How the BBC Began (2022): Season 1, Episode 2 - Episode #1.2 - full transcript

It was a cold, wet morning in June,
yet people thronged the streets.

A young woman was ready to launch
eight hours of the world's biggest

television broadcast to date.

I didn't get the script
till the night before.

And I was a quick study, so I didn't
even really learn it that night -

I looked at it, and then I learnt
it the next morning,

just before I went on.

PRODUCER: We've got the script here.
Golly.

Do you want to put your glasses on?
I need them, yes.

And I'll have to read it.

I certainly don't remember it.



Where do you want me to go?
Right from the beginning? Yes.

This is the BBC Television Service.

Good morning, everyone.

This is a great and joyous day
for us all.

In a few minutes, our Queen
starts on her journey

from Buckingham Palace
to Westminster Abbey...

SYLVIA ARCHIVE: There to be crowned
Queen Elizabeth II.

But it's not only a day
of rejoicing,

for underlying the Abbey ceremonies
and the splendid pageantry

of the many processions is the deep
significance of the simple fact

that the Queen today is dedicating
herself before God...

SYLVIA PRESENT: To the service
of her subjects.

Why did you have to learn it?
Why couldn't you use a teleprompter?

There wasn't one,
it wasn't invented.



It's surely the greatest moment
in television history,

as we take you now into the
heart of London to witness

these memorable events.

We can see rolling majestically
forward the gold coach of state.

The Queen's coronation was
a pivotal moment for the BBC.

For the first time,
television outstripped radio,

with almost half the population
managing to watch,

even though most households hadn't
yet got a TV set.

Keeping and harnessing their loyalty
was the main challenge

in the years ahead.

You are awful...!

But I like you.

It was only seven years earlier
that television had begun again

after the war. In 1946,
the studios at Alexandra Palace,

in North London, were dusted down,
with the goal of extending

transmissions for the first time
to the whole country.

But first, they needed new recruits.

Jasmine Bligh was opening...
reopening the Television Service

from the Alexandra Palace steps.

The camera outside was considered
to be an outside broadcast.

So, as a junior member of the
outside broadcast team,

I lay on the ground and I cued
Jasmine Bligh to reopen the service.

Good afternoon, everybody.
How are you?

Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?

Well, here we are after nearly seven
years, ready to start again.

And of course, we're all terribly
excited and thrilled that

the great day has at last arrived,

when this station is once
more ready to go on the air.

That young floor manager, Peter
Dimmock, was soon to become

a luminary of television.

His original plan had been
to be a journalist.

A friend of mine from America
rang me up and said,

"Peter, you're out of your mind..

"Don't go into journalism.
Get into television."

I said, Well, it hasn't
started here again yet.

He said, "Well, try and get
into it." So I did.

PRODUCER: And what did you know
about television at that time?

Practically nothing.

Within a few years, Dimmock
was running Outside Broadcasts,

and heading towards the biggest
challenge yet for television.

But first came a moment which
reduced the BBC to silence.

In February 1952, at London Airport,

King George VI appeared in public
for the last time.

He was there to see his daughter,
Princess Elizabeth, and the Duke

of Edinburgh set off on
an overseas trip -

and a BBC film camera
captured the scene.

I see the shot of the King to this
day - that close, the King -

and you could see that
the man was dying.

And really desperately ill.

And that went out on the news
that night.

Five days later, the King was dead.

The news came from Broadcasting
House, and it was not yet public.

It was passed on to Alexander Palace
from a man called Pat Smithers

at Broadcasting House in confidence.

"King is dead.

"The announcement will be given
by John Snagge shortly.

"Once John Snagge has found his
black tie to announce it on radio."

ARCHIVE: The King, who retired to
rest last night in his usual health,

passed peacefully away in his sleep
earlier this morning.

Although the King had been ill,
it caught everyone on the hop,

not least BBC television.

We had nothing to go on the air,
absolutely nothing whatsoever.

The Television Service was stuck.

No obituary had been prepared.

There were no programmes available
to go out in this mourning period

for the nation. And Cecil McGivern,
as Controller of Programmes,

decided the only thing to do
was to close down for the day

as a mark of respect.

The BBC is now closing down
for the rest of the day,

except for the advertised news
bulletins and summaries,

shipping forecasts and
gale warnings.

After that, the BBC learnt
its lessons,

and obituaries were prepared.

For the coronation, 16 months later,
there was plenty of time

to plan - and technology was
advancing by leaps and bounds -

but cutting the deal to televise the
ceremony was surprisingly difficult.

It's unquestionably that it was
Peter Dimmock who ensured

that the coronation of the Queen
was televised by the BBC.

No question.

He did the work. He did...

He persuaded the Duke of Norfolk,
who was totally against it.

He persuaded Churchill
and everybody.

I mean, they were all against it.

Churchill's view was, why
should everybody be able to see

when I've got to sit in the Abbey
all those hours,

and why should they be able
to see it on television?

Quite understandable, really.

The Duke of Norfolk -
who fortunately, of course,

I knew from racing - he used to say,

"Oh, Peter, stop banging on
about it."

I said, But, look, we've got
to have live television, Bernard.

He said, "Well, I'm doing my best,"
and I think he really did.

He really was the chap who finally
tipped it in our favour.

And they went off to the lavatory,
and stood next to each other

in the lavatory, and Peter said to
Bernard, "Come on, Bernard.

"Let's have this. Come on,
give us our right to televise

"the coronation."

Bernard said, "Well, if you want it
that much, OK."

And that's where the deal was done.

In the gents? In the gents.

With such a risky outside broadcast
operation, Dimmock knew

he'd be making television history.

He reckoned he could learn
from the coverage of another

national ceremony earlier
in the year.

I went to America to see how they
covered Eisenhower's inauguration

and get some tips.

For example, if you look at any
of the pre-war BBC coverage,

you'll find we covered processions
from the side.

They taught me, no,
be sure to put the camera

where there's a right angle.

And now the massed pipe bands of the
Scottish and Irish regiments...

So you can see the procession
coming towards you? Yes.

And then turning? Yes.

Silly.

But very important things,
like that, I learned.

On the day, Sylvia Peters had
to stay at Alexandra Palace,

ready to step in if the outside
broadcast coverage broke down.

Today, you take it for granted
that the pictures are going

to be perfect,
there'll be no breakdown.

It's rare, isn't it,
if there is something?

But then, I mean, we were
expecting it all the time.

PRODUCER: And were there
any breakdowns?

No, not a one.
That's what was so wonderful.

There were so many cameras
all over London.

I mean, it was a miracle, really.

It was so wonderful,
not only for me,

but for all the engineers.

God...

God must have been looking after us,
because nothing broke down.

The excitement of the operation
was a turning point

for one radio technician
in the overseas services.

I had a pass to go there,
a BBC pass,

and I was fascinated with all
the television OB units,

and how much I wanted to be
television, not in radio.

And then I walked on to Bush House,
and I was allotted

to work on the Italian service.

So, I heard the whole coronation
in Italian,

which I didn't understand a word of.

Here in the Abbey Church
of Saint Peter Westminster,

a great congregation of 7,000...

The voice - familiar from his war
reports on radio, from 20 Questions

and Down Your Way -
was that of Richard Dimbleby.

He was in Westminster Abbey
in a very uncomfortable position,

I think, somewhere very high up, and
he was there for absolutely hours.

There sit all the representatives
of the countries of the world.

Princess Margaret's procession
came under the arch

about 22 seconds earlier
than scheduled.

We were doing the foreign
dignitaries, Richard was explaining

who they were and
why they were there.

Men and women from all the far flung
lands of the Commonwealth.

I screamed down the... "Richard,
Princess Margaret's arriving!"

There rises now the Speaker
of the House of Commons.,

and all others rise, too.

I moved the camera,
and Richard quick as a flash said,

"And as they stand,
so should we to greet

"the arrival of Princess Margaret."

And they rise, indeed,
for the entry under the screen

of Her Royal Highness
Princess Margaret.

You see, he was brilliant.

We were in each other's minds
all the time.

CHOIR: # Rejoice. #

Good. North of England.

# Rejoice. #

South of England.

# Rejoice. #

All of you!

# Rejoice. #

It wasn't just the
television coverage.

Dimmock had played a part in
planning the ceremony itself.

He took issue with the palace team
over the music they'd arranged

for the end of the service.

