‘I believe you are the right person I should write to on the following matter. It concerns the film entitled ‘Christmas in Cyprus’, which as you know was made out here largely under the direction of Peter Hunt, and shown over your network on Christmas Day in England.

‘You have very kindly sent us a 35 mm copy of the film and this has been seen by a large number of the security forces in Cyprus. I would like you to know what a very good impression indeed this film has made; it does not overstate the case and it shows very vividly the part played by the Security Forces. I am sure that it has been a big factor in raising the morale of the soldiers.

‘I would, therefore, like to thank you very much for all the trouble taken in preparing this film and for your kindness in letting us have a copy.’

Letter to Captain Brownrigg from Major-General Kenneth Darling, Director of Operations in Cyprus.

‘It is so very nice of you to reply to my letters. I expect you think it is quite mad for a happily-married mother to be writing after photos of TV heroes. But at least it proves what a good job you are all doing. Keep it up!’

Jean Swain, Coventry (Viewer’s letter to programme correspondence).

‘Congratulations and thanks for these very fine programmes. Daniel Farson’s interview with (R.C.) Fr. Christie; “The Killing of the King” – First Class!!!’

Edward O’Hara, Yorks. (Viewer’s postcard).

EXPRESS LIFT

‘Yet for all the fortune he has made in Associated-Television he is still a man of the people. His humour is lusty. His manners are adequate, but not impeccable. When he goes up to his close-carpeted suite in Television House he will still pat the lift boy on the back and know his Christian name.’

Extract from Daily Express story on Mr Lew Grade. We have been asked to deny reports that as a result lift boys are now going to be employed.

‘I would like you to know how much I appreciated your “Hallé at Work” programme. I thought the sound was handled particularly well.’

Viewer’s ‘phone call to Night Duty Officer.
Director: Cyril Coke; sound balancer, Tony Couch.

‘The lady in the programme should be shown off a bit more because she is good looking.’

A 14-year-old boy’s comments on Muriel Young’s appearance in ‘Lucky Dip’.

‘As it turned out we were given a production which can truly be called distinguished. Ronald Marriott directed with the deftest blending of sensitivity and passion, and the acting was good down to the humblest member of the 40-strong cast.’

Denis Thomas, Daily Mail on ‘The Killing of The King’.

‘Please forgive this rather long letter, I know you are busy, but being a strong supporter of commercial TV long before it became a reality, I feel I must let you know my observations of the viewing public.

‘I am an insurance agent and have to call on people in their homes and as my pet subject is TV I know you would be pleased to know that 90 per cent of the people who have a choice of programmes choose ITV. But the biggest let down is the much vaunted ‘‘Play of the Week”’.

‘In contrast, “Film of the Week” is very popular and the general opinion is a film is better than the average play…. So take less notice of M.P.s and enemies of ITV, many of whom haven’t a TV set.’

Letter from Tooting viewer.

‘Being a young housewife whose main pleasures are derived from a three-year-old son and a one-year-old TV set, you may be sure that my choice in programmes is confirmed to those which give the highest degree of entertainment.

‘Therefore, although I have never in all my days written to any personality (not even in my film-struck teenage days) I felt that I must write to you on a superb programme “Look In” which has only one fault – it is too short! Hoping you will continue indefinitely to give myself and others so much pleasure for many a Tuesday evening to come.’

Letter to Michael Ingrams from Mrs Lois D. Morris, Middlesex.

‘Why not have a separate channel for kids. That would suit everybody and please all of us. If that fails, the other alternative rests with the parents. Why do they allow the kids to sit up? They seem to be allowed to do as they please. That is why there is so much delinquency about.’

Letter from Redhill, Surrey, viewer complaining about ‘Mark Saber’ being taken out of the early evening because of the large number of children viewing.

‘I like “Lucky Dip” because you get so many personalities.

I have never written to “Lucky Dip” before because today was the first time I have seen it.’

