At first sight it would appear to be impossible to connect a death at Broadcasting House, fires in a yard on which Studio 5 now stands, the battle of El Wisket Ridge, two fair-sized boilers and some pumps in Studio 1 at Wembley.

The clue as to how all these things can be linked lies in the name of Jack Elkins who has been making things connect at Wembley ever since 1934, apart from the war years when he was himself connected – to the Army.

Jack Elkins was born in Wales 44 years ago this month (October). George Elkins, his father, came from Nottingham and had gone to Wales to work in a power station at a mine. His mother was a Londoner.

Perhaps that is why his parents decided to move to London when the slump hit the Welsh coal mines in 1928. Jack and his three brothers, moved into a new home where the back gate led out onto fields. They were brought up within reach of the fresh, green countryside. The house was in Kenton and Jack Elkins and his wife still live there but his three children have farther to go for the countryside. As Jack grew up so did the houses – all around them.

Back in 1928 Jack’s father found work at what were then the Wembley film studios on the site now occupied by our studios. One by one the sons left school and one by one they, too, found work at Wembley. Jack was the youngest of the family and the time arrived when he, not unnaturally, joined his father and brothers there as well.

One by one the Elkins have left Wembley. Jack’s father retired from the boiler-room in 1947. He died a few years ago at the age of 82. Fred, who was an electrician at Wembley, is now a lighting charge-hand at the Merton Park film studios. Four years ago Bert also left his job as a set storekeeper to join a film studio. Today he is a camera grip operator at Ealing. Finally, two years ago Alf left the boiler room to work in another boiler house belonging to H.M. Stationery Office.

Only Jack remains, constantly to pop up in all parts of the premises where his job as charge-hand plant supervisor carries him. But back in 1934, when he first arrived, his job only carried him as far as the banks of glass batteries used for the sound equipment – six columns with four dozen batteries in each column.

This is where the first of the apparently unrelated items in the opening paragraph of this article comes into the picture – literally. For ‘A Death at Broadcasting House’ is the film which Jack Elkins remembers most from those early days. The cast included an actor by the name of Val Gielgud.

Wembley belonged to Associated Sound Films when Jack Elkins first arrived. Then it was acquired by British Talking Pictures who developed into Twentieth Century Fox. They used the studios to turn out quota pictures – one, or more, a month.

‘We were kept pretty busy’, says Jack in a characteristic understatement. ‘The interesting thing about those days was the fact that when we arrived in the morning we never knew when we were going home – that day or the next.’

Another interesting feature was the colossal waste of timber. They had an excellent system for clearing a studio of sets at the end of filming. Quick as it undoubtedly was, this method would hardly be considered today despite its attractive, basic simplicity. The idea was for a man to go round with a hammer and knock the supports away from the scenery. (Perhaps this was how the term ‘strike sets’ was derived?) Anyway the result was that the sets crashed down in a twinkling.

The method of disposal after this was also remarkably simple. The shattered remnants were piled up in the yard on which Studio 5 now stands and when the heap became unmanageable it was set on fire. Think of the amount of storage space which could be saved if the same system was adopted today.

Back in 1939, however, another sort of fire blazed up. Jack Elkins left Wembley to join the Rifle Brigade, serving in North Africa with the 9th and 2nd Battalions. ‘We went backwards and forwards across the Western Desert a couple of times’, is his phlegmatic summing up of the war out there. Tobruk, he recalls, was ‘a bit of a shambles’ when he last saw it.

It also appears that life was ’pretty warm’ when his battalion became involved in the Battle of El Wisket Ridge. ‘The infantry took the ridge. Then we were placed up there with anti-tank guns, blankets, ammunition and food. The idea was that we should hold it for three days.’

But they only stayed one day. During it the German tanks attacked continuously despite the fact that 50-55 of them were put out of action by the anti-tank guns. During that day also, his group used up all the ammunition which was supposed to last for three days. At the end of it they were told to disable their guns and make their own way back.

An indication of how ‘warm’ it was can be gathered from the fact that the battalion’s colonel was awarded the V.C.

Back at base Jack Elkins was asked if he could ride a horse. Upon giving a negative reply he was transferred to the Mounted Military Police.

For his remaining 18 months in North Africa Jack Elkins and his horse patrolled army food and lorry dumps. Then, in 1945, after four-and-a-half years out there, he was shipped home and demobbed. Back he went to the boilerhouse at Wembley.

The Wembley studios had meanwhile been doing their bit to win the war by turning out training and other films for the Army Kinema Unit. They, too, were demobbed back into the hands of Twentieth Century Fox and were let out to different film makers in the next few years.

Then, five years ago last January, Jack Elkins, his boilers and the studios were taken over by Associated-Rediffusion. Jack Elkins and the studios (with the addition of grey hair to the former and sundry alterations to the latter) are still with us but the old boilers have gone.

They had been working ever since 1929 (when what are now Studios 1 and 2 were being constructed) and Jack Elkins had been making them function for a good proportion of that time. Two years ago they were replaced by two smooth, shining, almost silent, new boilers. Each one measures 10 ft. by 7 ft. and each has an evaporation of 4,000 steam pounds per hour to provide heat for the radiators and hot water for the buildings. When it is really cold in the winter they have to be fed with 2,700 gallons of fuel a week. In the summer they tick over happily on 200 gallons a week.

‘I wasn’t sorry to see the old ones go. They gave a little bit of trouble occasionally’, says Jack with a slight smile which left the impression that the trouble was more than slight on more than one occasion but that Jack Elkins was equal to his boilers.

There was one day, however, when he was almost beaten – before the new boilers were installed. As he was approaching the boiler-house he heard what sounded like a terrific explosion. He rushed into the building expecting smoke and fury. He was wrong. A hurried inspection revealed that all was apparently well. It was – until they started pumping up oil into the gravity feed tank. The ‘oil’ turned out to be water which had seeped through to the tank under the floor and in through a burst pump connection. The explosion he had heard was the sound of the tank leaving its base and hitting the floor.

That’s about the only time Jack Elkins has come near to hitting the roof – either literally or metaphorically. Normally everything is spick and span as it should be with the man who is also responsible for the eight women day-cleaners, the five male night-cleaners, the one toilet cleaner and one general labourer who come under his domain, not forgetting the two plant attendants who assist him in the boiler-room and around the building on any plumbing job which might turn up. These jobs can vary from alterations to equipment to finding wedding rings down a sink. They also include the ‘practicals’ on a production such as laying on gas or water.

