known by most as ‘Barney’. He worked through the 60s and 70s as a show working supervisor at TV Centre, and on outside broadcasts. He retired in 1976. Prior to joining the BBC my father spent 26 years in the Army before retiring into ‘civvy street’, having reached the rank of regimental sergeant major in the Royal Artillary. He was the very proud owner of the BEM Medal for saving the lives of two of his men from an inferno. It pleases me to write this to inform whoever knew my father of his passing. Michael J Barnard.

Brian Fitt adds: I worked with Jack for many years, and perhaps a couple of stories about his eccentricities will give a more rounded picture of one of life’s great characters. We both went to BBC Evesham in 1975 to lecture to an electrical technicians’ course. Jack kindly took me in his car, which he had converted to run on Town Gas/ (please do not ask)/, the cylinder for which was positioned just behind the front seats. We motored along with Jack’s left foot resting on the dashboard and the two of us smoking cigarettes with little or no regard for our safety... but we did survive! On another occasion Jack had to convey several lighting poles from A to B. The poles were quite light but being around 8 feet long rather cumbersome. Jack negotiated the London Underground with great skill and dexterity, but much to the dismay of other passengers – but as far as I know no-one got Shish-Kebabed!

Denis Simpson ‘Jimmy’ Green was a gentleman/engineer of supreme talent and kindly countenance, as witnessed by all who

RSM with honours Percy Barnard BEM, Passed away in his sleep on December 30 at a Nursing Home in Norfolk at the age of 98.

Gentleman Jim

integrated. During his tenure, global audiences grew despite dire predictions about short wave listening. He was also key in taking the BBC to a new commercial level, as BBC Enterprises became BBC Worldwide, and of steering it into the digital age with some pioneering new ventures. As chief executive of BBC Worldwide in 1997, Bob sealed the groundbreaking 50/50 joint venture partnership with Flextech which saw the launch of a string of digital television channels – niche channels that would earn income for the BBC’s public service core through subscription and advertising. ‘The corporation was undergoing radical change as it began to come to terms with the digital revolution,’ said Liz Forgan, who was recruited alongside Bob onto

knew him throughout a long career in the BBC engineering division. From sound broadcasting at Broadcasting House to Television Centre, his popularity and technical expertise were much valued. One significant contribution was his masterful nursing of the mighty and complicated TV back-projection ‘Eidophor’ machine. His expertise in this field was sought by a small team investigating its possibility as an analogue TV standards converter. Subsequently marrying Marjetta and relinquishing a magnificent Shavian beard, he transferred to the BBC studio at Plymouth, and became the father of two children, Tina and Miko. In his passing we have all lost a gentle giant, raconteur and kindly humorist who sought adventure and fulfilment in every opportunity. J. Kelleher

Birt’s first management team. ‘While Birt, as DG, drove relentlessly through the organisation rooting out traditional practices, it was often left to Bob to smooth ruffled feathers.’ She added: ‘In a sector where modesty is not a common fault, he [Phillis] stood out as warm-hearted and self-effacing’. This inherent decency is a recurring theme, with Ronald Neil, former chief exec of BBC production, calling him ‘one of the most highly regarded and well liked people in our industry’. Mark Thompson remembered Bob – who chaired the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention in September despite his treatment for bone marrow cancer – as ‘an inspirational leader, but also a warm-hearted, loyal, friend and colleague’.

Claire Barrett

Game supremo Andrew Grant joined the BBC as a trainee broadcast engineer in 1983. After qualifying, he worked in TVC studios, BBC monitor and office facilities, network engineering and the MTC, transferring to Siemens in 2005. With over 26 years working for the BBC at Television Centre, Andy honed his engineering skills in electronic engineering maintenance and RF systems. He was a friendly, competent and reliable engineer who won the Confederation of Aerial Industries prestigious student of the year award. Andy’s passion outside work was the board game, GO. He was an accomplished player, travelling all over the world to various championships.