Young Isle of Wight viewer.

‘Usually the show succeeds: it has some of the drive and guts of Fleet Street, and is not afraid of being brash now and again. I think most viewers would welcome a quarter of an hour’s extension here.

Henry Turton, Punch, on ‘This Week’.

“This Week” turned from men to rabbits and gave us one of those cleverly-cut interviews with children which grip the heart.’

Colin Frame, The Star.
Director: Sheila Gregg; interviewer: Michael Nelson; scriptwriter: Colin Willock.

‘… the people who put on television entertainment have a sense of responsibility appropriate to those who pour shows nightly into the home, where children may be watching. After inquiry into current stage plays I reject with scorn all complaints about TV violence and puerility.’

L. Marsland Gander, Daily Telegraph.

‘I want to hand a belated pat on the back to Associated-Rediffusion…. Associated-Rediffusion was the first company to transmit commercial television programmes in Britain and it has been well aware of its responsibilities in the field of culture from the start. One of its first acts was to place the Hallé Orchestra under long-term contract and for nearly five years it has featured this orchestra in televised performances and on the concert platform. AR-TV also embarked on the ambitious scheme for staging classical plays at the Saville Theatre and, after short runs, transferring them to the television screen. The company is now offering more life drama than any other programme contractor.

The half-hour news feature programme, ‘This Week”, has been maintained in a peak-hour time every week since January, 1956. AR-TV also introduced the first regular television broadcast for schools ever seen in Great Britain, but the Beaverbrooks and the Mayhews prefer to forget about the good things and think only of the Westerns, the variety shows and the advertisements.

‘The Beaverbrook Press has backed many losers in its time but its campaign against television may well turn out to be its biggest failure.’

Ernest Kay, Time and Tide.

With all these faults the play still had some highly entertaining moments. Gladys Young (Aunt Ben) was a delight, and the meetings of the Irish M.P.’s full of life. Costumes and camera work excelled.’

Dick Sear, Daily Mirror, on ‘Parnell’, Play of the Week.
Director: David Boisseau; Costumes designed by Ernest Hewitt; Cameras manned by Vic Gardiner, Jeff Sheppard and the rest of crew 1.

Illustrations by Geraldine Spence

The post They Say… April 1959 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

An outsider looks at A-R … for a start, that fusion introduction makes me sound like Colin Wilson. So let’s state here and now that I’ve no intention of being horse-whipped. Still that Outsider tag is probably justified, since this article arose out of a lunch date I had with your editor. I was sounding off about A-R in the approved John Osborne AYM manner when he pulled me up.

‘Don’t waste it on an audience of one’, he said, ‘put it on paper and tell the whole company.’ Let’s get one point straight. When you’re an outsider looking in it always seems easy to do the other chap’s job. But let the theorizing end and the practical business begin and the snags queue up. We can all be Stanley Matthews until the ball’s at our feet.

My newspaper work brings me in touch regularly with four ITV companies – each of which is taking on a distinctive personality. To my mind A-R is the least easily identifiable of the Big Four.

Think of ATV and the picture is of show business, variety, gimmicks, professionalism, the big drum, visiting Americans and Val Parnell. Turn to Granada and you sec Sidney Bernstein ruling the roost and hatching out a lot of good ideas and programmes, with here and there a bad egg in the entertainment basket.

ABC conjures up fast-talking Howard Thomas, a mixture of good and indifferent shows, and a general air of slow but steady progress.

Which leaves A-R. How do you sum up the company? It gives no impression of onemanship. Who is the single individual who can be cornered and asked for a quick answer to the 64,000 dollar question? This is important to everybody writing about TV because when key questions are being asked we look for an answer today. Tomorrow or later on is useless. And by answer I don’t mean a diplomatically phrased ‘it could well be that…’ or ‘when the consideration arises A-R will take due notice’ piece of nonsense.