‘They come in cycles. During the summer people mostly seem to want rain, and in winter they want fires and cooking facilities’, says a man who is obviously accustomed to every sort of strange request.

And that brings us to the last of the items in the list in the first paragraph.

‘Excuse me Jack, they say they need some pumps in Studio 1’, says a visitor to the boiler-house.

‘Left it a bit late haven’t they’, says Jack. ‘All right, I’11 come and have a look’.

They got their pumps but then if Jack Elkins has anything to do with it they generally do get what they want.

The post The man who keeps Wembley warm appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The cutting above is a reproduction of a personal advertisement on page one of The Times on October 10, 1921. The ambitious 17-year-old responsible had carefully picked his words to create the biggest impact from the 15s. [75p in decimal, £30 in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] investment in himself.

Today The Times prints – without charge – parts of the speeches made by the leader that youngster has grown into. The shrewd, successful, 55-year-old business and financial expert responsible for those speeches selects the ideas which his judgement tells him will succeed just as carefully as he picked the words for that advertisement. Today, however, the loss could be millions of pounds not 15s.

The advertiser in The Times in 1921 and the man quoted in that paper today is John Spencer Wills, president of the B.E.T. Federation Ltd, deputy chairman and managing director of the British Electric Traction Co. Ltd, chairman of Associated-Rediffusion Ltd, chairman and/or director of various omnibus companies in the B.E.T. group, past president of the Institute of Transport, deputy chairman of the Monotype Corporation Ltd, … an abbreviated list occupies three column inches in Who’s Who.

He did not waste his 15s. in 1921 nor has it been his habit to waste either words or money since then. He has used both to work for him better than most who were born in the early 1900’s.

During the First World War he attended first a preparatory school in Shropshire and then the Merchant Taylors’ School, London. John Spencer Wills played the usual games without distinguishing himself at any of them, although, significantly perhaps, he did like steeple-chasing more than other forms of exercise. He admits that he found rugger a little frightening. No doubt some of his contemporaries who played the game with gay abandon would today find his responsibilities positively petrifying.

The lanky youngster might have continued in this fashion had not fate intervened. He outgrew his heart and was ordered by the doctors to give up games. The academic side of his activities flourished. Mathematics and science were the subjects he enjoyed most and was, therefore, the best at. We shall see that later on in life he was to find another favourite subject – work.

Here at Merchant Taylors’ he came under the influence of the first of two outstanding men who were to make a great impact on his early years. This man was Dr J. A. Nairn, the headmaster at the time. The scholarly authority and penetrating judgement of this doctor of divinity, who had been appointed headmaster at 26, made a lasting impression on the schoolboy. Their friendship did not end when the youngster left school in 1921. Upon Dr Nairn’s retirement five years later the Lord Chancellor (an Old Merchant Taylor incidentally) appointed him to the living of Stubbings, near Maidenhead. There Dr Nairn christened the younger son of John Spencer Wills, 20 years after his pupil left the school.

The year 1921 was not a good one in which to start a career. Jobs were hard to find. People were beginning to talk about The Slump. The tall, slim youth decided to advertise in The Times and thereby established an important principle he has followed throughout his career. He believed that more satisfactory results could be achieved from people approaching him rather than the other wayround. He still does.

And his faith was justified for among the replies was one from a Mr Emile Garcke who wrote, in his own hand, saying he wanted ‘an educated young gentleman with a view to making him my private secretary’. It did not take John Spencer Wills long to find out that Mr Garcke was head of the executive of B.E.T. An interview resulted in the following letter from Mr Garcke:

Ditton House,
Near Maidenhead.
21st October 1921

Dear Sir,

Replying to your letter of 18th inst and call yesterday I write to say that you are appointed to the position of my personal confidential clerk at £50 p.a. [£2,100] payable monthly and in addition, you will have board and residence and washing hill at above address, free also a season ticket between Maidenhead and Paddington. The engagement will be terminable by one month’s notice on either side. When you are in London – about three days a week – you will provide your own luncheon.

I suggest you should commence your duties on November 1st and that if convenient you should go down to Maidenhead on Monday 31st, by train leaving Paddington at 6.33 p.m. I shall be on the same train and a motorcar will meet us at Maidenhead station. I enclose form of application for railway season ticket for you to fill in and return to me. I do not know whether you have a bicycle but you would find one useful as my house is 2 miles from the town.

Yours truly,

E. Garcke.

Fortunately John Spencer Wills did have a bicycle. He also had ambition and courage. Most youngsters would have accepted the offer without more thought than that it might be a useful entry to the B.E.T. But the 17-year-old boy who was about to take his first job was not satisfied with a possibility. He wanted a certainty, and so he made it a condition of his acceptance that he would be taken into the B.E.T. organisation proper after two years. Even before embarking upon his career he had laid down the first of many conditions to follow; already he had his eye on the main chance.

Mr Garcke was the second man to have a very big influence on the rapidly maturing youth. A tireless, painstaking worker, he had founded the B.E.T. empire and was responsible for building it up, company by company. Some of his qualities were undoubtedly passed on to his confidential clerk.

John Spencer Wills lived at Mr Garcke’s home in Maidenhead, travelling up to London most days. Much of his time was spent assisting Mr Garcke in his hobby – philosophy. For hour after hour he pored over books in the London Library, picking out extracts on philosophical subjects. More hard labour went into the compilation of a special file of triads needed for the book Mr Garcke was writing. Today this privately published book, Individual Understanding, is a treasured possession of John Spencer Wills.

But the young clerk acquired more than a knowledge of philosophy from Mr Garcke. He also learnt something about bee-keeping. The old man took it up as part of his philosophical study. And such was Mr Garcke’s ability to grasp a new subject that he was lecturing to the Beekeepers’ Association within a year.

John Spencer Wills learnt how to mount the tongues of bees on slides and how to file Mr Garcke’s investigations under a complicated system of classification of the sciences. He was shown the importance of attention to detail at an early stage in his career.

But possibly more important still was the fact that his position gave him a valuable insight into the work of a man at the peak of his power. This glimpse from the top right at the start must have acted as a considerable spur to his ambition.

Perhaps Mr. Garcke, too, realised that his clerk could not be held back for after one, not two, years, John Spencer Wills was transferred to the B.E.T.’s Secretaries office.

He worked at the headquarters in Kingsway as an assistant secretary to a number of bus companies and lived in the suburbs in a dingy, none-too-comfortable bed-sitting-room at Palmers Green. Such was the start for a man who now lives in a house in Kensington during the week and on his own Sussex farm at the weekends. He recalls those days with an amused shudder.

