Chapter 33: BBC, a scam, and other events

More news behind the news...

I find it hard to believe that I have gone from being a very naive young man editing small weekly newspapers in the Australian bush to being employed by the BBC. Every time I entered Bush House, then home of BBC External Services, later BBC World Service, I asked myself “Is this really me working for the world’s foremost broadcaster?” Astonishing!

Extract rom a family letter dated March 25 1971:

Work at the BBC World Service has been pretty interesting (and a bit hectic) lately. For a while I will be spending most of my shifts producing Radio Newsreel and World Round-up. Radio Newsreel is broadcast on the English language service, and is the source of the BBC reports used by commercial stations in Australia. World Round-up is a specially-prepared 10-minute program land-lined to the American Broadcasting Company and the Australian Broadcasting Commission. I think it is broadcast either by 3AR or 3L0 at 7.l5am each weekday morning. I’ve done a lot of producing before, of course, with Newscope on 3AW, but nothing in which the timing is so critical. Everything is done by the stop-watch. I ‘m finding it all a bit hard on the ulcers at the moment, but I guess I will be much more at ease with the work as I gain experience.

Sadly, I don’t think anyone in this photograph is still alive.

More from the letter of March 25 1971:

Last night, Rosemary and I were asked along to the London Hilton Hotel to hear of a super-duper investment opportunity not to be missed. The invitation came via letter and telegram (both very vague) sent to us by someone who said his daughter was married to a friend of a friend of a friend.

We were deeply sceptical, but as we’d never been to the Hilton (a bit out of our price range) we went along in the hope that at least we’d get a free drink. We discovered on our arrival that 120 other people (most of them Australians) were there – all invited in the same mysterious way.

As we had rather suspected, it turned out to be a rather fancy door-to-door sales crowd. We were offered £1000 and more a month for part-time work, but we didn’t so much as get a drink (except iced water) or a dry biscuit.

For two hours we listened to an incredible spiel by the greatest collection of shifty Australians you have ever seen. They had been sent over here by a company calling itself “Golden Products” which plans to set up a British branch. The “Golden Products”, by the way, are various types of detergents.

The more we thought about this whizzo scheme, the more we realised that it was nothing short of legalised fraud. So today I rang up the “Sunday Times” which spends a lot of time investigating dubious business practices). The chap I spoke to went away and consulted with the editors, then phoned back to say that they’d decided to have it investigated. I’ve arranged for their men to get into a recruiting session in the guise of interested recruits.

The outcome will be interesting. I guess the investigation will take weeks, even months – and of course, it could all come to nothing. Meantime, my tip to you if anyone offers to sell you detergents at the door is – don’t. And if you know anyone involved in such an operation, resist any temptation to warn them of the investigation. If someone in the organisation in Australia found out, it wouldn’t be long before word got back here.

The “Sunday Times” later ran this exposé on “Golden Products” on May 16 1971:

From a letter dated April 20 1971:

An Irish friend down road has had her grand-daughter staying with her for the Easter school holidays. She’s only 10, but in many ways is self-assured and mature. She comes out with some funny things. She told Rosemary of quite definite plans to become an air hostess, but it transpired in a later conversation that she had never been in an aircraft and had no intention to go on one. She was unable to explain how she planned to be a non-flying air hostess. On another occasion, she told Rosemary she had been able to visit a farm and been allowed to hold the cow’s “tentacles”.

Rosemary has a girlfriend who is something of a medical rarity. Her doctor recently discovered that she has two complete sets of reproductive organs. Just one vagina but everything else is in duplicate. She is about to get married and is apprehensive about the problems of birth control.

From a letter dated April 28 1971:

We went to the pictures the other night and Cheryl [Samantha Sang] baby-sat for us. She and Harley really take to each other and Cheryl puts him to sleep by singing pop songs to him. Having a fair idea of what Cheryl charges for a performance, Harley is getting pretty expensive lullabies.