Of course there are times when A-R prefers to play it strong and silent. However, when facts are getting out and questions being asked then let us please have a quick and definite answer. That way A-R will get a better Press than by letting limited information and guesswork produce half a story.

TEAM SPIRIT?

Does the same team spirit and enthusiasm exist inside A-R that is found in your competitors?

This isn’t a matter of individual outlook. Some of the nicest people to be met in TV nestle under A-R’s wing. But collectively does the vitality and urgency which marked those invigorating early days of Channel Nine still exist?

Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that the spirit is there and kept for private consumption rather than the public gaze. I hope it is so.

For my money you’ve slowed down. Some of the fun seems to have gone from life – which is surprising to an outsider when TV is so obviously one of the most alive-o industries with thousands of lookers-on-and-in only too keen to break into it.

Ignoring the financial side of things A-R snatched the viewing plum when it landed the London Monday-to-Friday contract.

But what unique contribution has the Company made to the service? Whatever your answer, here is a further question – has that contribution been as important as you expected?

I’ve been disappointed. A-R as one of the pioneering companies had to pay the penalty for the many and expected mistakes. It seems you stockpiled too much and these ‘canned’ shows played too big a role in your programme schedules. If you’re loading schedules with film it doesn’t leave much space for the live products of your staff.

So the impression gained from the screen was that A-R was more interested in the ready made product than in do-it-yourself shows. This impression remains. I’d like to sec A-R come out with a lot more live shows devised and mounted by the staff.

They couldn’t all be winners but a fair proportion might ring the bell.

HOLBORN AT EIGHT?

It is in variety that I believe A-R needs a boost. Where is your Palladium show or ‘Chelsea At Eight’? Where are your Maria Callas’s or Bob Hope’s?

From time-to-time you get the celebrity names but usually it is left to ATV or Granada to scoop the pool.

Where’s your comedy rival to ‘The Army Game’? I’m not forgetting those Top Ten quizzes ‘Double Your Money’ and ‘Take Your Pick’. A-R screens them, yet can hardly claim credit for either.

I’d like to see better scripting in variety, better productions, less tclcrccording, more showmanship and, well – glitter.

You’ve had your successes with offbeat shows like ‘Fred’, ‘Son of Fred’, etc. – but they are no longer around. More’s the pity.

Drama has hit the heights. I remember Pete Murray in ‘The Last Enemy’ … some of the Ted Willis plays. Lately, the impact has seemed less strong.

I don’t put that forward as a necessarily correct view. However, it’s mine. I realize that A-R’s drama maintains a good standard and it’s not easy finding unusual stories popular with the mass.

In documentaries and features A-R has been seen at its best. Here you have had intelligent, first-class programmes which other companies must have envied and which assaulted the BBC where it thought itself unchallengeable.

You found an outstanding interviewer-reporter in Michael Ingrams, screened two talked about and enjoyed ‘Look Out’ and ‘Look In’ series and promptly forgot about him.

I’m not forgetting those major documentaries of Russia and America – both highly praised but using him once every six months or so seems a waste.

I’d also like to mention Caryl Doncaster, Dan Farson and Nick Barker. They’ve all added to A-R’s reputation.

Do you recall the documentary that the Company did on fan fever? I still remember it and I’d like to know why A-R hasn’t turned out many more like it.

Can I pay a well-earned tribute next to weatherman Laurie West? It’s not the easiest of jobs telling viewers why it was wet yesterday, was wet today and it’s going to be wet tomorrow.

I like Mr West’s friendly personality, his commonsense and understandable explanations about deep depressions and the like, and I’m sure the majority of viewers prefer his performance to that of the BBC’s weather team.

But let’s take a look at the programmes which follow him in a typical week this summer. On Mondays the London viewer gets two Granada shows and one from ATV.

A-R’s contribution? The ‘My Wife and I’ series, the American originated ‘Wagon Train’, ‘Murder Bag’ and ‘Undercurrent’ – I’m leaving out advertising magazines. That’s a reasonable bunch. Three live shows and one film.