As it happened,
Princess Margaret was there.

John Snagge and I had the job of
trying to persuade Dr McKie not to

use a specially commissioned piece
of music for the possession,

because it was rubbish.

Quite honestly, it was dreary
and not suitable at all.

We knew we wanted Pomp And
Circumstance, rousing music.

And in the end, we battered
and battered away,

and Princess Margaret,
I think, tipped the balance.

Because she said, "Bernard..."
That was the Duke of Norfolk.

She said, "Bernard, I think that
Mr Snagge and Peter are quite right.

"And Dr McKie,
you really ought to be helpful."

And he gave in.

MUSIC: Pomp and Circumstance
by Edward Elgar

Dimmock had one more trick
up his sleeve.

He'd reassured the palace team that
the cameras wouldn't go in close -

but after seeing the new
40-inch zoom lens during

his American research trip,
he couldn't resist it.

Did he tell you the story about
changing the lens? Yes?

Well, we all knew that.

The only thing I cheated on,
on the actual day,

was on the lens for the
Queen leaving.

CHOIR SINGS

When push came to shove,
I went in closer.

Because I knew that moment,
it would have been a huge success.

It was a crescendo.

And it was a perfect ending,

and it could never have done it
without that lens.

PRODUCER: Had you planned
to do that,

or was it a moment of inspiration?

No, no, I planned it.

I mean, that was my raison d'etre
for having the 40-inch zoom lens.

Did anybody complain afterwards?

No!

Not even the Queen.

And it was a coronation, after all.

It turned television around.

I mean, that led to the sale of
television sets and licenses.

It made television, didn't it?

It made television
the important one, really.

The important service.

Ensured the prosperity of the BBC,
ensured the future of the BBC.

Commercial television is here.

Among those who will bring
the new programmes to you

are Sir John Barbirolli, who will
give you fortnightly concerts

with the Halle Orchestra...

Two years after the coronation,
it seemed the glory it had brought

the BBC was short lived.

With the launch of ITV,
its television monopoly was over.

It had to battle for audiences
for the first time.

Studio staff and technical equipment
have all been assembled...

Not just audiences,
but experienced staff, too.

We were losing people left,
right and centre - technicians,

particularly - because ITV were
offering very large salaries.

They had no other source to go
to other than the BBC.

We were very holier than thou,
really.

And so, when ITV came along,
some of our people,

some from television BBC,
went to ITV.

And there was a feeling that
they were actually....

Not exactly traitors, but...

But, you know, they had been
tempted by money.

The BBC's founding father looked on
with disgust.

I think one of the most deplorable
mistakes ever made in public affairs

was made when the BBC monopoly
was broken.

I think it was shocking.

ARCHIVE: It's an inferno in there.
Place will be as dry as a tinder...

On ITV's first night,
BBC Radio hoped to steal its thunder

by killing off the newlywed Grace
Archer in the Light Programme's

Everyday Story Of Country Folk.

Look, she's going back
into the stable!

What? No, Grace! No, don't do it!

She's going in after Midnight!

Grace! Grace!

Grace, come back!
The roof's collapsing!

For God's sake, Grace! Come back!

It was kept very hush hush.

I don't think even Ysanne Churchman,
who played Grace,

I don't think she knew until
almost the last minute.

In my arms...
on-on the way to hospital.

She...she's dead.

The Governor for Northern Ireland
was Sir Henry Mulholland,

who was the speaker at Stormont.

And he arrived for a meeting
the next day to say,

"Mr Chairman,
before we start on the agenda,

"I would like to raise
a very serious matter.

"I want the board to pass
a resolution criticising

"the death of Grace Archer.

"How the scriptwriters could
have killed Grace Archer?

"I think the staff should be made
aware of the board's disapproval."

And, of course...!

Their resolution was passed.

Faced with competition from ITN -
commercial television's

news service - the BBC belatedly
realised its cinema-style

newsreel was inadequate.

It needed proper news bulletins.

But in this contest for audiences,
its strategy was bizarre.

It put radio staff in charge
at Alexandra Palace,

who knew nothing about television.

Enter Tahu and his troops.

There was a takeover by a man
called Tahu Hole,

who was the most dreaded man in the
history of the BBC, bar none.

And that is some record.

It was a disaster.

Quite, you know, antediluvian
in his ideas.

No announcers on screen.

Captions.

Still photographs.

The only way in which the BBC could
remain impartial and objective

was to eliminate all adjectives
and every word of comment.

No comments, no colour.

We can't have personality
intruding on...

..on our news service.

I mean, how ridiculous can you get?

We would be kept off the screen.

So, we'd have this disembodied
voice, because...

It was fear that it would become
a kind of personality performance.

ARCHIVE: Here is an illustrated
summary of the news.

The truce talks in Indo-China
went on today.

They had begun yesterday when
the French Union and Viet Minh

representatives agreed on the
subjects to be discussed.

Television was like radio news.

I mean, that's as simple as that.

They didn't understand
about pictures.

Three battalions of French troops
have arrived in Tunisia

to strengthen the security
forces there.

This map of French North Africa
shows the protectorate of Tunisia

on the right.

I can tell you what happens when the
colour goes out of a bulletin -

you get more fact.

That's something maybe dull.

It doesn't lessen its value.

We, the Television Service, watched
with horror what he was doing to us,

and it went on for about three
months, and...

It made us the laughing stock
of the land.

The press was absolutely
vitriolic about this thing,

they said it was absolutely
disgraceful.

Television has gone back to the days
of the magic lantern, they said.

When ITN came along and put Robin
Day and Chataway as newsreaders,

people thought, "Gosh, look."

In his garden in his house,
in Cairo,

here is President Gamal Abdel Nasser
of Egypt.

Well, there was no BBC news,
really - as we know

television news today - to think of.

Good evening. A few minutes ago,
the Prime Minister,

the Right Honourable Harold
Macmillan, came to Television House,

and he's here now in the ITN studio.

Looking back, it is amazing
to imagine that anyone thought

that ITN couldn't succeed,

because the BBC was so dull,
so bad and so boring.

So, the BBC, rather nervously,
decided to try out, first,

Kenneth Kendall, and then me
on the late night news summary

on television, because they hoped
that if it was late enough,

nobody would be watching at all,
I think.

In the Commons, Mr MacLeod has said
that the London bus men's

pay claim is to go to the industrial
court without delay...

But they wouldn't let him read
off an autocue, or anything

approaching that.
They had to do this.

Tahu Hole, appalling man.

And his standard for news was,
unless it's been...

Unless the news has been given by
two or three agencies,

the BBC is not going to put it out.

Let us say the Wailing Wall
in Jerusalem had been damaged

by whatever,
a bomb or an earthquake.

If we got that from our own
correspondent, we wouldn't use it,

because unless our correspondent
has been right next to the wall

when it was damaged, he would
have got it from someone else,

and he might have been conceivably
the victim of a hoax,

so we wouldn't report it.

The insistence on confirmation
by a second source lasted

a number of years, notably on
the World Service at Bush House.

A BBC correspondent in, say,
a fairly remote part of Africa

would ring up and say
such and such has happened.

And the response from the duty
editor would be,

"Very interesting, old boy. I think
we'll wait for the second source."

We usually wanted to have two
sources, cos the trouble was ...

I remember it was with either
northern or southern Rhodesia,

we discovered that it was the same
man who was doing both jobs!

The correspondent - who was also,
usually, the Reuters stringer

or the UPI stringer -
would then file the same story,

and he then became the
second source.

PRODUCER: The same man?
Exactly the same man.

And eventually Broadcasting House
realised that there was something

really wrong with the way
the news was going out,

and that it was due to this man,
Tahu Hole, really, who was the boss,

and changes were made.

Good morning to you.

Mr McMillan, the Foreign
Secretary, left...

ITN had stolen a march on the BBC
by using a woman newscaster

from the start.

Cue on two.

Good evening...

In 1960, the BBC plucked up courage
to have their male newsreaders

joined by a woman -
the reporter, Nan Winton.

It was seen as high-risk.

They approached me, and I didn't
think much about it.

I thought, I'll sit there and
read the news, you know?

It's not that difficult, you know?

They write it out for you
and it's up on the screen.

Well, I hope that you'll like
television, Nan.

But also, for your sake, that
television likes you. Oh, I hope so.

