Let me explain from the beginning for those who do not know – Rae Knight, the programme editor of ‘Close Up’ is female, although one would never guess this from her daily post which invariably is addressed to ‘Mr Knight’ or ‘Rae Knight, Esq.’

Rae, I soon learnt, spends most of her time viewing miles and miles of film – ‘I sometimes feel more like a pit pony,’ she says, ‘just, coming up for occasional glimpses of daylight.’ But Rae has not always lived in the dark.

After reading English and History at Oxford for eight months, she had to come down owing to the death of her mother. Rae wanted a job, so she cut out three advertisements from a newspaper – one for a librarian, one to work in an insurance office and one to train as a dentist’s anaesthetist – and applied for them. She was accepted by all three and as she was equally unqualified for each, plumped for the one to train as a dentist’s anaesthetist. She loathed that and gave it up for modelling. However, dress modelling was obviously not Rae’s vocation either – ‘I wanted to laugh whenever I was meant to have a serious face’ – so after a brief spell working in various offices and even for a short time in a chocolate shop, she took a job as a factory hand.

After three weeks working the machines that make bread machines, the output per man (and one woman) must have dropped. Rae was taken off the machines for causing too great a distraction and put on to the administrative side of the factory. There she concentrated on the safety, health and general welfare of the workers.

Rae’s administrative capabilities were widened with marriage and one icy March day found her planting 22,000 cabbages on a small-holding in Kent. As many cabbage planters before her must have found, it is not the most lucrative occupation, so the benefits of an outdoor life were relinquished for a job with the BBC.

During two years there, Rae graduated from working in the film library to becoming a researcher on ‘Tonight’ and there her days of viewing film began. How did the transition to Associated-Rediffusion come about? ‘I just fell into it,’ replies Rae, ‘through someone I met at a party.’

Now, three years later, she is still viewing film, but with rather more fringe benefits. When she first began, the film industry was inclined to look down upon the television world. To be allowed snippets from new films meant constant telephoning and letterwriting to the film companies. Now, they welcome television publicity and Rae is inundated with pamphlets, photographs and invitations to film previews. Recently she was invited to Hollywood for the premier of ‘It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world’, although there is not much hope of being able to accept that. She did go to Southern Spain for the filming of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Many other people also went to Spain in various capacities for that film, and as sleeping accommodation became scarcer, it was arranged that members of some crews should share rooms for the night. Rae, owing to the usual mistake with her name, found she was expected to double up with a strange cameraman, until she found other accommodation.

On another occasion, Rae had arranged an interview with Hugh O’Brien where he was staying in Eaton Terrace. When she arrived, the butler showed her in but left her for a few minutes while consulting Hugh O’Brien. Strains of conversation floated out: ‘…but I’ve got this chap from TV coming…’ When it was at last established that ‘this chap from TV’ and Rae Knight were one and the same person, she was shown in. Hugh O’Brien was obviously pleasantly surprised. Other trips abroad include a visit to Rome to see Charlton Heston when he was making ‘El Cid’; Paris twice – once for ‘Goodbye Again’ to see Françoise Sagan, Yves Montand, Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Perkins, and again for ‘Waltz of the Toreadors’. Rae went to Cannes for the film festival, Madrid for ‘55 Days at Peking’ and even to Munich. That was for the filming of‘The Great Escape’ with John Sturgess and it was on that occasion that Rae gave her first television interview.

Interviewer Nick Barker was meant to be appearing and it had been arranged that he should follow Rae out with a film crew. When there was no sign of either, there was a major panic: Rae rang London to suggest dropping the interview. Instead she became the interviewer and was filmed by a German film crew, which she hired there.

If one day your young daughter should say to you: ‘I want to work in a chocolate shop when I grow up’, don’t despair – just think to what it could lead.

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But how do the rest of the staff at Television House feel about their food? On the general assumption that they buy what they like best, we did some research into the best sellers.

From Fusion 31, published August 1963

Cold weather is the time for more substantial meals, but sausages are always the best seller at lunchtime, and even more so in the evening.

(This sausage addiction is not just confined to Television House. I quote from a May edition of the ‘Daily Mirror’: ‘Although “sausages are losing their individuality”, and only one butcher in ten makes his own, Britons eat 9,000 million of them a year. Housewives spend £3 out of £100 housekeeping on sausages.”)

All cheese dishes (egg mornay, macaroni cheese and variations) are very popular, generally selling about 60 portions when they are served at lunch. (When it is not known whether anything from 200 to 400 will use the canteen, a sale of 60 portions rates as a ‘best seller’.)

A recent arrival – Quiche Lorraine -after a slow start at 24 has now been judged ‘non-poisonous’ and rocketed to the 50 mark. ‘It takes time before people trust a new dish,’ says Miss Ellis. People are always in a hurry; mixed grill when it is featured is usually a top seller (about 50), but the ‘Grilled Lamb Chop (to order)’ only sells about two a week. In the evening, people cannot be bothered to wait for omelettes, except for odd evenings when everybody seems to want them. Another fairly new arrival, which is climbing in popularity, is Chili con carne – about 30 sold at its last appearance.

Salads are a best seller. With the warmer weather and the club no longer serving food, they often top the 60 mark. All these figure-conscious girls?
Not at all. It is the men. Yoghourt also usually sells out. Once upon a time, men asked for chips to be piled on their plates and then went on to collect some steamed pudding; now they go easy on the chips, or simply avoid both – ‘have to watch the figure you know’.