Tuesdays it’s not so good a story. Two live shows from Granada and two more from ATV. A-R chips in with youth-club show ‘Who Knows?’, Bob Cummings and Late, very Late Extra.

Better on Wednesdays – two from Granada and three from A-R. A play, a quiz and musical variety.

Thursdays? Equally good. Two from Granada and the rest from A-R. These are ‘Cool for Cats’, ‘San Francisco Beat’, ‘This Week’, a ‘Jack Hylton Half-hour’ and ‘Palais Party’. Finally, Friday. Three from ATV, one from Granada, and ‘Gun Law’, ‘Turnabout’ and a Jack Hylton show out of the home stable.

Where is the highlight to the A-R week? Where are the shows that are adding something lasting to the development of TV?

Maybe I’m being too critical? A-R is pleasing millions of viewers with the existing schedules. I believe it could please many more and give fresh incentive to the staff by working on new shows and ideas.

However, until you strike your own path and present many more live programmes I don’t think A-R will increase its stature.

Jogging along in the middle of the road with a passable but not exceptional collection of shows makes for an easy life.

Personally, I’d like to see the resources of writers, designers, directors and the rest tapped much more frequently.

Does it matter that some ideas might fall by the wayside? Much more likely is that half-a-dozen shows will emerge which are worth staying home for.

Do I qualify for that horsewhipping?

The post They Say… James Green appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

Q. – Kindly state your name and occupation.

A. – Peter Black, television critic Daily Mail. Began journalism on Letchworth Citizen, 1937-39. Film and theatre critic, Brighton Evening Argus 1946-9. Theatre critic Brighton Herald 1949-52.

Q. – If you had to describe your opinion of Associated Rediffusion in one word, what would it be?

A. – Wellmeaning.

Q. – Perhaps you’d better take some more words.

A. – None of the programme companies has better intentions. But with A-R there is a damaging tendency to mistake the intention for the deed. My impression is that programmes are mounted in a quick rush of enthusiasm, before the difficulties and weaknesses have been cured. Too many go off at half-cock, and contain obvious misjudgments that should have been spotted earlier. My impression is of too many executives shouting brisk decisions down dictaphones. But I know it is a false one.

Q. – How do you account for it, then?

A. – Probably it’s the nature of A-R’s organization. When you think of the other companies you think of one man in each: Sidney Bernstein, Val Parnell, Howard Thomas. When you think of the BBC you think of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the MCC, the Foreign Office and the Polytechnic. When you think of A-R you think of a Board of businessmen directors.

Q. – Is that bad?

A. – Of course not. But it could lead to some oddities.

Q. – Name some.

A. – Light entertainment, for one. It seems to me an extraordinary decision to buy most of it from an outside organization.

Q. – Why?

A. – Because you lose at once full control over it. You have to take what you’re given. And you’re given shows like ‘The Lady Ratlings’.

Q. – Would it surprise you to know that ‘The Lady Ratlings’ figure in the Top Ten?

A. – No.

Q. – Continue.

A. – Because your own output is small you have nothing to replace shows that ought to be taken off. Do you remember ‘Highland Fling’?

Q. – Yes…

A. – And the department’s authority suffers. The last Lyon series, in my opinion, was frankly not good enough, and they should have been told so. Yet when A-R’s own men back shows, they have done some fine things. They gave Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan their chance and TV comedy received an entirely new twist.

Q. – How about being constructive – what would you do?

A. – Look for a man who would forget about the spectaculars, the running-about dancing, the acrobats and conjurors, and find something that would extend the range of light entertainment. His job would be to create programmes that were recognizably an A-R contribution, just as ‘Chelsea at Eight’ carries Bernstein’s bold signature.