Already he was making sure that it would not be his lot for long. For two and a half years most of his spare time was occupied in study. He passed the Intermediate and then the Final examination of the Incorporated Secretaries Association (now merged with the Chartered Institute of Secretaries).

Soon he realised that acting as a company secretary was not going to result in quick promotion. So he decided to go into the field; to get a job working in the provinces with one of those bus companies.

At last a chance came; B.E.T. acquired a new company in Hull. John Spencer Wills applied to go there and was appointed its secretary and accountant at a salary of £260 a year [£12,500]. Now he had both a bedroom and a sitting-room in his digs.

But before he took up his new job he was sent to the Eastern Counties Road Car Co. Ltd, for a three-week course of intensive training.

And so he arrived in Hull armed with ambition, drive and a little book full of notes on how to run a bus company. And in Hull he had a big shock. There was no proper office, hardly any staff and not even a reliable ticket system. John Spencer Wills rolled up his sleeves.

The situation might have been designed for him to achieve the greatest possible impact. He created order from the chaos and within a very short time was appointed the company’s general manager. At 22 the young man from headquarters had made a very big mark.

It is difficult to estimate the importance of the effect the next four years had on him. His chairman left him to get on with running the company’s affairs. If he wanted to put up the fares or anything else he did it. For four years he laid a very solid foundation to the company which had become the East Yorkshire Motor Services Ltd. Today he chuckles as he recalls those years. It was great fun for a youngster to have such power.

But the slump had arrived and it was not so much fun to have married men with two or more children coming to him and begging to be taken on as a clerk at 35s. a week [£1.75 in decimal, £90].

Ask him why he stuck with buses and he will become slightly annoyed. In those days there was no chance to wander from pasture to pasture, finding the most tasteful grass. People were delighted to keep what they had got. As a man with the power to hire and fire their plight was brought home to him in no uncertain fashion. He interviewed a steady procession of working men, their elbows sticking out of their coats, their families lacking clothes and food. Despite this he liked bus work.

In Hull it resulted in his being involved in something else which must have had a big effect on the formation of his character. This was a running fight with Hull Corporation who operated a rival bus service.

The young general manager found himself far from the calm, well-mannered, orderliness of the Kingsway headquarters of B.E.T. He had wanted to go out into the field but he had not realised that it would be a battle-field.

He found himself in head-on conflict with the chairman of Hull’s watch committee which was then responsible for licensing bus services in the city. The educated, well-brought-up, man from the South was faced by a self-made stoker, a Socialist by conviction and a blunt, forthright Yorkshireman by birth. Any attempt at reasoned argument was met with a stoker’s sledgehammer vocabulary. John Spencer Wills did the only thing possible – he learnt to talk the same way back.

The only snag was that the watch committee’s chairman was deaf, relying on a hearing box with earphones to listen to the young man’s retorts. The stoker adopted the only effective counter he knew to his opponent’s cogent arguments – he switched the hearing box off.

The watch committee and its chairman soon made up their minds about their attitude to the rival company’s general manager. Without putting it too strongly, they hated his guts.

But already John Spencer Wills had attracted attention from those in London. At the age of 26 he was asked to return and become a director with B.E.T. Five days after he had accepted this invitation, the corporation, not knowing of the move, surrendered. They sent a deputation to ask him to take over the management of the corporation’s bus service. It is interesting to reflect what would have happened had that deputation arrived five days earlier.

Now, however, John Spencer Wills had his feet firmly on the B.E.T. ladder. He describes his progress up that ladder over the next 20-odd years as steady, progressive plodding. This plodding carried him through the chairmanship of more than half the bus companies in the group.

But it did not carry him either so high or so fast as another facet of his earlier life which has more than a little bearing on his character. For six years, from 1933 to 1939, he held a pilot’s licence.

He took up flying when he was 28 for two reasons. First, he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it. Secondly, he thought that B.E.T., with its vast public transport interests, would expand into aviation. Until 1942 he was in fact managing director of British and Foreign Aviation Ltd and chairman of a number of aviation companies. The war, however, knocked things sideways.

He might have been a good pilot but he was a very bad navigator. Once when flying back to London from the cast he became lost and landed in the middle of a housing estate to find out where he was. The only way out was to take off smack between two houses. Today he smiles when recalling the incident and admits that he might have been killed.

More of the dare-devil in his make-up is revealed when he recalls watching the Boat Race by flying round in circles a few hundred feet above it. He also remembers taking up a girl to show her the sights of London from the air. (There was no restriction on low-flying in those days.) She was sick into her handkerchief and tossed it overboard. The slipstream caught it and smacked it back across the pilot’s goggles. John Spencer Wills is probably the only man alive today to have flown blind a couple of hundred feet above London. The girl, grand-daughter of Mr Emile Garcke, is his wife.

That was a lighter incident in his career. A more important event, which demanded just as sure a grip on the controls, was the grim battle over the 1945 Labour Government’s bid to nationalise the bus companies. Already B.E.T. had lost its electricity and gas undertakings to nationalisation. Now it was threatened with the loss of its interest in public transport.

Two big companies – Tillings and the Scottish group – sold out to the Government. But B.E.T. stuck to its belief that nationalisation was against the interests of the public, its stockholders and its staff. The fight was strenuous. Perhaps it reminded John Spencer Wills of his earlier battle against Hull Corporation; perhaps he used some of the techniques he learnt then. Nobody will dispute that he played a very important role in the anti-nationalisation campaign.

It was around this time that he was approached by Mr Allan Miller, then the controller of Broadcast Relay Services (later to become Rediffusion), with offers for him to become the managing director of the company. Each offer was more attractive than its predecessor. Each was refused. Allan Miller was not the sort of man to take ‘no’ for an answer. Nor was John Spencer Wills the sort of man to shift from the position he had taken up. It looked like stalemate but eventually a solution was found. The B.E.T. group, faced with big losses from nationalisation, took over Rediffusion and John Spencer Wills became chairman of it as well as managing director. The belief of John Spencer Wills in people approaching him had again been borne out.

Meanwhile the threat to nationalise buses had been halted so B.E.T. was left with its bus companies and Rediffusion. A few years later it was only natural that Rediffusion, with its television systems in Bermuda and Montreal already operating, should be among those to apply for a contract when it was decided to set up Independent Television in this country.

Once more John Spencer Wills and his fellow directors were called upon to make a coolly calculated decision. After many hours of anxious thought and deliberation, in which he played no small part, the decision was taken. Associated-Rediffusion was formed.