From a letter dated May 10 1971:

On the question of returning home to Australia, we’ve all but given up that I can get a suitable job at the moment. I’m told that for the first time in many, many years, there are more journalists than jobs. 3AW News, for just about the first time in its history, has no vacancies — especially for senior men. I wrote to the boss of ABC News and the editor of Radio Australia and neither could make me an offer. The word over here among Aussie journalists is that many Australian employers are rather anti journalists with overseas experience. This is partly because they see them as potential competitors for senior jobs and partly because they don’t like “smart-arsed” chaps with new-fangled ideas upsetting the status quo.

As an encouragement for me to stay, the BBC has offered me an accumulation of 10 weeks leave late this year. As we now qualify for cheap return charter flights, leaving London in November, we think this is probably what we will do.

I did an interview the other day with the Australian author Russell Braddon who will shortly be making a trip home. A very charming fellow although I don’t fancy some of his political views, particularly on racial questions. The interview was for 3AW, but I have also done an article for the “Sunday Australian” using my nom de plume, Bruce Conway:

From a letter dated May 20 1971:

I'm a bit behind with this letter because we’ve been run off our feet over the last week or so house hunting. We’ve decided that as we'll be staying in London a few more years we might as well buy a house. We’re looking for something that’s a bit run down so that we can do it up as an investment. But it’s a hell of a job trying to find the right place at the right price. A couple of times we’ve found something really promising only to find someone else had got in before us. We have provisionally signed up for a house in East Acton but the seller is planning to go to Australia and doesn’t want to move out until that is settled, whenever. Most frustrating.

Houses in London are enormously dear — with the average price for a place in good condition at around £10,000 but mortgages are pretty easy to get and they are tax deductible. We’re looking for a place of around £7,000 on which we could make a good profit by doing up.

Last Saturday, Rosemary and I went to a wedding. It was of a young Jewish couple we met through Cheryl, and was held at the Marylebone Register Office. We’ve never been to a registry office wedding before. It was very short, but very nicely done in a well decorated room. The buffet reception was just about an all-Aussie affair. The couple, who are from Sydney, are planning to tour the Continent, then to work on a kibbutz in Israel for six months. In return for four hours’ work a day they will be given free bed and board and lessons in Hebrew. It will be an interesting experience. I’ve heard of quite a few non-Jews who’ve worked on kibbutzen and had a great time.

Last Thursday, Cheryl took me along to her recording studio where I took some shots for a “TV Week” article that I'm doing on her. While I was there she recorded a track for her new LP. It was very interesting the way it is all done. The backing group is recorded first, then the string section, then Cheryl’s voice, after which it is all mixed together on one tape. The recording panel was about 12 feet wide. The recording tape was about two inches wide and had 16 separate tracks on it. I think all pop people must be born deaf because I found the volume from the speakers literally painful.

Rosemary reckons her transition from a working girl to a suburban housewife must be complete. The other day, while in the supermarket, she was handed a biscuit spread with margarine and asked “to taste the difference".

Last week, for a treat, we bought a leg of lamb — our first since arriving in England two-and-a-half years ago. It was frozen and from New Zealand, but nevertheless was very tasty. It weighed just over two pounds and cost about 16 shillings.

From a letter dated July 3 1971:

My arrangement with 3AW ended last month. The station, for economic reasons, is reducing the number of correspondents. I was one of those to get the chop. It’s a pity but fortunately the money from 3AW is no longer the main part of my freelance earnings.

From a letter dated July 13 1971:

Friends of ours drove down to Brighton to see the famous beaches there. They discovered there was no sand on those beaches — only pebbles. Our friends were in fits to see the life guards wearing boots to protect their feet. They were also amused by the number of people who were on the beach in their best suits.

Last week we went to “Caesar’s Palace”, the big nightclub just north of London, to see Cheryl’s act. It’s the first time we have seen Cheryl perform since her first hit record when she was 15. We could hardly believe our eyes. It was as if we were watching a total stranger. Cheryl comes to see us at least once a week — often staying overnight — and at 19 is just like any other scatter-brained teenage girl, but on stage she became a very sexy, very mature, very professional star. A real knockout.