Q. – You’re saying, in effect, that the more responsibility a department has, the better it functions?

A. – Of course. Look at A-R’s programmes for schools. Here a sense of responsibility is at its keenest. The result is that these programmes are the best thing A-R does.

Q. – Don’t forget that it’s easier for schools TV. The audience is around the same age, and at that age differences in taste are negligible.

A. – I was just going to say that. We must remember, too, that television is at its most interesting when it is frankly teaching. Only fools think that it mustn’t teach. The new term’s series on music is one of the best things of its kind that I’ve seen. I wish we were lucky enough to have it in the evening schedules.

Q. – Say something about drama.

A. – All TV drama has had a stroke of luck. It’s now been proved that audiences will take almost any subject, no matter how serious, if it’s in play form – unless it’s in poetry, fancy dress, introduces ghosts or plays tricks with time. All the drama departments are fruitfully exploiting this popularity, and none more than Norman Marshall and his team. There is a steady trickle of good, new writing coming out of A-R.

Q. – What do you call good writing?

A. – Plays that are about our own people in our own time. But I don’t mean comedies in which lazy writers try to catch atmosphere by sticking a bottle of tomato sauce on the table and talking about a ‘caff’. Jack Pulham’s ‘You Can’t Have Everything’ was an example. It was topical, grown-up drama, full of suspense though nobody got shot; and the actors and production fell on it like hungry men on a good meal.

Q. – What about features?

A. – I’m glad you asked that. All ITV features have suffered to a varied extent from ratings fever, a malady caused by too much exposure to the graphs supplied by TAM. Symptoms are, in the beginning, a rush of words to the head, a preference for the close-up and a tendency to talk loudly and to confuse fidgety cutting with speed. During the crisis the sufferer has the obsession that if a features programme slows down for a split second an executive will jump in and kill it.

Q. – The cure?

A. – Two. The short-term remedy is to move features away from peak time periods. This gives devisers, producers and performers a better target to aim at, allays their morbid fear of an inferior TAM rating, and restores their self-confidence. Hence programmes like Bronowski’s ‘New Horizons’, Wolf Mankowitz’s ‘Conflict’, and Dan Farson’s ‘People in Trouble’, all of them outstanding current affairs series.

Q. – And the other? How about ‘This Week’, for example?

A. – ‘This Week’ found the long-term cure. For months it gave you the impression of trying not to break into a run, like a man hurrying down a dark alley who sees behind him the shadow of the upraised cosh. Then, about six months ago, it seemed to acquire confidence in itself. It was as though it had realized that its position, as ITV’s only weekly serious feature to get a peak time, was more secure than it had thought. This sense of feeling necessary is of great value. Because of it ‘This Week’ is not only a key programme, it behaves like one.

Q. – How do you see the future of ITV, and A-R’s share in it?

A. – There is no doubt whatever but that ITV will become less frivolous. For one thing it can afford to – the undertaking is enormously profitable. For another, the market will change. Advertising and programming follow each other, and in ITV’s first two years we had cheap, mass-selling commodities being advertised around mass-market entertainment. Advertisers will now want to catch the smaller, particular markets, and programmes will match them. They’ve wooed the Smiths: now they’ll go after the Smythes.

This will suit A-R down to the ground. I suspect that its heart has never really been in ‘The Lady Ratlings’.

The post They Say… Peter Black appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

At the start it is necessary, I think, to say this: there are TV critics whose sole job is criticism from off the screen; there are others whose work incorporates in addition the duties of “TV Correspondent”. The latter types, of whom I am one, inevitably bring to their viewing a great deal of inside knowledge about the organisations and people behind the programmes. As with most circumstances in life this can be an advantage or not. It can breed prejudices in criticism; or it can rear understanding of what is involved in TV programming.

