Chapter 49: This 'n' that. Lots to read.

Includes news of Radio New Zealand and British Broadcasting Corporation promotions, a vintage clothing venture for my wife, a showbiz interview and attending Miss World 1979

From a letter dated March 11 1979:

JUNIOR ACTOR

Elder son Harley is delighted to be in a Grange First School production of “Oliver” which will be put on at а local theatre as part of a schools festival. He has just two lines as Mr Brownlow, but thinks it is terrific.

WORK INSANITY

Radio New Zealand’s part-time freelance UK correspondent has retired and gone back to NZ. This leaves me in charge, on top of my permanent job with BBC World Service News. I had a second telephone installed, just for RNZ, with a number that I retained even after I had quit. I also had a Telex installed in the room I used as an office. Because of the time difference between the UK and NZ the Telex would be chattering away in our night time and could be often heard even with the office and bedroom doors closed.

I effectively have two full-time jobs. This was possible only because of the assistance of a freelance Aussie journalist, the BBC’s generous and flexible shifts, and the tolerance of wife Rosemary who had two children to mother and her freelance typing commitments — not to mention all the visitors from Australia. On reflection, I/we must have been nuts to take on so much.

RNZ produced some promotions for its national talkback news station, 1ZB, in the run-up to the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. For your amusement, some of them can be heard HERE.

My association with RNZ ended in 1982, chiefly because of extra BBC commitments as I rose up the food chain. The Telex was returned to the Post Office, which back then was responsible for phone and Telex communications. About this time, Rosemary and her friend, Anita Harrison, were preparing to launch their companies “London Home-to-Home” and “London Mail Link”, but that is another story.

Back to the letter dated March 11 1979:

A BBC PROMOTION

Next week I will have my first shifts аs Acting Senior Duty Editor at Bush House. I will be doing a couple of dawn shifts [11pm to 8am] to begin with. This is being thrown in the deep end because the dawn SDE is the most senior person in the building and therefore responsible not just for what is going on in the newsroom, but everywhere else in the premises as well. I am flattered to be given the responsibility, but somewhat chilled by the thought of having to carry the can for any disasters. SDEs are expected to have eyes in the back of their head -- and X-ray eyes at that!

From a letter dated June 18 1979:

HOUSE MODERNISATION

The builder who has been working on our house has finished the upstairs part. The carpet will go down in the kids’ room later this week and a new bunk bed is due about the same time. By that time we will be well and truly broke yet again. But it’s worth it. We’re really pleased with all the work that’s been done. The next thing will be to do downstairs, but that looks like being some time away. It will depend very much on how much I can earn from Radio New Zealand. RNZ keeps me pretty busy. I now have quite a comfortable little studio-cum-office. It would be very easy to work myself to death for RNZ, but I try to farm some of the work out to the other correspondent.

NIALL’S READING AND ART

Niall's reading is coming along very nicely after some intensive efforts by the school and Rosemary. He has reached the stage where he enjoys reading, rather than finding it a dreadful chore. He is quite good with numbers as well, but gets his greatest enjoyment out of drawing. He is a born artist, I think. The house is constantly littered with his drawings done on the back of old BBC news bulletins.

NEW JOB

I have just ended two weeks with Newsgathering as acting News Intake Editor (the BBC's title for the person in charge of the correspondents). It was damned hard work and the hours were long, but it had its interesting moments. I particularly enjoyed spending lots of the BBC’s lovely money sending correspondents zig-zagging across the world in pursuit of the various crises that cast a blight across this world of ours. There is something quite heady about spending thousands of pounds on air fares, broadcast circuits and hotel accommodation, knowing that someone else is picking up the tab. Somehow, I think I would enjoy being rich.

From a letter dated July 4 1979:

JUMBLE SALE FUN

Rosemary continues to have great fun at the jumble sales buying discarded clothes from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s for her friend Anastasia’s clothing hire business, “Clothes Peg”. A lot of what she’s found has been hired by various TV companies. The shows are now in production so it will be fun seeing the clothes when the shows are transmitted.

A MATTER OF COLOUR

I did an interview the other day with a son of the ousted Ugandan president Yusufu Lule and I was rather amused by the following exchange . . . ME: “Do you think the Tanzanians might be holding your father because he is guilty of some wrong-doing?” LULE JNR: “Oh no, I can assure you that my father is lillywhite."

HARLEY THE CUB SCOUT

Harley was invested as a Cub this week and he is extremely proud of the fact. The whole thing appeals very much to Harley because of the sense of discipline and order, but Niall, who is much more of a free spirit, has firmly declared that he’s not going to join. Unknown to us, the cub pack that Harley joined is affiliated to the local High Anglican Church. Although we no longer claim to be Christians, we have no objection at all to Harley taking an interest in religion, but it is difficult not to smile when we see Harley crossing himself during prayers at the end of each meeting. He hasn’t a clue what it is all about, but he is determined to get it right.

From a letter dated August 30 1979:

MY FIRST TV INTERVIEW

I had to do a TV interview for New Zealand with the UK Trade Minister, John Nott, who is soon to leave for NZ and Australia. It’s the first full TV interview I’ve done, but I’d seen enough of them to know the procedures, such as asking a selection of the questions a second time -- this time with the camera on me -- ­for slotting in when the interview is edited. It was a challenging experience.

