This New Noise (22 page)
Authors: Charlotte Higgins
Anon (ed.),
Hilda Matheson: Born June 7, died October 20, 1940
, Letchworth, 1940
Attenborough, D.,
Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster,
London, 2003
Avery, T.,
Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922–1938
, Aldershot, 2006
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Bakewell, J., and N. Garnham,
The New Priesthood: British Television Today,
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, 17 October 1985
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, 2nd edn, London, 2009
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The Battle for the BBC: A British Broadcasting Conspiracy
, London, 1994
Barwise, P., and R. G. Picard, ‘What If There Were No BBC Television: The Net Impact on UK Viewers’, from the project Public Service Broadcasting in a Digital World, Oxford, 2014
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Birt, J., ‘The Prize and the Price: The Social, Political and Cultural Consequences of the Digital Age’, The New Statesman Media Lecture, 6 July 1999
—
The Harder Path: The Autobiography,
London, 2002
—‘Scottish Independence Would Have a Devastating Effect on the BBC’,
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, 19 August 2014
Born, G.,
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Briggs, A.,
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—
The BBC: The First 50 Years
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Burnett, G.,
Scotland on the Air: Descriptions of the Working of Various BBC Departments in Scotland by the Officials in Charge of Them
, Moray, 1938
Burns, T.,
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, London, 1977
Burrows, A. R.,
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Carney, M., Stoker:
The Life of Hilda Matheson OBE,
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Carpenter, H., with J. Doctor,
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Colley, L.,
Acts of Union and Disunion: What Has Held the UK Together, and What is Dividing It?
, London, 2014
Cotton, B.,
Double Bill
, London, 2000
Crisell, A.,
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, 2nd edn, London, 2002
Curran, J., and J. Seaton,
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, 6th edn, London, 2003
Day, J., ‘Time and the City’, thejunket.org, 25 April 2014
Day, R.,
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—
Grand Inquisitor,
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Dimbleby, J.,
Richard Dimbleby,
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Downing, T.,
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(BFI TV Classics), London, 2012
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Eckersley, M.,
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, Romsey, rev. edn, 1998
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, London, 1941
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, 7 July 2005
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—
Notes in Advance,
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, London, 1988
Grade, M.,
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, London, 1989
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Hendy, D.,
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Hines, M.,
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, London, 2008
Horrie, C., and S. Clarke,
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, London, 1994
Hunter, F., ‘Hilda Matheson and the BBC, 1926–1940’, in S. Oldfield (ed.),
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, London, 1994, pp. 169–74
Kenyon, N.,
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, London, 1981
Koch, L.,
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Lambert, R. S.,
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, London, 1940
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Lee, H.,
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Le Jeune, M.,
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, London, 2009
Lewis, C. A.,
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Lutyens, E.,
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The Harold Nicolson Diaries,
1907–1963
, London, 2004
MacGregor, S.,
Woman of Today,
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McIntyre, I.,
The Expense of Glory: A Life of John Reith,
London, 1993
Mair, J., R. Tait and R. L. Keeble (eds.),
Is the BBC in Crisis?
, Bury St Edmunds, 2013
Mansell, G.,
Let Truth Be Told: 50 Years of BBC External Broadcasting
, London, 1982
Maschwitz, E.,
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, London, 1957
Matheson, H.,
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, London, 1933
Mayhew, C.,
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, London, 2013
Muggeridge, M.,
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, London, 1940 (paperback edn, 1989)
Murphy, C., ‘“On an Equal Footing with Men?” Women and Work at the BBC, 1923–1939’, doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2011
O’Carroll, L., ‘The Truth Behind
Real Lives
’,
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, 12 December 2005
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8 November 2012
Perkins, A.,
A Very British Strike,
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Purnell, J., ‘The BBC Should Learn from the Birt Era’,
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, 13 November 2012
Reith, J.,
Broadcast Over Britain
, London, 1924
—
Into the Wind
, London, 1949
Robertson, E., ‘“I Get a Real Kick out of Big Ben”: BBC Versions of Britishness on the Empire and General Overseas Service, 1932–1948’,
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28 (4), 2008
Rolo, C. J.,
Radio Goes to War
, London, 1943
Saltire Society,
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, Edinburgh, 1944
Scannell, P., and D. Cardiff,
A Social History of British Broadcasting, Volume 1: 1922–39
, Oxford, 1991
Schlesinger, P., D. Miller and W. Dinan,
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, Edinburgh, 2001
Stuart, C. (ed.),
The Reith Diaries,
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Trethowan, I.,
Split Screen,
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Tusa, J.,
A World in Your Ear
, London, 1992
Webb, A.,
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, London, 2014
West, W. J.,
Truth Betrayed
, London, 1987
Williams, M.,
Inside Number 10
, London, 1972
Williams, R.,
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Wyatt, Will,
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, London, 2003
Wyatt, Woodrow,
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, London, 1985
Wyndham Goldie, G., ‘Viewing Television’,
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, 16 June 1937
—‘Television’, in F. Laws (ed.),
Made for Millions
, London, 1947
—
Facing the Nation: Television and Politics 1936–1976,
London, 1977
Young, H., ‘The Reality of the
Real Lives
Disaster’,
Guardian
, 17 October 1985
To Alan Rusbridger, who commissioned this project and who edited the nine original newspaper articles from which this book sprang; my grateful thanks are due for his kind encouragement and rigorous guidance, and for the opportunity to undertake an assignment that at times seemed overwhelming, but was always fascinating.