But because of this, when I am asked what I think of A-R I cannot honestly attempt an assessment based on screen output alone. I know a great deal more about A-R than meets the viewer’s eye. You inside can lament this, or be glad about it. It’s just a fact nobody can now change. Hence inevitably I recall those first impressions gained when A-R opened its doors to the newspapermen. I think most of us, reared on the BBC beat, expected the commercialism of independent TV to avoid the development of glossy offices occupied by legions of suave and arty young men and luscious young women, all chattering intellectual snobbism about “the medium”. But not a bit of it; A-R handed us this same story all over again!

The old stock BBC jokes about admin types running the decks, with the able-bodied producers and creative types battened down in the hold, all came up again. A-R looked more precious than it was. It could never have survived if it had lived up to its original chi-chi attitudes.

Even discounting these things as weaknesses of human organisation, the Fleet Street hunch that a lot of people had been appointed for no precise programme jobs inevitably sharpened the screen critic’s teeth. Unfortunately, the screen output to start with did nothing to remove this hunch.

But much which caused our early amusement with A-R has been sensibly and efficiently cleaned up. It is rapidly putting away childish things. But as it grows up there is one thing I keep seeking in A-R but still do not find. This is its own distinctive flavour; its one, main, undeniable contribution to TV. I think it undeniable that the other companies of the first four in ITV have developed a kind of “brand” quality. A-R’s screen output inevitably ranges through all and no degrees of quality and achievement. It has done some very fine programmes; some atrociously bad ones; and kept up a middling standard of competent TV entertainment and interest bravely. But what has it developed as nobody else has developed? Where is its major impact?

It is my belief that A-R has so far missed the one big opportunity in commercial TV which all other companies have missed, but which A-R is peculiarly suited to taking and using well. This is the extension beyond what the BBC has done in documentary programming, using outside broadcasting as well as studio and film.

The next leap-forward in TV documentary has got to tailor outside broadcasting techniques into the others. I know the BBC is aware of this, and is making steps; but A-R could have gone ahead by now, and got a lead. You can be justly proud of Dan Farson’s programmes. “This Week” is painfully erratic, always raising hopes of out-doing “Panorama” but taking so long to find the way.

But all these ventures, often stirring and good, arc set in too narrow a vision of TV documentary. The tools of the game arc not being used; the field of programme subjects is not really being extended. It is here, I think, that A-R could really make a major and lasting contribution. “USSR Now” was a peak—but one which by its nature must stand alone as an occasional triumph.

On the light entertainment side it seems to me that A-R has at times touched the exciting verge of new uses of TV in comedy work. The Tommy Cooper series promised this; the Alfred Marks series has established a good, solid and worthwhile new-kind melange of light entertainment. But where is the new A-R comedy-writing team?

A great deal of publicity was originally devoted to creating glamour stars for A-R. Two or three young actresses were treated to the build-up works. Where are they now? With my most gallant regrets to them, I have to say that their names do not today electrify the populace.

Of course the “TV star” business has been overdone. Indeed I believe “TV stardom” as such to be possible only by absolute exclusivity to one programme company. To-day the most popular TV performers swap channels regularly; and there is a free market for bookers. This is a good thing. But if A-R wants to breed “stars” of its very own, it can only be done by keeping its pets strictly to itself; the public will then know that it must shop at A-R to see its idols. Personally, I don’t think this is worth the trouble—and probably A-R has come to the same conclusion.

I have left to last the programme department which has received most of the glossy publicity, and let’s admit it, most of the chi-chi talk—drama. I happen to believe that TV plays are over-publicised and surrounded by a great deal of window dressing which matters not at all. All viewers like a good story. A competent play will always be popular. Drama experiment is worthy and useful, but Joe Public rarely recognises it.

A-R’s plays seem to me to oscillate between the very fine and the competent time-passers every bit as much as do the BBC’s. In fact, in TV, whoever is producing it, I doubt whether drama can ever be anything more than this.

There is always the chance that some TV company will find a new play with a new actor or actress in it, which will not merely cause us TV critics to rave, but will set the whole world of drama afire. That will be the day — and some day it will happen.