I can see what people mean when they say that radio is a much more intimate medium to work in. Recently I did an interview with the UK Agriculture Minister, Peter Walker. For that, there were just four people -- Walker, his private secretary, his press secretary and me. But for the Nott TV interview, it was like being on a film set. In addition to the minister and me, there was his private secretary and two other advisers (ready to leap in if they thought his performance wasn’t up to scratch or he committed some blunder), his press secretary, a producer, a producer’s assistant, a writer-researcher, a cameraman, a soundman, and a lighting man. Additionally, sitting at the back of the room and listening for ideas they might pinch, were the three members of the crew doing the interview for the ABC.

From a letter dated October 4 1979:

THE GOOD LIFE

I recently did an interview for Radio New Zealand with Richard Briers, one of the stars of the TV series ‘The Good Life’. He is appearing in a New Zealand play that is about to open in London. I must say that I was disappointed. The interview was fine, but off-mike Richard seems incredibly wet -- just like some of his TV characters. He seemed to have a compulsion to keep talking, regardless of whether it made much sense. I was interested to hear him being interviewed on radio in London yesterday and he admitting that his nerves often got the better of him.

From a letter dated December 12 1979:

COMPUTERISED BBC NEWSROOM

We recently moved into our new £3m World Service computerised newsroom. It is an incredible place, but not without its problems. It was designed as the last word in luxury with very comfortable chairs, modern desks and décor — and even carpet on the walls (honest). We hardly use typewriters any more. All stories are written on computer terminals for distribution to translators etc. The computer cost £1.5m by itself and was designed to speed up the distribution of stories and features around the building.

It has been a very difficult time making the changeover from the grubby old newsroom on the floor below. There was a very serious system fault on the second day of occupation. The system packed up because an amendment meant two thirds of the computers were inoperative. Tempers were frayed to say the least. It took four days to trace the fault and even now we are still having problems, mainly caused by the inexperience of the operators.

REPORTING MISS WORLD

Rosemary and I went to the recent Miss World final at the Royal Albert Hall in London. I got a couple of press tickets and we were only three rows back from the stage. The show was a shambles. For a start, the BBC sound engineers went on strike and this messed up the international coverage. But that was just one aspect that went wrong. It seemed to be very poorly organised. We were way wrong in predicting the winner, Gina Swainson of Bermuda.

The weekend before the final, I took Rosemary along as my “sound engineer” to the press conference and photocall at an hotel. That proved much more interesting than the final itself because we could mingle with the girls and talk to them if we wished. I did an interview with the New Zealand entry for Radio New Zealand, but she had precious little to say that was worth broadcasting.

Here’s the winner:

From a family letter dated December 28 1979:

TELEVISION ATTACHMENT

My long-delayed BBC TV news attachment has finally been approved. I’m going to Television Centre in the London suburb of White City for a minimum of three months from early March. It should be quite an experience. The attachment has been difficult to arrange because I am too highly graded to do much switching about in the BBC, especially as the work will, initially at least, be well below my grade. But there is only one way to learn a job — and that is from the bottom.

“STARRING” ON TELEVISION

The World Service operation at Bush House has recently been attracting attention from foreign TV news organisations for various reasons too complicated to go into. So far I have starred (to be more precise, made brief appearances) on all three major American networks doing my impersonation of an Important BBC Newsman. I think I have also made it on Danish and Norwegian TV. If this keeps up, I will have to join Actors’ Equity and fix an appropriate fee for my services!

MEETING “DR WHO”

Tom Baker, the actor who played “Dr Who” in the BBC TV series of the same name, was recently in a department store in Ealing, autographing copies of the “Dr Who” book. Naturally, Harley and Niall were along in a shot. Although they had to queue for nearly an hour to get a copy, they thought it was fantastic to see their hero in person, complete with his long scarf. Rosemary, coincidentally, spotted a similar scarf at a jumble sale a few days later and bought it for the kids. Niall was delighted and wanted to wear it to bed.

BOSSY BOOTS

As my memoir comes to the end of 1979, I found a note about a guest who, though nice in many respects, could be very bossy. It is best not to name her.

Here is an extract from my note written at the time:

Although she [the guest] has never said so outright, she is aghast at what she sees as our disorganised life style. She can’t understand why Rosemary doesn’t plan meals days ahead rather than her “Let’s see what we’ve got in the fridge” approach to meals. Nor can she adjust to the fact that we have no set time to get out of bed in the morning. She thinks it undisciplined of us to get out of bed for only one of two reasons: 1) Someone has to go to work or school, or 2) the kids are making so much noise it isn’t worth staying in bed.

All the conversations with Rosemary are peppered with ill-disguised hints that we might run our lives better. Rosemary makes out she doesn’t hear or does something deliberately provocative like announcing that we will have scrambled eggs for lunch — then serving up hamburgers!

Despite all this, the guest was not a nasty person. Indeed, she was generous and got on well with our two boys. However, after Christmas she chose to move into a local guest house for a more ordered life with a fixed menu arranged days ahead.

That’s it for now.

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Other chapters can be found HERE