There were all these executives up
in the gallery watching,

and one who said, "Oh, do you
think she'll faint or cry?

You know.

Went very, very well the
first night. Very well.

Absolute euphoria everywhere.

And then they started talking.

There was such a sort of resistance
to women newsreaders, was there not?

Which is just amazing.

There was one newsreader there,
male newsreader,

whose name I can't remember -
he wrote a book about news reading -

and he never spoke to me.

He was so disapproving
of the whole idea.

He totally ignored me.

Cut me dead.

This wasn't Richard Baker?

No, no, no. Richard was lovely.

He was sweet.
Kenneth Kendall?

I met Kenneth Kendall, yes,
but I didn't meet him socially.

Robert Dougall?

Robert Dougall was the one, yes.
He was very against it.

It's a great privilege to keep
people in touch with the news...

He thought it was some sort of
terrible sin, really.

It was...
He took his job very seriously.

I was taken up to lunch by one of
the executives, and he was talking

about the problem of having
a woman reading the news.

And I said, one day there will be
a black woman reading the news,

and he was horrified at the thought.

Shock, you know?

I mean, they lived in a world
of their own, really.

After nine months, the news editor,
Michael Peacock,

decided to end the experiment.

I wanted male newsreaders.

That seemed...that seemed to me
the right one.

The people who were against it said
a woman's voice has no authority.

They hadn't met Mrs Thatcher
at that time!

And you probably look too good
on the screen,

and they won't be thinking about
the news that you're reading.

And... They'll be distracted?
They'll be distracted, yes.

This wild sex object on the screen.

I just felt that women...

..of her age and general personality

were not the correct persona
for BBC News.

That's what I felt at that time.

Peacock consulted the Director
General, Hugh Greene,

and they agreed a delicate
form of words -

not what Peacock then wrote.

I dictated a letter to Nan Winton,

and explained that as a matter
of general policy,

I felt it we would be better served
with male newsreaders,

and thank you so much for...

So, therefore, at a time
that's convenient for you...

..I have to say goodbye
and thank you.

Apparently, Michael Peacock
sent me a letter saying

that my services were no longer
needed, but I didn't get it.

I got home, and it was halfway
through my meal that I realised

that I had actually written
the wrong letter.

I got on the phone to
Alexandra Palace,

and found a fireman I could talk to,
to see if the post was still there.

"No, sir, the post has gone
a long time ago now."

My husband at that time must have
opened it, and out of a sense

of loyalty wrote to Hugh Greene,
the Director General.

Within 20 minutes,
I was in front of Hugh Greene,

and he looked at me quizzically
and said,

"I don't understand
what this is, Michael."

And I said, that's the worst letter
I ever wrote in my life, and I...

And I don't know how
I came to write it.

It's not what you told me
to write at all.

If that isn't good enough,
I think you'd better fire me.

What did he say?

"I don't think we'll come to that,
Michael."

Peacock finally called Nan Winton in
to explain things in person.

I only met him when he sacked me.

He sat behind his desk,
and he asked me to sit down.

And I was really extremely angry at,
you know, the way it was done.

Oh, I'm ashamed of the whole...
episode.

I was out, out of Alexandra Palace.

Gone.

I mean, I...

It was the most...
It's the one really foolish thing,

in executive terms,
that I did in my whole life.

It did have a long term effect on
me. I lost a lot of confidence.

It actually does destroy something
in you, when you are...

..belittled.

It was 13 years before Angela Rippon
took her place.

38% pay package by Ford...

Men had remained the voice
of authority,

particularly in times of
national crisis -

when with no rolling news,
let alone news on demand,

audiences depended on the BBC.

So, Panorama is called
the window on the world.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis,
in 1962,

the world was on the verge
of nuclear war.

Richard Dimbleby took centre stage.

Good evening.

Two items of news.

In just over three hours' time,
President Kennedy will speak

on American television on a subject,

I quote, "of the highest
national urgency."

The news wasn't good enough in those
days to carry that sort of thing.

War could have been around
the corner.

I mean, it looked desperate.

October 22 was the start of a week
of nail biting tension.

The Soviet Union had secretly
deployed nuclear missiles

in Fidel Castro's Cuba, only
90 miles from the coast of Florida.

There was a standoff
between the American president

and the Russian leader,
Nikita Khrushchev.

One deduction that's being made is
that what's going to be announced

is a full-scale naval blockade
of Cuba.

Armageddon could be here.

It was very, very scary indeed.

And for your information, the BBC
Light Programme has just decided

that it's going to stay open
at midnight to carry live

what the President has to say.

For some reason, my wife and I
had a radio in the bathroom,

and we went into the bathroom,

and my wife sat on my lap,
and we listened to this

absolutely chilling broadcast,
which we thought could be

the end of the world as we knew it.

ARCHIVE: This sudden clandestine
decision to station

strategic weapons for the first time
outside of Soviet soil

is a deliberately provocative
and unjustified change

in the status quo, which cannot
be accepted by this country.

That same night, about 4:00 in the
morning, I woke up restlessly,

and I could hear a lot of traffic.

And I was convinced that that was
the first sound of the exodus

from London of people panicking
because there was going

to be a nuclear attack.

Good evening.

The object of this special programme
tonight is that, if we can,

we should recap, recapitulate,
should explain...

Once you're editor of Panorama,

you could get things done in
the Television Service,

and you said, look, we've got to
do a special programme tonight.

Special programme tomorrow night.

You've got the facilities,
so things happened.

It may seem surprising to you
that we should start

our programme tonight by taking you
now from the studio straight

to the banqueting rooms at
Quaglino's Restaurant,

in the West End of London.

The scene is a dinner, where Lord
Hume, the Foreign Secretary,

has had a long standing engagement.

Our cameras have just been put
into the banqueting hall

in the nick of time.

Here is the Foreign Secretary.

The Americans were right to allow
the world to see quite plainly

what is being done in secret by
the Communists under their noses.

The fact that Panorama was on the
air did bring in an audience

who were hungry for information.

How would you describe the general
atmosphere in Washington?

Well, I think everyone would agree
with what Lord Hume said,

that the situation is tense and raw.

The phone rang, and eventually I
answered it, and a woman said,

would she kindly speak
to Richard Dimbleby?

And I said, well, I'm sorry,
he's a bit busy, really.

She said, "Well, would you give
him a message and say to him

"that I want to know from him
tonight whether it's safe

"for my daughter to go
to school tomorrow?"

A great many people today
are extremely worried,

and perhaps a lot are very
frightened by what has happened

and have some awful feeling that
something dreadful may happen

quite quickly, suddenly.

Do you think there is any reason
at all for short term,

immediate nerves on this?

Of course, this is a tiny bit of
a difficult question to answer,

and one might be proved, either way,
hopelessly and hideously wrong.

But I believe, in fact,
that there is no...

Still gets me...

This was just a member
of the public? Yeah.

It's extraordinary.

Well... That was the influence
of the programme?

The influence of Richard Dimbleby.

And I don't think that we can
usefully tonight take you
any further in this.

May I just say, as I have said
on emergency programmes

like this before, I hope we have
been of some real service

to you this evening. Goodnight.

When he was talking to camera,
he was he was so relaxed

that people just listened
and trusted what he said,

because it was just like a friend
talking to them, effectively.

At the peak of the crisis, the BBC
wasn't just offering reassurance.

It played an untold role
in averting disaster.

The first messages between the
Kremlin and the White House

took almost 12 hours to get there
because of delays in translating,

coding and decoding them.

There was no telephone hotline then.

As the dangers grew, the Russians
took to sending uncoded messages

to Kennedy himself on Radio Moscow,

which the BBC's eagle ears at its
monitoring station at Caversham,

near Reading, picked up.

They certainly must have known
that the BBC was monitoring

Moscow's broadcasts in great detail.

And the Kremlin at the key moment,

when it was worried that things
might go terribly wrong, said,

"You know, you can always
broadcast on Moscow radio,

"and it will be heard and
translated quickly."

BBC monitors were punctilious in
getting the translation right.

But even so, they ensured that
the October 28 message -

in which Khrushchev backed down -

reached the White House
in just 20 minutes.

"Esteemed Mr President,
I have received your message

"of 27th October 1962."

"I understand very well your
anxiety and the anxiety of the
people

"of the USA in connection
with the fact that the weapons

"which you describe as offensive
are in fact grim weapons.