Kenneth Bailey

The post They Say… Kenneth Bailey appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The last time I saw President Diem in Saigon he took me aside and said – ‘What programme is this one?’ And when I said ‘This Week’ he considered the words rather carefully and came back: ‘You are lucky to be thinking of this week.’

A few weeks later he was dead. I talked with the priest in Cholon, who saw him go through the process of ‘accidental suicide’; Diem and his brother-in-law, Nhu. The two had worked their way from their palace to the Chinese quarter and the little Roman Catholic church there. I had the impression, from what I was told, that Diem knew that he had come to the end of his particular road.

Diem was dead. The street was empty. People took care not to be around. They were watching but they were not going to get involved. A Vietnamese friend of mine said: ‘You may not have thought much of him. Now wait and see what happens.’ And we have waited, and we have seen. That was my last assignment with ‘This Week’. The producer who asked me to go back to Saigon is now with the BBC; so is the reporter. There may be a moral in this somewhere, but I doubt it. There is a wonderful line from Don Ameche in Silk Stockings.

‘What is your theory?’ asks the Russian girl.

‘My theory is that there is no theory!’

This renders the approach to the world we live in empirical and I suppose that this is a fair assessment of the way we used to and indeed had to organise ourselves when ‘This Week’ started, in 1955.

There were no rules; only ‘Panorama’.

The assignment given us by the then controller, Roland Gillette, was to produce a lively half-hour (minus commercials) for January ’56. There were to be many items, some political, some social, some lighthearted. It was agreed that we would try to end with a short ‘sting’, a one minute semi-sardonic commentary on our ways of life.

Just after the kick-off we had a major accident. Our man in Paris phoned me (in what is now the canteen) to say that he had found a night-club in Paris, already made famous by Time magazine, in which French waiters were dressed as cowboys.

Later, Caryl Doncaster, then producer of all features and I viewed the ‘rushes’ in ITN. These consisted of some 40 minutes of synchronised and beautifully lit extracts from the club’s cabaret. There were girls undoing zips everywhere. It was riveting stuff and I was later to be amazed by the number of people who felt that the film had to be seen. That item was a hard night’s day.

A jolly time was had by some when we took the programme to Paris for our first Eurovision link. Stephen MacCormack, now in Mauritius, was location producer. The programme was sent out from the Palais de Chaillots, into which Stephen cheerfully imported some Bluebell girls. That caused a tableaux with the diplomats. We also learned, on the day of transmission, that the French had views about the use of commercials. This, in turn, had repercussions in our own network. As a result I as editor, was instructed to provide two separate programmes for simultaneous transmission. This turned out to be a record, if not necessarily an achievement.

There can be a lot of fun in a programme if you have to learn as you go along. When we started the staff couldn’t be assembled according to experience in television because there were limits. Some of us came from the BBC, some from films, some from Fleet Street. We had to shake down as best we could.

One transmission day Mrs Alfred Hinds sent us (through Geoffrey Hughes) a taperecording of her husband’s voice. He was currently on the run from gaol. There were no rules. We didn’t know whether we should use it or not. There were risks. Scotland Yard was interested. I consulted the one man who could give us a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It was ‘yes’ and we were plastered all over the front-pages next morning. That was the first time I met John McMillan. The rules evolved. One particularly exasperating one was the 14-day rule governing comment on things to be dealt with in the Commons. We ran into a blow-torch over this during the Suez affair. Two particularly prominent politicians had to be told that they could not discuss what they had come to discuss. One left. The other one stopped and temporised. He is, at the time of writing, Chancellor of the Exchequer. There have been embarrassing moments with politicians. One such, who has since been a prime minister (and demanded cash as soon as the programme was over) was invited to cross our red carpet into the studio, via, as was intended, one of the five star offices in Television House. I posted ‘sentries’ at both entrances. At one I eventually met the august gentleman. At another my sentry welcomed a coloured gentleman, took him upstairs to the five star area, handed him over. This was, in fact, an Egyptian journalist, destined for another item in the programme. That took some sorting.