The story of the company’s early days, with the losses growing and growing, is well known. Not so well known arc the talks, worries and decisions which bespattered those troublesome times. Associated Newspapers withdrew. B.E.T. and Rediffusion took over their interests.

Behind it all were men who had considered every factor and decided to stick it out. John Spencer Wills carried more than his share of the responsibility and worry.

Now Associated-Rediffusion is under attack for the amount of money it makes and some of the programmes it transmits. As chairman he has little time for these attacks. He is not ashamed of making a profit nor is he ashamed of the programmes transmitted. But he does get annoyed at what he describes as ‘high falutin’, carping criticism’.

He thinks that the desire for entertainment and escapism are not far separated and he is not afraid to admit that, in common with a great many other people, he likes Westerns. John Spencer Wills makes no bones about the fact that he is proud to be chairman of Associated-Rediffusion and has been heard to describe the staff at Television House and Wembley as ‘a damn good lot’.

He genuinely believes in alternative and not competitive programmes. While admitting that this would be in Associated-Rediffusion’s interest, he is convinced that it would also be in the interest of the public to have a real, alternative television service.

He is also adamant about the value of people talking things over round a table. John Spencer Wills does not aim to set himself up (or anybody else) as a dictator in Associated-Rediffusion or any other company. ‘We’ve not got any and we certainly are not going to have any either.’

His own policy is not to interfere unnecessarily. He describes his role at B.E.T. as that of ‘Cabinet maker’ – to appoint the chairman and directors of the many companies within the group.

Many characteristics have combined to help carry him up the B.E.T. ladder. You will have gained a good idea of some of them from the preceding pages.

Mr W. T. James, who has also climbed high in the B.E.T. organisation, has known and worked with him for 27 years. He sums these characteristics up as follows:

A tremendous capacity for work, backed by a keen, perceptive brain. A forceful, analytical mind, logical in argument and quick to find a weakness in a case or document. This makes him a tough man with whom to negotiate. A virile imagination takes him a jump ahead of most people. He has the ability to issue the right orders and to make sure they are carried out. While not tolerating fools gladly he is a fair-minded, not ruthless, man.

Today John Spencer Wills has a not inconsiderable private fortune. Like others in a similar position he would be much better off financially if he avoided our high taxation and went to live in Bermuda or the West Indies. Why doesn’t he? Ask him and you will get a simple answer which also accounts for a great deal of his success. ‘I enjoy my work.’

Much as he attributes his success simply to this enjoyment of his work, so his chief hobby is simple. It is complete idleness. Walking and shooting are other occupations. Most weekends will find him out walking around the 2,000 acres, largely woodland, he owns in Sussex. Each weekday he compromises by walking from his house, through Kensington Gardens, to his office at Stratton House.

Dairy farming interests him as well. He lives on one farm near Battle and lets another five farms to tenants. He enjoys novels, good or bad, and likes to go to the theatre to see a serious drama.

Happily married to a lady who is well-known in the B.E.T. organisation for her charm and frequent attendance at functions all over the country, he has two sons. Colin, aged 22, is articled to a chartered accountant. Nicholas, aged 18, is now in Australia acting as a jackaroo on a sheep station before going up to Cambridge in October.

John Spencer Wills has no need to use the advertisement columns of The Times today. If he did he would certainly require more than the 17 words in which he described his qualifications in 1921. Then he had ambitions but no influence. Today he has achieved many of his objectives and acquired a lot of influence in the process. But the impression remains that he has some ambitions still to fulfil.

Sir John Spencer Wills (10 August 1904–28 October 1991) was chairman of Associated-Rediffusion.

The post Profile of John Spencer Wills appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

June 11

Lord Hill announced the details of the new contracts offered by the ITA. The announcement included the proposed merger of Rediffusion Television and ABC Television. ‘Mergers’, he said, ‘are always difficult to arrange…’

September 28

It was announced: ‘Agreement has today been reached, subject to contract, to lease Wembley Studios to London Weekend Television Ltd. for at least three years from May 6, 1968.

‘London Weekend Television has indicated that it expects to use three studios and that its union-graded staff will be recruited in the main from Rediffusion staff.

‘The arrangements made in respect of the studios will materially assist and accelerate the conclusion of the negotiations relating to the formation of the new ABC/Rediffusion company.’

October 19

Following talks with the unions, two statements were made. The first, which concerned A.C.T.T. members, said :

‘The following agreement was reached between the Independent Television Companies and the A.C.T.T. as a result of recent meetings:

1. The companies fully accept that every A.C.T.T. member in Independent Television subject to re-deployment will be employed in the network under the new contract allocation.
2. The companies guarantee to employ in London, with the minimum of disturbance, all A.C.T.T. staff presently employed by Rediffusion Television, and A.B.C. Television, in London in at least their present grades.
3. Yorkshire Television, will employ all A.C.T.T. staff presently employed at A.B.C. Television’s Didsbury Studios.
4. There will be early discussions to deal with problems arising particularly in relation to 2nd and 3rd schedules grades.
5. While this situation maintains, there will be no recruitment from outside the Independent Television Companies and no one employed by one company shall undertake work in television for other organisations.

‘It was also agreed that discussions should take place between the union and each of the new companies, London Weekend Television, A.B.C./Rediffusion joint company and Yorkshire Television, as soon as possible on the question of their general terms and conditions of employment and staffing.’

The second statement was agreed between the Independent Television companies and the E.T.U. and N.A.T.K.E. It said: ‘In connection with the re-allocation of I.T.V. contracts the companies recognize that they must use their best endeavours to re-employ E.T.U. and N.A.T.K.E. members affected by the re-allocation.

‘With this in mind they undertake that in the first instance recruitment will be made from within the industry, with first preference being given to staff directly affected by the reallocation and with the minimum of disturbance.

‘The new companies are sympathetic to the problems involved in the re-deployment of staff and undertake to commence discussions individually with the unions as soon as possible on the general terms and conditions of employment to be applied within their respective companies.’

Also on October 19 a company advertisement stated: ‘Rediffusion Television’s contract ends on July 29, 1968. Until that time it is the company’s policy and firm intent to continue to improve its programme content and to give its advertisers still better service during the next nine months.

‘Already it has been stated that our programme budget has been increased by over 10 per cent. Both the programme and sales departments have been reorganised to adapt to the changing situation.

‘The sales department is geared to give the maximum service to our clients, both directly and through their advertising agencies.

‘Between now and July 29, 1968, the demand for time on Rediffusion Television exceeds anything we have previously known. With the aid of our computer our sales service has been further improved and the whole operation speeded up. We shall continue to be very much in the forefront of the television advertising scene until the completion of our operation.’