"Both you and I understand
what kind of weapons they are."

PRODUCER: That's remarkable,
isn't it? Yes.

It's very personal and friendly.

He must have been in
a highly nervous state,

that he really thought that
the end was going to come.

The crucial sentence heard
by BBC monitors said,

"The Soviet government has ordered
the dismantlement of the weapons

"which you describe as offensive,

"their packing and their return
to the Soviet Union."

ARCHIVE: Not much more than an
hour ago, the President came

through with his warm welcome for an
important contribution to peace...

Alistair Cooke spoke for millions
in his live Letter From America

that same morning, broadcast on the
World Service, as well as in the UK.

An hour ago, a neighbour of mine -
who is a hi-fi buff and mighty proud

of an amplifier that practically
fills his living room -

telephoned me and asked me
to listen to the clanging sound

of his gramophone. He was playing
Oh What A Beautiful Morning.

It was corny, but it was
spontaneous and good.

And I looked out over the
riffling waves of the reservoir

in Central Park.
A bird backlashed to the water

and was airborne and soared
off to land on a high elm.

I should like to say it was a dove.

It was, however, a seagull.

And its clean swinging flight
is also, I imagine,

a tiny thing I shall remember
till the day I die.

The reason the monitors cooled
the Cuba crisis so quickly

was that they weren't just
working for the BBC.

Our job was to tell the
British government and the BBC

what we had heard from Moscow.

The British government first,
and the BBC second?

They would get the information
at the same time.

The Foreign Office would get
the copies of the text

as it was translated.

So, they were, as it were...
MoD, as well.

They were customers?
Customers, yes.

We had an outstation farther up
a hill with aerials.

There were some aerials at
Caversham, but they didn't want

to have a lot of aerials there
because they didn't want

the local people to know what was
going on there.

It wasn't just the men from the
ministry who were customers.

What was secret was that under
a post-war arrangement,

part of the BBC building at
Caversham was occupied

by the men from UNCLE -
Uncle Sam, officers of the CIA -

to keep tabs on what the BBC
monitors were finding out.

In the top storeys,
there was an American unit,

and I think that...

Of course, they were there
purely from the...

..an intelligence point of view.

They had an office on the top floor,
and their job was simply to tell

Washington what we were doing.

They had electronic connections,
you know,

with their own headquarters
in Langley.

So, they were working for the CIA?

Yes, yes.

I think that was a bit hush hush,
you know?

We didn't openly discuss it,
or put it into print,

presumably because the BBC's
management decided that

it didn't really want this link
to be exposed.

# When you tune in London way

# Every evening.... #

Back in the 1930s, broadcasting
became a propaganda weapon.

But the British was slow off the
mark in building a foreign audience.

# Everything's BBC, see?

# Hear what you damn well pleasey

# Hear how the speakers lie there

# Cry there, die there... #

The fascist governments were
there first and fastest,

and they were very, very effective.

We were very, very late.

But I think when we woke up to it,
we soon realised that there was

a better way of broadcasting,
and a way that was going to be

more effective than the propaganda
route that the Italians

and the Germans - and the Japanese,
for that matter - chose.

MUSIC PLAYS

BROADCASTER SPEAKS GERMAN

It was John Reith's last hurrah
as Director General to get BBC

foreign language broadcasts
off the ground in 1938.

Only in late September,
at the time of the Munich crisis,

did the BBC launch its German
and Italian services.

GERMAN LANGUAGE BROADCAST

They hired a former Berlin
correspondent,

who would one day run the
BBC as Director General.

The key broadcaster in the German
service was Hugh Carleton Greene,

who had fluent German,
but with an English accent.

IN GERMAN:

And that was not a disadvantage,
it was an advantage,

because at least the German
listeners knew this wasn't

a turncoat who'd once been on our
side and now on the other side.

This was an Englishman,
so that was OK.

ARCHIVE: Deceiving, taunting,
but most of all -

and most important of all -
giving the enemy hard news,

even of our defeats, so that when,
as one hoped the time would come

for victories, they would believe
what we said about the victories.

You're tuned to the General
Overseas Service of the BBC.

Whereas the rest of the BBC was
funded by the public's licence fees,

the external services were paid for
by the Foreign Office

until very recently -

but without being a mouthpiece
for the government.

It was the only international
broadcaster which was funded

by the government,
but was editorially independent.

A very, very British compromise.

Some would say British hypocrisy.
Fine. Great hypocrisy.

Great hypocrisy. It worked,
it was distinctive.

Most people accepted it,
and all the rest said,

"We'll judge you by what you do."

ARCHIVE: This is Ivor Jones calling
Radio Newsreel from Athens.

Little is to be seen of the
army now, but it makes its
presence heard.

At night, there's sporadic firing,
sometimes with automatic weapons.

The army colonels who seized
power in Greece, in 1967,

didn't like what the BBC did at all,

and accused the Greek service
of distortion.

Two managers there were tasked
with proving them wrong.

So, I sat down, and I worked through
several months of BBC output,

every single item that had
referred to the Greek colonels
and their regime.

We had, for example, said that
supervision of restaurants

had improved under the colonels.

They had seen to it that Greek
horiatiki salata, country salad,

had sufficient bits of
white cheese in it.

And other things like that,
that proved that the colonels

were doing a good thing
in one or two little things.

But that, by and large,
they were a bloody menace.

This is London calling.

Reith had wanted to set up
an overseas service in English

back in 1924, but short wave
transmission wasn't good enough

for another eight years
when the Empire Service, later

the World Service, was born.

Was there a certain arrogance?

Yes.

Was there a certain purity
of approach?

Yes.

Was there a certain
missionary thing?

Yes.

The belief that what you were doing
really got through to people

around the world who needed to know.

For years and years and years,

the World Service News began
with a Protestant marching song,

Lillibullero.

Good rousing tunes to signify

that something important
was going to be said.

PIPS

0-2 hours, Greenwich meantime.

I was very conscious
part of the prestige

I was living on, the BBC
being so widely admired,

except perhaps in
the United Kingdom - it was abroad -

was partly due to the World Service.

Everybody listened to it.

Everybody was very resistant to
the idea that this was propaganda.

It was simply showing them
how we did things

and hoping they would like it
and imitate us.

Hungarian troops are fighting.
The government is in position.

UNTRANSLATED

Propaganda is an unpopular word.

It's usually seen to be something
rather unpleasant and nasty,

but it actually means
just spreading the faith.

We shouldn't kid ourselves.

If you broadcast to foreign nations,

the purpose is to
persuade them to like us.

You are now aboard Her Majesty's
Aircraft Carrier Bulwark.

At home, television audiences
in the post-war years were teased

continually with new ways of
seeing the world, thanks to fresh

technological feats
by the engineers.

Back in the '40s and the '50s,

so many firsts were done.
The first outside broadcast

from a plane and the first
outside broadcast from a train.

Welcome to the Royal Air Force
Station Watton,

for tonight's BBC live television
outside broadcast.

I think your picture
may be wavering a little.

So is the aircraft because we had
a little bit of rough air there.

We were quite
in the lead at that time.

The corporation did
engineering in a big way.

This picture comes direct
from the inside of a submarine.

From the forward search periscope
of Her Majesty's Submarine Talent,

that is the shot of the target.

Anything new we could get away with,

the world was our oyster.

I mean, there we had the cameras,

but we had lots of restrictions -

300 feet of cable to the camera
in the early days.

The cables were not always that
waterproof, and so life was

a constant battle of trying
to keep the cameras going.

The fact that I'd been in the Air
Force working on radar on aeroplanes

meant that I could really feel
that that was comfortable.

The department consisted of
ex-service officers,

so we had terrific self-discipline,

that came naturally,
and we never worried

about hours of work or unions
or anything like that.

We just enjoyed doing it
and working our butts off.

And at one time I'd be commentating,

another time I might be producing,

another time I might
be stage manager.

You know, we were
jack of all trades.

All seat-of-the-pants stuff.

The outside broadcast team spent
much of its time covering sport.

In those days, there was no
separate department for sport.

The bosses weren't interested.

But Paul Fox reckoned
the audience was.

I wrote a memo to
Peter Dimmock saying,

"I think what we need
is a weekly sports magazine.

"You present it and we'll call
it Sportsview."