Remembering Rosie... It is difficult to believe that a year has passed since more than one hundred of Rosie Barlas’s friends gathered together to celebrate her life. We met in November in an art gallery in London, some of us travelling many miles to be present, for to all of us Rosie was a very special person, achieving in her 53 years more than most. Rosie joined the costume staff at Pebble Mill in 1976, with a degree from LAMDA and theatrical costume experience. She was a most reliable and resourceful dresser and maker, and it was a disappointment that after only two years she left the BBC for the world of insurance, and then to work as a freelance costumier. Fortunately she returned to pebble Mill to assist on Nanny, Great Expectations and many other productions, where her work was much appreciated by the design team. Rosie left us again to set up a teaching department at Birmingham University, and then opened her own highly successful Costume House in the city. Always ready to drop everything in order to help any one of her many friends, Rosie moved to London, where she was to

meet her future husband, Chris Barlas. Rosie and I remained friends, and when after my retirement I was asked to design Mme Butterfly for Opera Interludes, to take to the Barbados Opera Festival, it was her to whom I turned to make all the costumes. This was 1995, and it is a tribute to the quality of her dressmaking skill that the costumes recently graced a performance for the President of Malta in his palace, and again here in Worcestershire this August. Seeing them again brought back many memories. Rosie had such joy in the home she created in France with Chris. Her letters were full of ideas for their future together, and even after her illness was diagnosed she remained positive, bravely planning the new house where they might have a drama studio and where their friends would always be welcome. Although this is sadly not to be, all our lives had been enhanced by her friendship and golden personality. Rosie will never be forgotten. Joyce Hawkins

Such was his nature, that when he went to Japan he even learnt to speak Japanese, just to converse with the locals. Andy had a book published on the subject, 400 Years of Go in Japan. In the late 1990s he was one of the top three dozen players of GO in this country. Unhappily Andy developed a lung disease and the last few years have been difficult, but throughout it all he tried to remain optimistic that he would receive a lung transplant and pick up the threads of his life again. Sadly he lost his battle, but he will always remain in the hearts and memories of his family, friends and colleagues and is sadly missed by all. Terry Manning

Bafta-winning director Producer director Christopher Burstall has died, aged 77. He joined the BBC as a general trainee in 1955 and spent his entire career here. He worked across many programmes, including Panorama, but found his natural home in music and arts. He became one of a group of producer directors who sought to make films as ambitious and inventive as the works they scrutinised. He made ground-breaking films for Monitor, Omnibus, Bookmark and Arena. He made landmark documentary Tyger Tyger which focused a whole hour on William Blake’s poem. He captured Graham Greene in a definitive conversation on the Orient Express and made the final film with sculptor Barbara Hepworth. He won a Bafta in 1970 for courtroom factual drama The Chicago Conspiracy Trial. In the 70s and 80s, he made acclaimed arts series, including Artists on Film. Christopher retired from the BBC in 1989. He is survived by wife Sue, three children and six grandchildren. Ariel

February • 2010 •

• 15

Reviews

A man with a mission He had a distinguished BBC career – but as his posthumous memoir reveals, John Percival’s heart was always in Africa...

The young John on safari

T

oday’s world is full of disputed elections and broken promises. The Balkans, Sudan, East Timor, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe are just a few examples. But, as John Percival reminds us, this is nothing new. Many Prospero readers will remember John as a very talented presenter and television producer who joined the BBC back in the 1960s and amongst other things was one of the presenters of the Man Alive strand of programmes. He went on to devise Living In The Past, on which I was his assistant producer. But colleagues will probably be surprised, as I was, to learn that nearly 50 years ago, prior to joining the BBC, he was recruited as a plebiscite officer to set up an election to resolve the future sovereignty of west Africa’s Southern Cameroons. The full story is told in John’s book The 1961 Cameroon Plebiscite: Choice or Betrayal, published four years after his

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16 •

John Pervical (inset) and the country he fell in love with

death, and it reveals his enduring interest in and passion for Africa. At that early stage in his career he had already established his concerns for the freedom of the individual. He was worried that, through the influences of the modern world, the traditional cultures he was witnessing in the Cameroons would shortly be engulfed by powers outside the indigenous population’s control. The Cameroons had been a German colony, split between French and British UN Mandates after the First World War. In 1960 the UN announced plebiscites to determine the future of the country. John supervised the drawing up of electoral rolls, publicising the forthcoming election and explaining the options for the future. He went on to supervise the election itself, which took place without the bloodshed that accompanies elections in some of the more turbulent areas of the world of today.