October 27

Notice boards were put up at Television House and Wembley for staff to read. They said:

‘ABC Television Limited and Rediffusion Television Limited have reached agreement with the Independent Television Authority on the formation of a new company to operate the London Weekday contract from July 30, 1968.

‘The company will be called Thames Television Limited, and will be based at ABC’s Studios at Teddington-on-Thames with central London studios and offices at Rediffusion’s Television House. The capital of Thames Television Limited will be approximately £6,000,000 divided equally between ABC Television Limited and Rediffusion Television Limited.

‘The board of the new company will be as follows:

• Sir Phillip Warter, chairman (chairman of the Associated British Picture Corporation, and of ABC Television.)
• Robert Clark, M.A., LL.B., deputy chairman (deputy chairman and chief executive of the Associated British Picture Corporation, and deputy chairman of ABC Television.)
• Howard Thomas, C.B.E., managing director (managing director of ABC Television and director of the Associated British Picture Corporation.)
• Brian Tesler, M.A., programme controller (director of ABC Television.)
• A. W. Groocock, F.C.LS., director (director and secretary of Rediffusion Television.)
• George A. Cooper, sales director (director of ABC Television.)
• B. R. Greenhead, controller of studios and engineering (director of ABC Television.)
• J. T. Davey, F.C.A., director (chief accountant of Rediffusion Television.)
• D. R. W. Dicks, director (controller of production of Rediffusion Television.)
• Group Capt. H. S. L. Dundas, D.S.O., D.F.C., director (director of Rediffusion.)

The following senior staff appointments were announced: Jeremy Isaacs, current affairs and children’s programmes (Rediffusion); Lloyd Shirley, drama (ABC); Guthrie Moir, education and religion (Rediffusion); Phillip Jones, light entertainment (ABC); Grahame Turner, outside broadcasts (Rediffusion); Stuart Sansom, engineering department (ABC); James F. Shaw, advertisement department (ABC); M. Lawson, accounts department (ABC).

The message continued: ‘Recruitment of staff from ABC Television and from Rediffusion Television will commence shortly. ‘The redeployment of unionised staff now engaged by Rediffusion will be conducted in exact accordance with the letter and the spirit of the agreements reached at the following National Labour Relations meetings:

a. Meeting with the A.C.T.T. – October 18

b. Meeting with ETU/NATKE – October 19

‘The company will use it’s best endeavours to find satisfying and equally remunerative work for all non-unionised members of the staff.

November 8

A company press statement said:

‘The Rediffusion ACTT shop concluded a meeting with the management at 5.30 p.m. today by registering failure to agree with the company on the amount of ex-gratia payments which the company has offered in addition to the payments required in accordance with the Redundancy Payments Act of 1965.

‘These ex-gratia payments were offered as a result of the termination of the company’s ITA contract on July 29 next year.

‘All the ACTT staff concerned have already been guaranteed further employment in ITV in London after Rediffusion’s contract ends.

‘The commercial break before the ITN News at 5.55 p.m. was blacked out by the ACTT staff.

‘The company had no warning of the action from the ACTT shop. It is considering the position.’

Later there was this joint press announcement:

‘Meetings between Rediffusion and ACTT began again tonight at 9 p.m. They will continue tomorrow in the hope, shared by both parties, that a satisfactory conclusion will be quickly reached. In the meantime normal transmission will continue.’

The post The Facts appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The heading on the last leader in the summer edition of Fusion was ‘Fused’. Unfortunately there can be no other heading than the one now printed here.

Few editors of house magazines can have had quite the task which now faces this editor. In the last edition at the end of July the leader started: ‘Next month the clouds of obscurity which mushroomed around our future following the ITA announcement about the changes in ITV should begin to clear’.

At the time of going to press in the first week of December they are still as murky as ever. The decision was taken not to publish an autumn edition of Fusion as scheduled unless some facts could be printed about the future of the staff. It was felt that it was better not to bring out Fusion at all rather than to ignore the situation.

There were no facts so Fusion did not appear. There are still few facts as this is written but now the editor feels it is right to bring out a bumper Christmas edition in which he hopes his readers might find some cheer. In the tradition of Fusion there are some features in which we laugh at ourselves. We hope they will provide a few smiles and that nobody will be provoked to take offence.

We hope, too, that by the time this reaches you the murk will have cleared a little; that, for example, the situation of redundancy payments and the winding up of the pension fund will be clarified.

We hope, also, that a few more will have been reassured about their future careers, inside or out of television.

Indeed, we have all been hoping since June and after six months that hope has begun to wear pretty thin. There are many whose patience has been tried to the limit.

We have lived through a miserable period with bouts of industrial action, threats of more and rumours galore. When 1,400 people have their jobs taken away from them there must be upheaval, distress, anxiety and downright dismay.

But need there have been so much? Could not a lot of it have been avoided?

This much must be said: if anybody had sat down deliberately to devise a situation so complicated that it was almost beyond the bounds of reason for anybody to solve promptly, then that person could hardly have done better had he been the architect of the present muddled position.

Any reasonable person must understand the position with which management has had to cope … winding up Rediffusion Television, agreeing with ABC on the formation of a new board for Thames Television, settling on the disposition of the assets of this company, negotiating with Weekend Television on the lease of Wembley, negotiating with the unions on re-employment and ‘terminal payments’. Enough headaches there to last for quite a few months, and indeed they have.

Also any reasonable person must understand the fears and insecurity with which the unions have had to cope. There has been the whole vast question of what was to happen to their members: some to Weekend, some to Thames, some to Yorkshire, none looking at any of it with much enthusiasm.

There have been problems over the seniority acquired with this company, compensation for the loss of security and the tragedy of reduced pension rights which is particularly severe for those over 50.

Any reasonable person must also understand the problems with which the new company, Thames Television, has still to cope. Who are to be the section heads in the various departments? Who are to join from Rediffusion and who shall come from ABC? Will ABC’s 11-6 domination of the first batch of appointments be reflected in the final figures? Many of these question marks still hang over us.

We are all reasonable persons. We can all see that there are many points of view to be considered. Why then has the situation been so unreasonable?

The editor of this magazine can, perhaps, take a neutral line, supporting neither the management nor the unions. Certainly this editorial has been vetted by neither.

If a neutral line is taken what does one see? Fundamentally there has been a terrible lack of communication. But, again, any reasonable person can appreciate the reasons for this.

You cannot make announcements when valuable acquisitions are under negotiation. You cannot communicate when in the middle of delicate negotiations. This applies as much to the unions as the management.