And Peter said,
"Yes, what a good idea."

And three weeks later,
it was on the air.

I mean, that's how things
were done in those days.

The draw for the first round
of the Rugby League Cup

is about to begin,
so let's watch it happen

and go now north again
to Manchester this time.

Now onto the platform come the Rugby
League officials to make the draw.

Number 20. Oldham.

29.

Wigan.

Oldham against Wigan.

He said to me,
"Well, Peter sounds crazy,

"but I'll let you do six weeks,"
and we'd only done two

and he said, "How long do
you want to go on for?"

We were very, very lucky.

The second week, Roger Bannister
ran the mile in under four minutes

and we had a camera at Iffley Road.

The only film was of Bannister
during the four-minute mile.

But even more importantly,
I had a car at Oxford

to bring Roger back to the studio.

And so on the night of the
four-minute mile,

which was done at 5:00
in the afternoon,

because the wind
had to be right at Oxford,

all that fuss, we had Bannister
in the studio at 8:00.

And that was a coup
for the programme.

And we never looked back.

Fox realised that a sports magazine
could cover some back stories,

not just the action and results.

The audience would gain a fuller
insight into the sporting world.

So let's go into the gymnasium
and see the transfer.

Now, Billy, we seem to have
ironed out all our difficulties,

and I would like you to
sign these three contracts

for West Ham Football Club.

Could you sign just there?
And he gets £10 for this?

He does, Peter, yes.

Thank you, Billy.

May I count these here?
One, two...

While Mr Fenton's counting,
I think we can trust it,

I see you've been pretty
smartish off the mark.

It's the West Ham bag,
isn't it? Yes.

Well, congratulations
with your new team.

Thank you, Mr Fenton. Thank you.

We look forward to seeing
you at West Ham soon.

Thank you very much. I must get on
with the programme. Thank you.

There's your money, Peter.

Once Sportsview was on the air,

it's the old business, you then
say, "Well, what can we do next?

"We've got a weekly sports
programme. How about Saturday?"

And then we had a Saturday night
programme called Sports Special

with all the films of that day's
football. And that went on the air

and then we said, "Well,
how about Saturday afternoon?"

And a year later we had
Grandstand on the air.

I mean, it was quite
a little empire.

Sports officials were nervous
that bigger television audiences

would mean smaller crowds
at the turnstiles.

Just as with the coronation, Dimmock
was the man to bring them round.

The sporting authorities believed
in him because here was a man

from the BBC who could sign
the chequebook

and could get the contract.

And that's how we managed
to get such a vast number

of sporting contracts going.

The will was there
at that time to do sport.

Unfortunately,
the will was lost later on.

I think he was quite influential
with Mrs Mirabel Topham

in getting the Grand National,

which the BBC wouldn't have got.

Leading up a tremendous
dance with Chalk Stream...

Once again, the production team
needed ingenuity from the engineers.

If they wanted a roving eye
to do a horse race,

then we would produce them a small
vehicle with a camera mounted

on the top and a radio link to drive
alongside the racecourse

and give them a roving eye.

And on to the next plain fence,
two before Becher's,

and over to Michael O'Hehir.

And it's Kirtle Lad
along the inside...

A horse race that lasts 12 minutes
became the greatest sporting event

of the year, thanks to the BBC
and thanks to Peter Dimmock

persuading Mirabel Topham
that the Grand National

should be a BBC event.

Rutherford's along the inside.

And he's been...
And Rutherford has been hampered.

And so as Castle Falls.

Rondetto has fallen,
Princeful has fallen,

Norther has fallen,
Kirtle Lad has fallen.

The Fossa has fallen.
There's a right pile-up.

Leedsy has climbed over the fence
and left his jockey there.

And now, with all this mayhem...

Perhaps while it was just
one single BBC channel,

perhaps we did overload
it with sport at the time.

But the sport was popular and
it was in the nation's lifeblood.

They go now to the Canal Turn.

Well, the one that's going to the
Canal Turn happens to be Foinavon.

We knew that sport produced
audiences, big audiences,

and we showed how it should be done.

And you were left to get on with it.

And you're totally left alone.
Absolutely.

John Buckingham looks over his
shoulder, sees there's no danger,

ears pricked,
Foinavon wins the National.

These days, when our tireless
colleagues on Sportsview

are daily scooping everybody else

with their reporting
of the Olympic Games,

it gives us a special pride tonight
to scoop them.

We begin the programme, therefore,

with the hottest of hot film
from Rome.

If you think the only games
going on in Rome at the moment

are the Olympic ones,
here's proof that you're wrong.

It's an Italian sport
known as Florentine football.

PHONE RINGS

Well, it's a very short
bit of football.

Or a very short first half.

Yeah?

Ah.

Somebody says we appear
to have lost that film.

You're telling me.

We'll try and find it between
then and now.

With film breaking and
live links collapsing,

breakdowns were part of 1950s life.

There were loads.

It was up to the continuity people
to hold viewers' attention.

We had these interludes,

like the kitten playing with
a ball of string was one of them,

and fish in a tank - that was
supposed to soothe people,

the thought of fish.

And the potter's wheel,
which became an enormous joke

because what was he making?

It was happening so often,
the newspapers

were making hay on this
and complaining -

why does the BBC keep breaking down?

It was a hazard that went right back
to the beginning of radio.

We were doing some opera from
Covent Garden and the line broke.

I said, "Give me the microphone."

I sat at my little table
and for 25 minutes I talked

of what life was like in Peking

in 1923, where I'd
just come from, you know,

just chattering
like I am to you now,

off the cuff, you know,

until somebody said it's all OK.

So he said, "Cut Lewis off
and stick the plug in again."

We were back in the opera.

That was how it worked.

Good evening.

This is Telstar,

the most modern, the most advanced,

perhaps the most
wonderful Earth satellite

that has yet been shot into space.

Satellite broadcasting
was a huge step forward

in giving the audience a more
immediate grasp of the world.

Telstar was the guinea pig
for bringing live pictures

across the Atlantic.

On July the 10th, it looked
as if history would be made.

In the evening papers,

"Go home and watch your television,"
or words like that.

Yeah, it was a fairly hyped up
event.

The receiving station in Britain
was Goonhilly in Cornwall,

but it was touch-and-go
as the big moment came.

And here is a quiet scene,
but for the constant arrival

of spectators who are all focusing
their attention on that,

the Goonhilly dish aerial.

Raymond Baxter was in Goonhilly
for the opening ceremony.

Richard Dimbleby was in London.

I'm going, if you don't mind,
just to check up for a moment

on the telephone
to make sure whether

there really is
any further news or not.

Of course it didn't actually work.

Fine. Thank you. Thank you.

Captain Booth
has just given me the news.

He doesn't believe that Telstar
is switched on at this time,

and we would not expect
to see Telstar reported

on the oscilloscope screen.

They had a problem
with the antennas,

and the antennas
were rather like a corkscrew.

Goonhilly were told that they were
using clockwise polarisation,

but Goonhilly were rather
looking at things

from the other end
of the corkscrew,

and so they were using
an anticlockwise polarisation,

which meant that there was no actual
signal received at Goonhilly.

So that was a bit
of an anti-climax.

Telstar, while we've been talking,

has crept away again, out of sight,
behind the world.

Next time it comes round,
however, instead of just

creeping up over the horizon,

it comes over in
a glorious, great ellipsis

whatever the word is, and
the chances are infinitely better.

You think they might
have tested it first.

Well, that was the thing about...

Well, these things
are always last-minute.

And of course, that satellite,
as I say, had limited availability.

It worked very well the next night.

And the first picture,
which is a test card,

a pulse and bar picture.

There it is. You see it quite
clearly on the left hand screen.

The picture is toppling,

but this is a brilliant
acquisition of Telstar.

And Captain Booth puts his thumb up.

We can punch you the picture.

It's the Unit 4 + 2.

In the mid '60s, BBC Radio found
that, just like television,

it was having to compete
for audiences.

Unlicensed pirate radio stations
had popped up off the Essex Coast,

just outside territorial waters.

They traded on pop music,

which then had few outlets
at Broadcasting House.

Everything was wrong
with the BBC at the time,

from the point of view
of younger people, because

when I grew up
in the late '50s and '60s,

there was nothing really
to listen to.