To Laura Hassan of Guardian–Faber, who with grace and enthusiasm helped me shape the articles into a book, and to all the publishing team including Sara Montgomery, Jill Burrows and Anna Pallai.
To the many BBC staff and ex-staff who guided my understanding of the BBC and who gave me generous insights into their work; and to the many scholars of the BBC and observers of its workings who shared their views with me. I interviewed around a hundred people, some of whom spoke anonymously, others of whom are not quoted directly, but from all of whom I learned a great deal.
My thanks to the many friends and colleagues who offered support and wisdom, and to those who helped bring the original essays to the page: they include Michael Becker, Andy Beckett, Emily Bell, Chris Clarke, Alan Davey, Jon Day, Susanna Eastburn, Rupert Higgins, James Hislop, Paul Johnson, Paul Laity, Richard Nelsson, Andrew O’Hagan, Anne Perkins, Joshua St Johnston,
Fiona Shields, David Teather and Will Woodward. Particular thanks to Clare Margetson.
To Dan Sabbagh, who generously offered many insights gleaned from his former life as a media correspondent; and to the collective wisdom and generosity of the
Guardian
’s media reporting team.
To Professor Jean Seaton, official historian of the BBC, for her encouragement.
To Katie Ankers and her colleagues at the BBC Written Archives Centre. To the staff of the Rare Books & Music reading room at the British Library. To Laurie Klein of the Beinecke Library at Yale.
To Matthew Fox for the ‘big stride of your mind’ and for your love.
Georgina Henry died on 7 February 2014, aged fifty-three. She had been deputy editor of the
Guardian
, founded
Comment Is Free
, and, as head of culture, was, for a time, my boss. Earlier in her career she had been a fierce, strong and principled media editor. She was, to quote a description of Hilda Matheson, ‘pure gold all the way through’. This book is dedicated, with love, to her memory.
John Reith (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Hilda Matheson
(NPG P1384, © National Portrait Gallery, London)
Vita Sackville-West (© BBC/Corbis)
David Attenborough (© Popperfoto/Getty Images)
That’s Life!
(© Nils Jorgensen/REX)
1950 televised election (© BBC)
Grace Wyndham Goldie
(© George Konig/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Alexandra Palace (© Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
John Birt (© Times Newspapers Ltd/REX)
Tony Hall (© Graeme Robertson/
Guardian
)
Portrait of Hugh Carleton Greene by Ruskin Spear
(© BBC)
Alasdair Milne (© Bill Cross/
Daily Mail
/REX)
George Entwistle
(© Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images News)
1930s Transmitter at Broadcasting House
(© Imagno/Getty Images)
Page numbers in
italics
refer to photographs.
- Adam, Kenneth
1 - Adams, Mary
1
,
2 - Africa Survey
1 - Al Jazeera
1 - Alexandra Palace
1
,
2
,
3
,
4- Goldie describes
1
- Goldie describes
- Amazon
1 - Apple
1 - Apples, Pears and Paint
1 - Archers, The
1 - As You Like It
(Shakespeare)
1 - Astor, Nancy
1
,
2 - At the Edge of the Union
1 - atomic power
1 - Attenborough, Sir David
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
,
5
,
6
,
7
,
8- on Hill
1
- on Hill
- Attlee, Clement
1
,
2 - Auden, W. H.
1