Or can you? Is not this inability to communicate a disease of this country and, indeed, of the world? How many of the current disputes in British industry could be resolved before the strike, go-slow or work-to-rule occurs if there were better communication? How many international disputes and grievances could be settled with better communication?

To come back to home, the irony of all this is that Fusion is supposed to be a method of communication. As a house magazine it has won more awards than most for its contents, for its design and, presumably, for its ability to communicate. Yet, in a situation which demands clear and prompt communication, it has failed utterly to do so. We can take comfort from the fact that many house magazines really limit their communication to pompous statements by the chairman or managing director. Fusion has never had those, nor been asked to publish them.

So when it does come to a crisis how do you communicate? Some industries have a complex system in which house magazines, newspapers, news letters, bulletins and all types of meetings are integrated. It would have been interesting to know how much more all this would have achieved in our situation. Fusion is inclined to think that it is not so much the method as the ability and willingness to do so which matters. And of these two, ability is the key. As the structure of society becomes more and more complex, the need for unequivocal, expert communication grows.

In our present situation, the word ‘communication’ not only covers the obvious statement of facts to others but also – and this is possibly more important – the exchange of views and opinions by those taking part in negotiations.

Everybody knows how a word-of-mouth message can be distorted after passing round a circle at a party game. This, too, is happening far too frequently in everyday life. Put those words into the mouths of people who have an interest in seeing them distorted and confusion piles on confusion.

Too often in this country, negotiations break down or are misinterpreted because of the inability of those concerned – both unions and management – to communicate clearly and without allowing their viewpoints to distort the situation.

It is possibly this endemic disease which has prolonged the negotiations in the present situation.

Every reasonable person will agree that it has all gone on too long. Unfortunately those who have probably suffered most frustration by the silence are those who have had nobody to put forward their views – the non-union members of the staff.

We might send men to the moon and know how to transplant hearts, but we have still to learn how to communicate with each other. And that is the lesson from our sorry situation.

As can be seen from the following two pages there have been quite a few decisions but for the majority of the staff none have yet answered the key questions: ‘What shall I be doing at the end of July?’ ‘How much will I be earning?’ ‘What is going to happen to my pension?’ ‘What compensation do I get for my loss of seniority and security?’

To pile on the agony the death has also occurred of Capt. Brownrigg, our former general manager. That event is dealt with on pages 6-9 of this issue. However, it has a deeper significance which anybody who attended the memorial service must have felt.

The congregation consisted of all sorts of people. There were executives of the company, past and present. There were rank-and-filers. There were leaders in ITV. They all came to mourn his death and remember his achievements.

Tragically, though, the service also marked the end of an era; the end of the first chapter in the history of ITV; the end of Rediffusion Television.

Capt. Brownrigg and the staff of this company played their part in setting up Independent Television in this country and carrying it through its early years.

It has been an exciting time and we can only hope that, when the present murk lifts, the future will be just as stimulating and exciting as the past. And that lessons will be learnt from all we have recently been through.

The editor

The post Confusion appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Next month the clouds of obscurity which mushroomed around our future following the ITA announcement about the changes in ITV should begin to clear. The end of a period most people will only want to go through once in their career is near.

It has not been a happy time and it must be stated clearly that for some the future will still bring only worry and indecision. The quart of staff at present working for this company and ABC Television will not go into the pint pot of a new joint company.

Nevertheless there has been a categoric assurance from John McMillan, our general manager, that the first consideration in all the many problems to be thrashed out will go to the staff. One cannot ask for more than that.

As soon as possible next month personal interviews will be held with everybody and those who have been selected to join the new company will be informed. The union shops will be told simultaneously. Then the ITV companies and the unions are to organise a Register upon which the names of those not offered jobs will be placed. A similar Register is to be set up at the same time for nonunion staff.

The aim with both these registers is to ensure that everyone is given the chance of re-employment in the industry at the same basic rate of pay as at present. The unions have their own weapons to see that this is done. The non-union staff must depend on the goodwill of others which surely must be forthcoming.

Both must also rely on Lord Hill’s public statement at the press conference on Sunday, June 11 at which he announced the proposition that ABC Television and Rediffusion Television should form a new company.

In reference to the appointment of the Harlech Consortium in place of TWW he said:

‘It will also be a requirement that, when appointing staff, the new company will give prior consideration to the employment of those now working in Independent Television in Wales and the West. I may say at this point that the Authority will make the observance of this principle a requirement in all cases of change (Fusion‘s italics). The sum of the changes we are making will lead to an increase in overall employment in Independent Television; and there should be no reason to fear general redundancy, though there will be individual cases where goodwill and care will be needed and these will be exercised.’

The demise of TWW made the main press headlines. The merger of Rediffusion Television and ABC Television was a secondary story. Yet, in terms of human predicament, the merger presents far more complex problems than those arising from what will probably be a straight takeover of staff and equipment by the Harlech Consortium from TWW.

There will be ‘an increase in overall employment’ (more jobs) but, the formation of a new company in Leeds is not of much value to those whose homes and lives are centred around London.

So that leaves London Weekend Television, the new London weekend group, as a source of jobs. How far they will wish, or be forced by the unions and, possibly, the ITA, to take on Rediffusion staff not re-employed remains to be seen. John McMillan has told Fusion that in his opinion all unionised ITV workers, except those soon to retire, will get jobs starting July 30, 1968 or before with either the new ABC/Rediffusion company or London Weekend Television. One good thing which will, in Fusion’s opinion, probably arise from all this is a transferable pension scheme between all ITV companies and possibly with the BBC as well.

This is vital in view of the fact that a similar situation involving others, if not ourselves, could arise in another six years’ time – or eight – when new contracts are again handed out.

For the present, however, the immediate concern of everybody must obviously be to see that Rediffusion Television continues to operate at the highest possible standard right up to the time it comes off the air on July 29, 1968. We must do this for the sake of our own personal professional reputations quite apart from loyalty to the company and to the public we have chosen to serve by working in television.

This will not be easy but anyone who has decided to make television a career must have a basic desire to serve the public and this service must not be allowed to deteriorate.

As this edition went to press, detailed discussions were being held to form a new direction and management structure and to agree with ABC Television on the disposition of offices, equipment, transport and all the many other factors involved in the merger. One of the most important, of course, will be a decision on the future use to be made of Studio 9, Television House, Hanover Square, Wembley studios and Teddington studios.