So that was the point
of the pirates,

to really break the BBC monopoly

and bring about commercial
radio in Great Britain.

As part of the BBC's rejig of
its radio stations in 1967,

it set up Radio 1 and poached
Tony Blackburn and other pirate DJs

to bring in a new audience.

I remember when I went in there,

I put a suit on
and the tie and everything

and first thing he asked me,
"Which school did you go to?"

And I said, "Millfield."
He said, "Oh, yes, good school."

And so I was in, I suppose.

But it was...
But they were very good.

They said to me, they said,
"We don't really know how to do it.

"You know how to do it.
What do you need?"

And I said, "We need a self
operating studio

"because we put
on all our own music."

Ten seconds to go before
Radio 1 Tony Blackburn,

and Radio 2 Paul Hollingdale.

Stand by for switching.
Get tuned to Radio 1 or 2.

Five, four, three,
Radio 2, Radio 1, go.

# The voice of Radio 1

# Just for fun

# Music

# Too much fun. #

And good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the exciting
new sound of Radio 1.

And I remember the first producer
I met, a very nice guy.

I think his name was Peter,
if I remember.

And we got in there about an hour
before the programme,

and he said to me, he said,
"Could I have a script, please?"

And I said, "Oh," I said, "I don't
work on a script. I ad lib."

He said, "Oh." He said,
"You haven't got a script?"

He said,
"Everybody here has a script."

And I said,
"Well, I don't work like that."

I said, "I just ad lib."

He said, "Well, what are
you going to say?"

I said, "Well, I don't know really."

I said, "I'm not sure, but I'm not
going to say anything outrageous

"or anything like that." And he
said, "Oh, we always get scripts."

And he showed me
an Alan Freeman script,

which...he used to do the top 40,

and it had,
"Hi, pop pickers. Ah," - A-H,

"not 'alf," - not A-L-F,
or whatever it was.

And they had this script
and I said, "We don't..."

So he said,
"Well," he said, "Could you...

"Do you mind coming in an hour
before the programme?

"Because otherwise I have to
cancel the coffee and doughnuts."

So I said, "That's fine."

And that was my introduction.

First introduction to the BBC.

This is BBC Radio Leicester.

There was also the threat
of pirate local radio

so, two months after the launch
of Radio 1,

the first of 40 BBC
local stations opened.

The intention - to get closer
to the community.

Good afternoon from Radio Leicester
broadcasting on 95.05 VHF.

PHONE RINGS
Can somebody answer it quickly?

On me away, Jill.

I'm on me way.

Hello. Brookfield Farm.

Uncle Walter? Tony! Speak up, lad.
I can't hear you.

I haven't said anything yet.

The world's longest running drama
series, based at BBC Birmingham,

hoped to boost its audience
with more challenging storylines.

But then when the Archers began
in 1950, its creator had told

the cast it was not a drama,
but real life overheard.

So out with it Jennifer.
What have you come to see me about?

I...I've come to ask you
a favour, Vicar. Oh, yes?

I'm in a terrible mess.

And yet it's my own fault.

I don't blame anyone,
and I'm going to face up to it.

But sooner or later,
my parents have got to be told.

And that's just something
I can't bring myself to do.

Some of the audience became
so involved with the characters

that they treated them
as real people.

And I wonder, Mr Reef,
would you tell them?

You see, I'm going to have a baby.

When Jennifer was expecting
this baby,

a dear old couple wrote
to her and said,

"You poor dear," you know,

"you must come and stay with us
and have the baby.

"We'll look after you."

Well, in those days,
to have an illegitimate baby

was just not done.

It was not quite the thing.

Of course, nowadays
everybody's doing it.

But then it was quite
a dreadful story.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't agree
to tell your parents for you.

But it would make things
so much easier.

If it would, my dear, I'd do it.

But it won't. I beg you,
tell your parents.

I had letters saying,

"Dear Mrs Archer, do you know
that your daughter Jennifer

"is going to have a baby?

"Only three people know -
the doctor, the vicar

"and your daughter, Lillian.

"Why don't you know?

"Don't you listen to the programme?"

Hello? Yes, maternity wing.

I want to make an inquiry.

Jennifer Archer.

I'm her mother.

Is the baby born yet, please?

It is! A boy?

It's a boy.

Any letters that came for the
character were forwarded to us

and we replied to them in character.

To this day, I think we're
the only programme on the air

that our names aren't announced
at the end of the show,

because that would destroy
the illusion, you see,

because we were real people.

# Coming in on a wing
and a prayer... #

Back in the 1940s, radio
had connected families

separated by war.

It put listeners at home
in touch with their relatives

on active service.

It gave broadcasting fresh purpose.

Helen Clare had made her name as a
variety artist in the late '30s.

In wartime, she hosted
It's All Yours,

a forerunner of the post-war request
programme Family Favourites.

In the end, it became almost
too popular.

The children used to come and send
messages to their relatives serving

overseas, like their fathers
or their brothers,

and I sang requests from the troops.

They would send in requests
for me to sing.

That meant something,
that programme.

It wasn't just entertainment.

# Yes, we really hit our target for
tonight... #

CRACKLY AUDIO: ..still going.
..behind us...

INDISTINCT

Where is he, rear gunner?
Can you see him?

He's come down.

He's got him, boy.

Right there. Bloody good.

CHEERING

Don't shout all at once.

Their plane has been hit,
but not disastrously

and they get over
the white cliffs of Dover,

come and see their fields
in the distance.

# Look below, there's
our field over there

# With our full crew aboard
and our trust in the Lord

# We're coming in
on a wing and a prayer. #

And I don't sound bad,
I must confess.

Eventually, of course,
the War Office shut it down

because when it was on overseas,
they couldn't get the men away

from the wireless in case their
child said something to them.

So it had to...we had to give up.

I wonder how many times
you've thrown away one of these,

just an ordinary egg box.

A generation later, Blue Peter
went a stage further.

The audience wasn't simply taking
part in programmes,

but helping to create them.

Out of the blue, a parcel
arrived in the office

addressed to Valerie Singleton

from a lady called Margaret Parnell,

and she said, "I love Blue Peter,
but I don't think that

"your making things
is really very good,

"and I enclose something
that I have made

"and I wondered if
you'd like to use it."

And this arrived with all
the stages in it that you would use.

It was like as if it was someone
who had worked in television.

She'd only watched television and
she was a housewife in Portsmouth.

And she would go into a supermarket
and look at a can of baked beans

and think, "Ah, that could
be a Labrador puppy."

And she had this knack of
creating this stuff out of rubbish

and they were hugely, hugely
popular.

And of course, a tape measure.

No sewing box is complete
without a tape measure.

Children and their parents
were so involved that they put

the weekly audience figure
up to eight million strong.

Hello, there. Well, this has been
going on ever since last Monday

when we asked you to send in
some toys for the children

who weren't going to get any.

The bond with the children in
its audience stemmed from

another wartime radio series,
Out With Romany,

which featured nature rambles
by Romany and his friends.

Oh, Romany, have we got to follow
Raq into that ditch?

Look, he's sniffing up and down
as though he's found something.

Let's go and see.

What is it?
Can't you hear it?

Look, that snuffling noise.
It's a hedgehog.

But you really believed
he was walking in the countryside,

describing all the things
that he could see.

I loved Romany.
He was probably sitting in a studio.

He's probably house-hunting,
I think.

It isn't cold enough yet for him
to hibernate, you know.

But he is beginning to look round

for a suitable place
for his winter sleep.

Quiet. Look. Here he comes.
Down, Raq, old boy. Down.

Blue Peter's producer,
Edward Barnes,

had been a loyal listener
in Lancashire as a boy.

One February, I was out for
a walk with my dog at the time

and I passed by a stream,

there's a clump of celandines,
but I didn't know what they were.

Beautiful flowers. And nothing
else was growing,

so I took a chunk of them off,

wrapped them up and sent them
to Romany.

HE CHUCKLES

Soil and all!

And the following week,

I listened to Romany.
Auntie Doris said,

"What lovely flowers there are
there, Romany."

He said, "Did you see one or two
little celandines amongst them?"

And he said, "A boy from Wigan
sent me those."

And they said, "Oh, really."
Well...

..it's been downhill ever
since that.

HE CHUCKLES

That was probably the peak
of my life.

ARCHIVE: Well, let's have a look at
the prizes,

which are, of course,
the Blue Peter badges.