From a letter dated July 28 1971:

It’s now just three months until we fly home. We are getting pretty excited about it. It will be great seeing you all again and being with you for Christmas. The charter company said the [economy only] flight would take 27 hours with four stops for re-fuelling. It will be interesting to see what Harley thinks of flying. He turned six months last week and went for his first crawl. He crawled about two feet before his undercarriage collapsed. Since then he has been content to roll over and over or lie on his stomach. He enjoys watching colour television. He also likes colour magazines — for tearing up and trying to eat!

We think we have found another home to buy. (The previous deal for a house in East Acton fell through because the seller messed us about.) It’s a maisonette in a very handy position in Ealing. It has three bedrooms, a lounge, a kitchen, a bathroom-WC and gardens front and back. It was built in the 1930s, which is considered over here to be fairly modern. All it needs is a bit of decorating. If all goes well, we could move in before the end of September.

From a letter dated August 8 1971:

I see that at long last Qantas has caved in over the question of charter flights and is setting up its own charter organization. It should have happened years ago because air fares are unrealistically high. We are lucky to be with one of the few charter firms allowed to operate into Australia, but for anyone else, it had to be done in a very roundabout (and sometimes illegal way). At the moment there's the ludicrous situation whereby you can fly by charter from London to Singapore for £85 with the scheduled flight from Singapore to Melbourne costing £115. It is my tip that within 18 months or so it will be possible to make a return flight from London to Australia for £250.

We have been knocked out by a quite unexpected talent being shown by [Rosemary’s mother] Val Batson. She has suddenly burst forth as a writer of poems and song lyrics. I could see that some of her work was more than a cut above the doggerel that passes for poetry.

Nat Kipner, Cheryl’s manager and a top class song writer and producer, was here for tea and we showed him some of Val’s song lyrics. He was very impressed with one of them and was going to see if he and his main song-writer partner, Gerry Shurey, could work out a tune for it. Gerry does arrangements for such people as Lulu and the “Bee Gees”.

It didn’t happen but Val was very pleased that Nat considered the lyrics worthy of further consideration.

From a letter dated August 16 1971:

At last we are under way with the purchase of the maisonette. On Saturday we received the okay for a mortgage from our building society. We must be getting a bargain because the society has valued it above the price we are paying. Rosemary is beside herself at the thought of all the extra space she will have. She is flat out with her dress-making. She’s almost swamped with business. Very few English women can sew and the general standard of clothes here is appalling. Women’s wear in particular starts disintegrating after a couple of wears.

From a letter dated August 23 1971:

Everything is coming along nicely with the maisonette purchase. But you wouldn’t believe it. Just hours after posting our mortgage acceptance papers, the agent for the East Acton property phoned to say that the owner had bought a house in Devon and we could move into the property whenever we liked. I had the pleasure of telling the agent that the fellow could poke his house up where it would hurt most. What a bloody cheek him thinking we would still buy the house after his refusing to communicate with us or his agent for six weeks!

Rosemary is quite slim now. She’s down to 7 ½ stones, the lightest she has been since her teens. She hasn’t been on a diet — she has just lost weight looking after Harley.

Harley is very well. At the moment he is being fed revolting stuff euphemistically called “Beef Dinner”. As an entrée, he chewed on a page from the “Sunday Times” colour supplement (very tasty!).

From a letter dated September 13 1971:

We’ve still not got a firm date on the new home yet, but it shouldn’t be much longer. It looks as though our venture into housing is coming at the right time. House properties in London are increasing by 15 to 50 percent annually. And just as we go into hock up to our eyeballs, the mortgage rate has also gone down.

I’m doing an interview for “TV Week” with comedian Marty Feldman next week. Should be interesting. Big-name entertainers rarely fit their public image. I’ve often found the bigger they are the more natural they are.

Yesterday we were at the Kipners for tea and they were visited by an American cousin who’s a record producer. With him was Paul Jones, the original lead singer with “Manfred Mann” and now an actor of repute. He seemed very down to earth. It was interesting to hear his version of the infamous incident a few years back in which a plane carrying “Manfred Mann” and “Deep Purple” made an emergency landing in Melbourne. This was because it was alleged that all the musicians on board were drunk. It was unclear whether Paul thought this was true.

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