The Prime Minister of Australia came in to see the interview we had filmed between President Nasser and Frank Owen. It was a good interview. When it was over we had the impression that the Prime Minister was about to say something fundamental – like ‘thank you’. At that point a voice in the dark said – ‘You can’t trust these politicians can you?’ When the lights went up I noticed that Mr Menzies looked amused.

I went to Athens with Elkan Allan, to interview Archbishop Makarios. Staying in the same hotel were Elizabeth Taylor and the late Mike Todd. It seemed a good idea to try something with him. We were invited to the Todd suite and bedroom in particular, where we found Miss Taylor less than dressed. Her husband was pacing the room using the dialogue from Lady C. ‘Liz,’ he said, ‘here are two English Lady C’s.’

‘Yeh!’

‘How do you do, Mrs Todd.’

‘Hih!’

Says Todd – ‘Sit down on that Lady C bed over there.’

Later that day I was on the roof of the hotel with his beautitude.

Todd comes out on the roof and says, in his not less than megaphonic voice – ‘Who is the Lady C with the hat!’

Such situations are delicate.

All this might suggest that we acted more frivolously than now seems evident. That is not so. Our brief was different. ‘This Week’ has not grown up to be 10 years old: it has grown to be different from what it was. All my ex-companions on the programme can probably top the trivial stories I have told, and they would all have to stop short of some of the truths we could all tell. I refer to Michael Ingrams, Dan Farson, Ludovic Kennedy, Richard Gould Adams, Michael Westmore, Tom Hopkinson, William Hardcastle, Jeremy Thorpe, Rollo Gamble, Cyril Bennett, Elkan Allan, Kenneth Harris, Al Capp, and so on and on. In more than 500 issues there is a lot of heat, some dust, occasionally a lot of fun.

A lot of people cut their wisdom teeth on ‘This Week’, and some got them knocked out. The programme has come a long way from the days when Spike Milligan sang ‘I’m Walking Backwards For Christmas’ and Peter Sellers did time as Professor Smith Grant Hetherington, having seen, heard and secured hairs from the Abominable Snowman. We even once tied ‘This Week’ to ‘Late Extra’, which has its own story. I wrote and spoke the commentary for the yearly report on Noisivelet and a few people spotted how we had found the country.

Serious things happened. We have, after all, been living in the latitude of great events. I think that most were faithfully recorded. So long as you don’t take yourself too seriously you stand a good chance of staying short of a rest-cure.

I remember in the studio, Dr Verwoerd and Sir Roy Welensky, Khrishna Menon and Yehudi Menuhin, Harold Macmillan and Dr Banda, Father Huddleston and so many others.

One event I remember with personal pleasure, since this is only my version of ‘things wot used t’be’ as editor and producer and executive producer and head of features, and all that. I was sent, to my utter delight, to Monte Carlo, to interview the glittery Tina Onassis. The now Duchess will excuse me if I refer to her as a ‘dish’. However, we talked of Grace Kelly and life as lived by those who want for nothing. In my pocket I had a letter from my mother saying that my father was very ill in Canada and needed comfort. I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t afford the air fare to go out and was floundering for an answer when I saw someone at Nice airport whom I thought could help. This particular VIP was first on our plane and, incidentally, occupied the little room to the discomfiture of the other passengers for a very long time.

During the flight home I wrote him a note and asked if he would consider sending my father a word of encouragement, since they knew one another well. A day later I received this letter to send on –

‘My dear Commander Hunt,

I am indeed sorry to hear from your son of your illness. I hope you will accept my earnest good wishes for your recovery. I remember well the good work that you did in the War Room.

Yours sincerely,
Winston Churchill.’

I am grateful to ‘This Week’ for that opportunity. And it helped.

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