The badge was Barnes's initiative

to get children to send in
programme ideas,

just as he'd done with Romany.

We really believed that the audience
were part of the programme

and they had to be part of the whole
and they had to belong.

The way to encourage them to make
it their programme

was to get their ideas, and that was
why the badge was so important,

because it wasn't a giveaway.

Hugh Weldon came round

showing the Chairman of the Board
of Governors round,

and the chairman said, "I've got
a grandson, and I wondered

"if you could very kindly let me
have a Blue Peter badge for him."

We said, "Well, tell him to write
in with a good idea

"and then he'll get a badge."

And Hugh said, "But they're
an exception."

We said, "No, no. No. There are
no exceptions.

"He will have to write in."
And that was it.

Hugh wasn't best pleased
at the time.

The whole concept of the badge had
nearly fallen at the first hurdle.

The cost was £250.

Our budget was £180.

It was absolute peanuts and we
certainly couldn't set up badges

and a correspondence unit
and the whole thing,

so I knew on the sixth floor
at Television Centre,

that's where all the bosses were.

And she walked along the sixth floor

until she found the thing
that said Donald Baverstock.

And his outer office
had a very, um...

..not very nice PA secretary

who said I couldn't possibly see
Donald Baverstock

and it was absolutely out of
the question.

So she went back and opened the door
that said "no admittance"

and walked in.

And Baverstock hit the roof and
said, "What are you doing?"

"I've come to... This is the only
way I can do it.

"I've come to tell you something
and it is really very important

"and I need your help."

I explained that it was to get
programme ideas

to make the programme
the viewers' programme.

He then called in a lady called
Joanna Spicer,

who was in charge of all the money.

And she said, "You can't. You can't
possibly do that, Donald.

"I mean, you know, there isn't
any money."

And Donald, to his everlasting
glory, said,

"It's for programme material,
Joanna

"We're going to get programme ideas
from the audience for this."

So we got the money.

I wouldn't have had the courage
to have done that,

but mind you, I wasn't a
five-foot-ten, leggy blonde,

which is a help!

It wasn't just about badges.

They needed a letters team
to engage with the audience.

Once again, a childhood experience
came into play -

the time that Biddy Baxter had
written to a hero of hers.

I wrote to Enid Blyton
at Green Hedges

or wherever she lives
in the home counties,

and to my absolute joy and delight,
she wrote back.

So, typical small child,

about a fortnight later,
I wrote again.

I got the identical letter
- the identical letter,

and I went to my mother in tears and
I said,

"She doesn't remember me,
she doesn't remember who I am."

And that was very salutary.

Every person who got a badge
was indexed

and every incoming badge-worthy
letter was checked against the index

so we could write and say,

"Dear John, last time you wrote to
us, your guinea pig had a bad paw.

"We do hope it's
getting better now."

And that gave us a tremendous
contact with our audience.

The battle for the adult audience
had become critical.

The new ITV had quickly closed in

and the BBC was running
out of road.

I remember vividly
with David Attenborough -

we were in Paris, it was early 1960,

and David had read the figures
that we were down to 28%, the BBC,

and ITV had 72,
or maybe it was even more.

It was really very worrying.

The BBC were doing
very worthy programm...

..good but worthy programming,

and ITV were doing
just popular programming.

It looked as if the ITV model,
even though commercials interrupted

the proceedings every 15 minutes, it
looked as if people preferred that.

There was a real genuine threat,

inevitably, to the licence fee.

Nobody was listening to the BBC -

why on earth should people
pay for it?

If it had gone on, it would have
brought about the end of the BBC.

That danger's always there,

but you only have to slip
off the tightrope once.

What saved the BBC was the coming
of BBC Two.

Although the BBC was losing out
in the ratings,

it managed to beat ITV
in the contest

for a second television channel.

The man in charge as its first
controller was Michael Peacock,

who'd sacked Nan Winton
at Television News.

There was a strange campaign
of publicity for BBC Two.

Oh, yes, the kangaroo -

Hullabaloo and Custard.

Hullabaloo was the kangaroo,

and Custard was the little
baby kangaroo,

which was BBC Two.

It was a pretty...pretty poor
idea, really.

INTERVIEWER: The BBC's baby?

The BBC's baby. That's right.

Bizarre, but nice.

ARCHIVE: The idea is that BBC Two
is going to be new and exciting,

different. A new approach to
television altogether.

CURRENT INTERVIEW: The BBC were
going to have to build new
transmitters everywhere,

all the studios would have to be
equipped for 625-line cameras,

and the country at large were going
to have to put

different aerials on their roof.

I then discovered that there
isn't any plan

as to what it was to be

other than an alternative
to BBC One.

He had his work cut out to devise
new schedules in time for the launch

in the spring of 1964, hosted by
the young Dennis Tuohy.

By then, the BBC was in party mood

to wish its new baby
the best of luck.

Good luck took the night off,
I'm afraid,

on 20th April 1964.

It only was a 15-minute programme,

but we must have rehearsed it
three or four times,

and we took a break and went off
to have a quick snorter in the bar

to give ourselves the courage to do
this wonderful thing.

And I wandered back along
the corridor to the studio

and realised there
were no lights on.

I thought, "This is strange."

There was a vast power cut at
Battersea Power Station,

which put absolutely every sort
of facility

in central London off the air.

The house's own emergency lighting,
which was keeping the building lit,

was starting to go down.

HE CHUCKLES

And we were all going to be in the
dark in another half an hour or so

if we didn't get out
of the building,

and we were escorted down the stairs
of Television Centre by torchlight.

It was wonderful publicity.

It's announced to the world at large
that there was going to be something

called BBC Two as soon as we could
get some electricity!

With Television Centre blacked out,
all BBC Two could manage, later,

was a cobbled together news summary
from Alexandra Palace.

Ten years before,

the first television news bulletins
had sound only

and no picture of the newsreader.

This time there was no sound.

When the sound sprang back
into life,

Gerald Priestland delivered the
first words on the new channel -

a news item about racial abuse.

Back home again, that Yorkshire bus
conductress who was sacked last week

for calling Pakistani passengers
"stinking" has got her job back.

Union representatives went to see
the management

and the conductress made an apology.

PHONE RINGS

Excuse me.

Yes?

Right. Yes.

We are going to repeat this news
summary in one minute.

Well, good evening, and as I said
a few minutes ago,

only I understand nobody could hear
me, welcome to BBC Two

from where it all began here in
Studio A in Alexandra Palace.

The launch party at Television
Centre was still in full swing.

Its improvised lighting gave
the production team an idea

for opening BBC Two
the following night.

Second time lucky!

A candle on a desk so that when
people switch on

to see the new channel, they'll see
a dark studio.

ARCHIVE: BBC Two programmes start
in five minutes.

And then after five minutes, I hoped
the lights would come on,

and they did.

And that was our only reference
to the horror of the previous night.

Good evening. This is BBC Two.

The wonderful thing about it was
that it was decided by...

..four or five people in a room,

and it was a decision that was going
to affect

the beginning of BBC Two

and bits of...a moment of
history, if you like.

And it wasn't... It didn't go
through a committee

and it wasn't referred to anybody.

We were just told, you know,
get your programme on the air

this evening at the right time.

A year in, BBC management did
intervene to find someone

adventurous to lead the audience
through unexplored territory

for the new channel and set the tone
for its formative years.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH ARCHIVE: It was
very hard going.

The grass was very high
and its leaves extremely sharp

so that soon our legs and forearms
were covered with lots of tiny cuts.

It was as hot as I've ever
been or ever wish to be.

ATTENBOROUGH CURRENT INTERVIEW:
Hugh Weldon came to me and said,

"Do you want to do BBC Two? Do you
want to come and charge BBC Two?"

I said, "Well, what's the policy?
Editorial policy of BBC Two?"

And Hugh said,

"It's up to you. That's why
we're appointing you."

And I thought, "Gosh!"

If you're interested in television
at all,

how could you turn that down?

ARCHIVE: Beyond, on the other side,
lies uncontrolled territory

inhabited by mysterious tribes
of pygmies.

They were tiny people, particularly
if you discounted their headdresses.

I reckon that their average height

was about four foot six to
four foot eight.

There was some eyebrow raising
amongst those at Television Centre

about this man coming in
from the jungle to take over.