By the time this edition is printed decisions may have been reached and announced. If this has not been done rumours will, no doubt, start to circulate. Again management has stated categorically that, as soon as there is anything to say, the staff will be the first to know. So, if rumours are flying, they can be summarily shot down.

It is obvious that there will be many delicate negotiations to be handled with ABC Television and it would be wrong to expect a day-by-day account of them. Indeed, they would be likely to attract press publicity which could prejudice further negotiations.

So the only reasonable attitude must be to wait patiently knowing that we have been promised information as soon as it can be given. There is one happy side to all this which must not be overlooked. Few people have the opportunity in the middle of their careers to review just what they are doing with their lives and what they wish to do in the future and to be given virtually a whole year to think about it.

Obviously this does not apply to those nearing retirement age and one hopes that some system will be devised to ensure that they do not suffer because of the high level decisions which have been made and over which they had no control.

But for those with some years still to work – and the average age of the ITV industry is low – the situation does present an opportunity to make a reassessment of their careers and the pattern of their lives.

As for the pattern of the industry, this would need a really magical crystal ball to unravel. One thing is clear: we have not seen the last television upheaval. Here, verbatim, are the words spoken by the Postmaster General in the House of Commons last month:

‘There remains … the question of the longer-term organisation of broadcasting in Britain. The recently awarded contracts will run from next July to 1974. Two years later, in 1976, the franchise of the ITA and the BBC’s charter, Licence and Agreement will end together. Recently, I have taken steps to ensure that licences of the relay companies, which make up a very important element in our broadcasting system, will end at the same time. So, nine years from now, an opportunity will arise for a fundamental review of the whole system, because ITA, the BBC and the relay companies will all terminate at the same time.

‘As I have said on a number of occasions since I became involved in the subject, I cannot see the present kind of organisation lasting for very much more than the decade which we have ahead of us before those changes take place. In 1969 the Post Office becomes a public corporation. The residual Minister will then have under his wing the two broadcasting authorities, the Post Office Corporation and a number of other residual activities, but he will be freed of all the day-to-day administrative work of the Post Office – that great mass of administrative work which weighs down the Postmaster General. From that time the residual Minister will be able to devote more of his time to broadcasting, and I hope that, in the spring of 1969, a long, cool look will begin at the whole system of broadcasting in this country.’

What other group of people in the country has to work under these terms? Are long, cool looks and the upheaval of individual lives going to be a continuous reward of working in ITV?

Possibly. And possibly it is right that such an important industry should be the subject of long, cool looks – as long as they are not positively frigid. It is not Fusion‘s job to comment on this.

But what Fusion must do is to point out that such events as the breaking up of companies, the holding of ‘fundamental reviews’ (remember Pilkington?) are not likely to create the most conducive atmosphere in which either companies or individuals can flourish. We have the compensation of working in what we all obviously regard as the most exciting, challenging and interesting industry there is. Perhaps we must expect to forfeit the security which comes from working in a bank or insurance.

But, whatever the reasons for ending Rediffusion Television may have been, it must not be forgotten that very talented and dedicated teams of technicians and programme people, and accounts, advertising, publicity, administrative and secretarial staff are also being broken up.

There is no doubt that those who are picked will recreate similar teamwork in the new company but it will take time.

Further, although Fusion does not want to be accused of chauvinism, we do believe that the spirit of the ‘workers’ in Rediffusion Television is and was second to none. The co-operation between individuals, the help one section gives another, the happy working relationships between people from post-room to management, are all indefinable. But they added up to something pretty considerable. Furthermore in the last three years and more there has never been the faintest whisper of a possible stoppage.

The new company will have a flying start if it inherits only this happy spirit.

Meanwhile there is plenty of work to do until July, 1968 and on the remaining 34 pages of this edition Fusion, too, gets back to normal …

The editor

The post Fused appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘The newest and exactest Mapp of the most famous Citties London and Westminster, with their suburbs, and the manner of their streets’, published in 1654 shows houses sprouting out from St Clement’s Church towards the Strand. The gardens of a circle of houses appear to occupy the land on which Television House and its surrounding buildings now stand. Lincoln’s Inn Fields are still enclosed but Butcher’s Row and Clare Street have appeared in the area.

Butcher’s Row came into existence during the reign of Queen Elizabeth on the site of a meat market between the bottom of what is now Kingsway and St Clement Danes Church.

The houses were mostly built of wood and plaster with overhanging storeys. Here in the stench-laden streets the plague ‘frowned destruction on the miserable inhabitants’ each summer.

Here, too, in one of the multitude of houses was later hatched the Gunpowder Plot by Messrs Catesby, Percy Wright, Winter and Guy Vaux.

Near to the present site of Television House once also stood Clare Market, built and opened by John, Earl of Clare, in 1656 in what was a spacious field to the west of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The streets which grew up around the market all bore the family names of Clare, Denzil, Holies and Vere.

The Earl of Clare himself built a large and stately mansion, which he shut in with a high wall no doubt due to the fact that Charles I had, in 1640, granted a licence to Thomas York to erect as many buildings as he thought fit upon St Clement’s Inn Field ‘to be of stone or brick’.

The market was held there three times weekly and the Earl enjoyed ‘all the emoluments thereunto appertaining’. It quickly became noted as one of the best markets in London for all kinds of provisions, both flesh and fish.

At one time there were 26 butchers there who slaughtered from 350 to 400 sheep weekly and 50 to 60 bullocks. Near the market was a tripe house and in a separate yard the Jews slaughtered their cattle according to their religion.

The butchers were a rough lot, taking a deep and lively interest in two theatres near by … ‘cramming the galleries, and with their sweet breaths applauding or damning a piece; they were a factor to be reckoned with in theatrical management.’

The galleries were empty, however, in 1664 when the Great Plague of London swept through the population in the autumn of 1664. It started not far from the present site of Television House in the upper end of Drury Lane.

A cargo vessel had carried it from Holland, where 20,000 people had died in Amsterdam. Rapidly it spread through London. A frost for three months from December, 1664, stopped it for a while, then as the warmer weather arrived it broke out in full force. In August and September 1665, 50,000 died, 12,000 in one week. During the whole year the plague claimed 100,000 victims.

Grass grew in the main streets, churchyards were choked and large pits had to be dug. Carts rumbled through the streets to the cry ‘Bring out your dead’.

One survivor was Nell Gwynn, who was living in the fashionable part of Drury Lane in 1667.

On May 1 of that year, Pepys records:

‘To Westminster; in the way meeting milk maids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them; and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings’ door in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty creature.’

Violence was always around the corner. On July 21, 1683, Lincoln’s Inn Fields saw the execution of Lord William Russell, it being the nearest open space to Newgate. Crowds flocked to the fields for the occasion.