The outcome was that the northern, French speaking, Christian areas voted for a unified independent country; the southern Anglophone Muslim areas voted to join a new Federal Nigeria. The southern choice, felt John, was subsequently betrayed by the decision to create a unified Independent Republic of Cameroon. The account is not just about the election. Adventures included a memorable night in a rest house. ‘I dined in solitary state with a pressurised kerosene lantern hissing overhead and the waiter padding silently in and out. But what made the strongest impression on me was a huge spider that hung upside down on the ceiling at the edge of the pool of light. ‘It was directly over my head and every now and then it would lunge clumsily at one of the insects flying crazily around the lamp. It was so big that I could hear all eight of its feet scratching against the woven matting of the ceiling.

‘I ate my dinner in a state of terror, convinced that next time it jumped it would lose its footing and fall scrabbling wildly down the back of my neck.’ He describes his travels through remote parts of the country with his entourage, still hanging on to that ‘stiff high handed protocol’ in the style of those Victorian explorers, which at times made John feel uncomfortable. John was writing of his experiences right up until his death, and the book compares his experiences of the 1960s with modern-day Cameroon, which he visited in retirement. The 160 page paperback, edited by John’s wife Lalage Neal, is written in the positive and incisive style that we remember of him, and is described by reviewers as vivid, witty, cogent and enlightening. Published by Langaa Research and Publishing CIG Mankon Bamenda, it can be obtained through Amazon. Brian Hawkins

Tales of the unexpected... In retirement, Alec Sabin, World Service accouncer from 1990 to 2003, is a freelance voice and presentation trainer. Here, fellow announcer Fiona Macdonald reviews his book You’re On!, an instruction manual intended for anyone appearing on the media. The very title of this book You’re On! is enough to give me palpitations. That phrase is like the green light in a radio studio, that split-second adrenalin rush and panic that you’re going to mess up with everyone listening to you. Alec Sabin’s book is full of ways of dealing with situations like this; in fact he positively celebrates studio nerves. I worked with Alec for some years at the World Service. Always a professional, he gave no quarter to all the puff and elitism so often associated with fronting a programme. Because he’s been at the heart of most of the situations himself, Alec’s own voice here is authentic and instructive, the narrative peppered with

• February 2010

entertaining anecdotes. In ‘Dealing with the Unexpected’, he recalls a newsreader on the World Service (I’m pretty sure he’s referring to the inscrutable and impeccably dressed John Wing) who realised too late that he had left his glasses in the newsroom. All he could do after the pips was give a time check and a station ident and then go on to explain to the listening millions that he couldn’t read the news because he didn’t have his spectacles. I like the fact that there are no less than seventeen pages in this book devoted to ‘Reading a Script’. Oh, if only the same could be said in minutes of those reading on air; it would be a much richer

experience for the listener. Personally I need a whole chapter on my own biggest failing as a broadcaster, how to stop laughing at inappropriate moments. A correspondent’s phone, inadvertently left in the news studio, going off at full volume with ‘The Minute Waltz’ during my bulletin; a colleague, Frank Lyne, as I made my way through a news story about an earthquake in South America, shaking the table for the duration of the story; both events rendered me helpless. Mind you, Alec himself wasn’t averse to the odd chuckle; maybe he knows all too well that once you start laughing, you’re beyond help.

Alec Sabin Giggling aside, I wish I had had this book 23 years ago when I first started in radio. It’s the perfect present for any media wannabe. You’re On! is published by How To Books Ltd www.howtobooks.co.uk. and is available at £9.99 in major bookshops and online retailers across the country. ISBN 978-1- 84528-255-4