He came in with a pink shirt.
SHE LAUGHS

You know? And no jacket.

It was, "Oh, this
is a different chap!"

Which is what we wanted.

One or two of them wore, at the back
of their necks,

the beak of a hornbill.

The ones in their headdresses were
on their way to a celebration.

Why do you remember the pink shirt?

Well, because it was so unusual.

And if you were going to be
at that level,

you wore white shirt and a tie.

I think he had a tie.
I think he had a tie.

But I do remember the pink shirt
with no jacket, you see.

In his first week,
he'd invited people in

and essentially said,
what is it that you would

most like to do that you
haven't yet been able to do?

And at the end of the week,
they'd all decided,

This is a man we like working with.

Well, I liked him right away.

And right away I thought,
Oh, good, lovely.

Every programme we will do
will be different and unique

to BBC Two in some particular way,
either in a subject matter

or in length or in presentation.

We won't be beholden
to anybody else.

He loved the fact that he was
allowed to commission an opera,

and he jokes about getting
a phone call from Benjamin Britten

when we commissioned saying,
How many trumpets can I have?

I said, Well, I'd like to do
is start a programme about business.

And with a name, something
like The Money Programme.

And he said, Yes, that's quite
a good idea. Off you go.

Nobody was doing motoring
programmes.

Wheelbase, as it was called
in my time.

Nobody was doing rugby, football.

And it's Owen Jones!

Owen Jones is running,

Owen Jones is running!

He knocked somebody down.

We got the picture.
Whether he did or not.

I could never have imagined
such wonderful people.

You must forgive me.

I can't go back.

For drama, we would do
Flaubert and Tolstoy.

It was champagne.

This is the BBC television service.

We now present from
Studio A, Alexandra Palace,

another programme in our series
of experimental

transmissions in colour.

# Early one morning,
just as the sun was... #

What became the rocket booster
for BBC Two

was the biggest and costliest
technological development to date.

# Oh, don't deceive me
Oh, never... #

For years, engineers had been
running test broadcasts in colour

late at night, almost in secret.

Hold it there.

They used to do short
transmissions, maybe an hour,

two hours after the black and white
transmissions had finished.

And the only people that had colour
sets, of course,

were the members
of the board of the BBC,

senior engineers.

# How could you use a poor maiden
so?... #

It's a bit green.
in the shadows on the left.

Is that shading?

Yes, we'll have to change
the green tube tomorrow.

You mean today, don't you?

We were amazed when we saw
the pictures the first time,

how beautiful they looked.

Introducing colour in America
had been a catastrophe.

I mean, the colour was so bad.

So I had the job as controller
of BBC Two to make sure that

when colour came, it didn't live up
to its reputation of being lurid

and generally impossible
to view.

The first colour cameras
that we had needed hours to warm up,

somebody had to switch
the cameras on at least

two hours before
you had to adjust them.

And of course, the three colour
tubes needed registering.

If it was bad, you had to take
the camera away from the producer.

Was this just very occasional? Oh,
no. It happened most of the time.

To start with, the colour
controls were under the control

of the viewer.
And viewers with that sense

would wind up the chrome,

the chrome on the tint,

so that the grass was emerald green,

throbbing emerald green,

and the skies all amethyst blue.

But the manufacturers grappled
with this problem and didn't

allow it into the untutored hands
of the viewer.

This is all part of the expansion.

I mean, when colour came in,
the license, it was a higher

licence fee than it was
for monochrome.

But everybody was then busy
buying colour licenses

and the money was rolling in again.
It was great.

The Olympic 400 metre hurdle.

With colour came fresh
opportunities for producers,

but also further challenges
for the engineers.

BBC Two wanted the 1968 Olympics
live, which meant colour pictures

by satellite from Mexico,
with the additional complex

conversions of the American
Broadcasting Standard

to the European version.

We finally got
the equipment together,

just, that enabled us to do
those three conversions.

On the last night,

I was keeping an eye on the line
terminal equipment

and Paul Fox turned up
and said, Congratulations,

perhaps after the shoot
finished, you'd like to join us

on the sixth floor for drinks.

I think I was the only engineer.

I say my memory.

He was pleased to have had
the Olympic Games live in colour.

The engineers were the kings
of the BBC.

No.

No, in our own sphere,
we knew we were doing all right.

But the kings of the BBC
were the programme people.

That's what it's all about.

Well, without the engineers,
the BBC wouldn't have worked.

The impact of colour was nowhere
greater than in the first

blockbuster documentary
series it bred.

Charlemagne is the first
great man of action to emerge

from the darkness.

Attenborough commissioned it,
but the original impetus

didn't come from him.

Joanna Spicer, a very, very
civilised woman,

assistant controller
of television planning,

came in to me one day and said,

Well, I imagine, David,
that you will be thinking

about what special programme
you could have to mark the beginning

of colour television.
And I said, Oh, yes, yes, of course.

She says, Well, I put aside some
money just in case you have an idea

of something you would wish to do.

I mean, that was, you know,
that's really what you need

from chief of staff.

And that was civilisation.

Civilisation had come through.

How did he do it?

Well, first of all, with the help
of an outstanding teacher

and librarian named Alcuin
of York. He collected books

and had them copied.

Joanna was a queen bee,
without question, in making...

..the place work.

She was the person who
contrived a way of getting the BBC

to compete against ITV
when it started.

She was the master of scheduling.

Oh, my goodness.

Frightening woman.

We were all frightened of Joanna.

Why?

Didn't like women or she didn't
want to appoint women.

But she loved some of the beautiful
young men who were there at the time

of whom I was rather envious.

I mean, it was Joanna,
I think, who appointed Hugh

and David and Donald.

She always had a bevvy of...
This is Hugh Weldon.

Yes. David Attenborough. Yes.

Donald Baverstock. Yes, I think
they all thought she was wonderful.

The interesting thing is that
she was never called a controller.

And Hugh Weldon, who was the head
of television at this time, said,

It is very important that you should
be called an assistant controller

because we must never allow
Facilities to dictate what we do

or to be regarded as senior
to what we do.

She was a great woman.

And, you know, today she'd
have been director general.

The plaudits for Civilisation
enabled by Joanna Spicer

came raining in.

And even today the series
remains legendary.

But Attenborough's first season
came under fire for the new terrain

he was exploring.

The first Christmas schedule
I was going to commission
Colin Davis to conduct...

Childhood of Christ, Berlioz,

and we're going to do as an outside
broadcast from Ely Cathedral.

That was going to be
the centrepiece.

And then there was a lovely
documentary I remember made by a man

called Sukstorf, which was
a Scandinavian documentary

about a little boy
with his tame otter.

And one thing... I was frightfully
pleased with my BBC Two Christmas,

and there was a particularly
tough critic on the Evening

Standard called Shulman,
Milton Shulman.

And I got onto the tube
after having just declared

what my schedule was going to be.

And we got a headline, something
like, Send Jungle Boy Dave back

to the Jungle, you know,
and then slash this and say,

what an appalling way of
wasting money.

And what of Berlioz. Who wanted
to hear Berlioz at Christmas!

In BBC circles, this is no doubt
categorised as alternative

programming, but in practical terms,

it is the straightforward suicidal
immolation of BBC Two.

And I was really downhearted
and I took out Lord Reith.

I was reading Lord Reith's
by autobiography and the very first

paragraph I read it said,

It is royal to do good
and receive abuse.

And I thought, OK, that'll do me.

For years, Lord Reith kept
his distance from the remarkable

organisation he'd founded.

He was enticed back for its
40th anniversary.

But as he said himself...

When I leave a thing, Mr Freeman,
I leave it.

I met Lord Reith in the House
of Lords when he was a very old man

and very disillusioned and sour
about himself and his life.

He did come to Television Centre
and I know it was all stops out

and, you know, not quite thought
of that, but you know what I mean?

We were all there to do
that and so forth.

He was highly revered
for what he'd brought them,

what he created, hugely admired.

Once the ice had broken,
he'd come back.

He seemed quite keen to come
back again.

His greatest mistake was leaving
when he did in '38,

because when the war started,
the BBC went mad.

It expanded.

The BBC grew and grew and grew
and he no longer

had any say, and he knew
that he had missed his mark.

Are you conscious of having made
any substantial error of judgment

or mistake in the edifice
which you erected?

No.