Lord Russell sang psalms for most of the way there, then ‘he laid his head on the block, without the least change of countenance; and it was cut off at two strokes.’

By 1706 the whole district had been built over as is shown by ‘A New Mapp of the Citty of London, much enlarged since the Great Fire in 1666, in which are several Streets, Places and Buildings of Note, which hath been added since any other Mapps of London hath been published.’

Lincoln’s Inn Fields is now enclosed, probably with wooden palings; the Strand has a maypole at its eastern end; Wych Street and Clements Street occupy ground now covered by the Aldwych and the bottom of Kings-way; the King’s Theatre stands on a site nearly in the same place as the present Drury Lane Theatre.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields had been used as a dump for rubbish, besides executions. This graphic description of the place # was written at the beginning of the eighteenth century:

‘Great mischiefs have happened to many of His Majesty’s subjects going about their lawful occasions, several of whom have been killed… many wicked and disorderly persons have frequented and met together therein, using unlawful sports and games, and drawing in and enticing young persons into gaming, idleness and other vicious courses; and vagabonds, common beggars, and other disorderly persons resort therein, where many robberies, assaults, outrages and enormities have been, and continually are committed.’

No wonder the area was levelled, laid out and iron railing erected around it in 1735… more than 100 years after a Commission from the King had laid down that Inigo Jones should be responsible for laying the area out, thus disproving the fable that Inigo Jones planned the size of Lincoln’s Inn Fields to equal the base of the Great Pyramid.

Not far away from the fields public houses and eating houses abounded in the Clare Market area during the eighteenth century. It was in one of the eating houses near Television House that Boswell probably found Johnson. The historian Oldys reports having seen Johnson at Clifton’s eating house in Butcher’s Row. He records that Johnson and an Irish gentleman started arguing about why part of mankind was black.

‘Why Sir, [said Johnson], it has been accounted for in three ways: either by supposing that they are the posterity of Ham, who was cursed; or that God at first created two kinds of men, one black and another white; or that by the heat of the sun, the skin is scorched, and so acquires a sooty hue. The matter has been much canvassed among naturalists, but has never been brought to any certain issue.’

Apparently the argument became somewhat heated, ending with Johnson stalking away. Afterwards the Irishman was heard to say: ‘He has a most ungainly figure, and an affectation of pomposity unworthy of a man of genius’.

The houses around were also ungainly, as this report in a publication of the time shows: ‘The following melancholy accident happened yesterday morning in Houghton Street, Clare Market: two houses suddenly gave way and buried their 16 unfortunate inhabitants. At noon, 13 were got out, and conveyed to the parish workhouse in Portugal Street. Of these, three had been dug out, shockingly mangled, without the least symptoms of life: two children, apparently dead, were restored to life by the means prescribed by the Humane Society in cases of suffocation; the rest received, some of them slight and others severe, contusions… The landlord of one of the houses, it is reported, received notice of the insecurity of his house two days ago, but did not apprise the lodgers of their danger, for fear of losing them.’

Also in the neighbourhood in Blackmoor Street (running westwards almost opposite Television House) at one time was the Hope Tavern Concert. Here appeared the top singing stars of the day. ‘The noted Miss Toplis, and the scion of Comus, Bill Percy, here delighted auditors with their mirth-provoking, side-cracking comic duets and humorous mimicry. Here Miss Frazier James, the fascinating Queen of Song, poured forth her native wood notes wild.’

Here, too, the young bucks entertained their lady friends at ‘the famed chanting saloon’.

This was the beginning of the music hall in this country, for it was from these taverns (within a stone’s throw of Television House) that the halls developed.

By the 1820s another public house in the area-the Black Horse in Old Boswell Court – had taken over the mantle of the Hope Tavern. There was even a raised stage. It was one of the most popular entertainment places of its kind in London.

In 1868, when music halls had arrived, one historian wrote: ‘Considering the style of the building, and class of entertainment of the period, in many respects it is doubtful if our gorgeous and expensive music halls are much of an improvement upon the Boswell Court Concert room, except in affording greater scope, and giving greater facilities for intrigue, and the exuberances of masculine and feminine “fast life”.’

Life was by no means slow at the ‘Black Horse’. The celebrated Miss James used to perform in her favourite character of the Dashing White Sergeant.

‘Such was the attraction of this fascinating vocalist, that she drew to this Concert Room, nightly, a number of the fast men of her day… Occasionally the room would be visited by some sparkling, rollicking sporting men about town, upon whose entry additional devilry and life would be thrown into the scene.’

As another writer reports: ‘The visits of noble bloods were but the foretaste of future frolics, and but a slight sip at pleasure’s fountain; for were there not, in this neighbourhood, deep and dangerous wells, overflowing with enticing charms, ever attended by beauteous, but fallen nymphs, whose voluptuous attractions gathered around them the noble and wealthy, the poet and the painter, the swell and the rogue; and all fast London life assembled here to make a night of it.’

Down in the basement of the pub was another room in which thieves, pickpockets and cracksmen used to meet. They had a kind of club towards which each used to contribute so that funds should be available to pay for legal assistance if any member needed it.

They lived life to the full in those days. Perhaps it was because the threat of a sudden death was never far away. Today we live under the cloud of atomic extermination. A century or so ago disease was the fear.

Epidemics mushroomed through the dirty, overcrowded streets. One such epidemic in 1849 resulted in strong complaints against the use of St Clement Danes as a burial ground. A vault, known as the Rector’s vault, was the cause of many of these complaints.

Steps led down into it from the aisle of the church and when opened the gases from the decomposition of the bodies was so strong that lighted candles were put out. Nobody could go down into it until two to three days after the door had been lifted.

This overcrowding applied to most of the churches of London in the forties of the last century. Action was taken in 1853 when St Clement Danes and other churchyards were closed as burial grounds under a Nuisance Removal Act.

One source of pollution had been removed. Others remained.

Not far away, Newcastle Court (off Newcastle Street leading up to the present Aldwych) was labelled ‘a den of iniquity’.

This is how one writer described it:

‘It consisted entirely of houses of ill-fame of the worst description, stored with the foulest moral pollution. …The scenes enacted at night were of the most horrible description and at last its abominable notoriety became so glaring the parish authorities were compelled to indict the occupiers which they did and the vicious inhabitants were turned out, but only for some of them to resume |heir shocking mode of living in Wyck St.’ (The upper portion of this street is now covered by Australia House.)

The post A den of iniquity appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.