The sight of ‘soup so rich and green, steaming in a hot tureen’ was obviously too much for the staff last winter – the daily consumption averaged six gallons. The ‘green’ soup, or ‘green pea’ soup, is the least popular – tomato, minestrone and lentil are much better sellers. But now the summer soup consumption has dropped to an average of two and a half gallons a day.

Biscuits and cheese are the most popular second course. Steamed puddings always go well, often hitting the 60 mark. Apparently the post boys are good, reliable customers on that section. All milk puddings are very popular except semolina, but there is little sale of fruit juices.

Imagine the washing up all this entails. Eight people are employed in Television House who do nothing but wash up. After morning coffee there are no less than 1,000 cups, saucers and spoons to be washed, and this is repeated after the afternoon tea . . . lunchtime washing-up is inestimable.

At Wembley, the canteen menu works on a different system from Television House. They have an extensive ‘à la carte’ menu which never changes plus a shorter menu which changes every day; the latter includes one ‘composite’ meal and about three ‘à la carte’ dishes. The best seller by far is steak and kidney pudding. The second favourite is escalope of pork, which usually sells about 60. This is also a favourite with Fanny and Johnnie Cradock, but they do not like the spaghetti with which it is usually served.

The chef’s (yes, a real male chef) speciality – chicken risotto – is very popular, normally selling about 40 portions. Other favourites given to Wembley clientele, though not too often for them to become bored with, are ‘chicken supreme’, which sells about 40 and ‘braised ham California style’ (i.e. with peach), at about 55. Curry Madras is very popular in winter, but sales drop in the summer. Pudding popularity also varies with the season. The top winter pudding by a long way is Dutch apple tart, which sells about 120. Steamed and milk puddings also sell well, but jellies and cold puddings do not reach the top until the summer. Girls are the more figure conscious sex at Wembley, though a few of the men from telecine and sound who do not get so much exercise, also watch the calories. They go for grilled fish or egg dishes without rice. The actors apparently have enough exercise. The face of the Television House club-room has changed vastly over the last few months. The queues waiting for the ever-popular sausages and ‘coleslaw’ have disappeared and nothing has replaced them. Nor, incidentally, has anything replaced the four dozen wooden trays which gradually, mysteriously vanished, and it is a fairly common sight to see flowers in sugar containers around offices. What remains of the club, namely Betty and her bar, are still thriving. She does a tremendous trade in wine, closely followed by bitter draught beer.

The arrival of the humming monster whose fragrant aroma graces the sixth floor has started a new trend in drinking – hot chocolate. The chocolate sales far exceed all the black/white/with/without sugar coffee sales combined. During the week, this machine has a turn-over of about 800 cups, and an added 200 at the week-end (presumably ITN likes hot chocolate as well).

Cigarette machines vary with their best sellers, although the weekly takings usually amount to around £60. Staff have a choice of nine cigarette brands, but Senior Service seems to hold the steadiest high market.

The friendly British ‘banger’ once again wins on the trolley stakes – this time in the form of a sausage roll. Cheese and its various compounds are very popular in roll form, but the customers vary. On the second floor, the trolley can barely nose its way through the tea-point door before it is besieged by hosts of hungry post-boys who consume vast quantities of rolls every day. The fourth floor trolley does not do very good trade, partly because there are fewer people per square office and partly, as Miss Ellis puts it: ‘You can’t imagine those people sitting at their desk in the morning, munching sausage rolls.’ (Perhaps ‘they’ are also figure conscious.)

At Wembley, there is no need for machines as the canteen is open from 8.30 a.m. until 10.00 p.m. However, they do operate a sixpenny slot machine which sells two bars of Kit Kat for every one of Cadbury Snack. (Cadbury Snacks are the most popular at Television House, closely followed by Dairy Bar.) Everyone goes to the Wembley canteen for the morning and afternoon tea breaks (or coffee if they prefer it). Hot toast and butter is served and sells about four times as well as all the filled rolls combined. At tea-time, there are homemade cakes, but way, way above anything else, the favourite is bread pudding. This is described as being as ‘solid as rock’ – in popularity not necessarily in composition.

From time to time, odd waiters carrying rare things like silver coffee pots can be seen around Television House. That probably means there is a Board luncheon on that day. About this subject, Miss Ellis says: ‘Mr Adorian is one of the most appreciative gourmets for whom you could ever cook.’

This was the menu at the last one:

Cream of Mushroom Soup

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Fresh Scotch Salmon with Hollandaise sauce, garden peas, new potatoes

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Pavlova*

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Selection of fresh fruit

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* (For non-ballet connoisseurs, this is described as a ‘Meringue affair de luxe with whipped cream, laced with Kirsch’.)

Incidentally members of staff may be interested to know that the general manager’s room has exactly the same food as the canteen.

The catering firm at Television House is even used as a general store if the shops are shut when people want eggs and bread. Michael Miles has the longest list of odd requests: a chicken carcass ; a sardine tin and one currant (no prizes for guessing the reason). Other requests trolley girls have learnt to take in their stride on day-to-day rounds include things like a fruit salad for a baboon, a milk pudding and even some old bones.

Are you a constructive criticiser? If so, both catering firms (Wembley and Television House) are open to suggestions for new, practical and economical recipes. But please on paper, stating ingredients, time involved and method – no telephone calls. The ideas should be sent to the canteen manager at Wembley or Miss Ellis, Room 330a at Television House.

Drawings by Geraldine Spence

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