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Old 13th Nov 2018, 2:43 pm   #21
David G4EBT
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Default Re: Tonight's television

A clip from Wiki:

Mrs Dale's Diary was the first significant BBC radio serial drama. It was first broadcast on 5 January 1948 on the BBC Light Programme, which became Radio 2 in 1967; it ran until 25 April 1969. A new episode was broadcast each weekday afternoon, with a repeat the following morning. A few days after the final episode, a new serial drama, Waggoners' Walk, took over the time slot. The main scriptwriter for many years was Jonquil Antony, and her first collaborator (under a pseudonym) was Ted Willis, later to originate equally well-known characters for Dixon of Dock Green.

In February 1962, the serial was renamed The Dales. The reason stated was that the BBC was conscious that the series was considered by the media to be twee and hopelessly old fashioned. In its last years, The Dales became more sensational. Mrs Dale became a councillor, a position she had to relinquish when she caused a man's death by careless driving. A heart attack forced Dr Dale to retire from practice. Perhaps the most famous storyline was Jenny getting measles; listeners wrote in thousands complaining that she had already had measles in 1949.

The lead character, Mrs Dale, was played by Ellis Powell until she was sacked in controversial circumstances in 1963 and replaced by Jessie Matthews.

On 19 February 1963, a plump embittered fifty-six-year-old character actress Ellis Powell walked out of Broadcasting House for the last time. She wasn't a star - in fact she had earned less than £30 a week. But her voice was as well known in Britain as that of Queen Elizabeth II, for it was heard twice a day by seven million devoted listeners. Miss Powell was Britain's most sacrosanct fictional paragon, Mrs. Dale, in the radio serial Mrs. Dale's Diary.

Then after fifteen years in the role she'd created, the BBC summarily fired her partly because of her drinking habits, and partly because it was felt that the role, and the entire programme, was in need of a facelift. Three months later, aged of fifty-seven, she died. Her friends believed she never recovered from the shock and distress of her summary dismissal by the BBC. In the last weeks of her life she worked as a demonstrator at the Ideal Home Exhibition and as a cleaner in an hotel.

The serial ran for 5,531 episodes, culminating with the engagement of Mrs Dale's daughter Gwen to a famous TV professor on 25 April 1969. On news of its demise, Liberal MP Peter Bessell attempted to introduce a reprieve for the series in Parliament. The BBC Sound Archive holds only five complete episodes of Mrs Dale's Diary, and seven complete episodes of The Dales.

Lots more about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Dale%27s_Diary

And The Archers rumbles on (I think)!
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 2:56 pm   #22
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Default Re: Tonight's television

If I was in the house when Mrs Dales diary was on the radio I had to be quiet, mums favourite radio program.
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 3:00 pm   #23
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Default Re: Tonight's television

I remember it being called Mrs Dales Dreary in some parts up North.

Lawrence.
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 3:49 pm   #24
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Default Re: Tonight's television

There was about 6 hours of television, it doesn’t show it in the listing but there would have been a break between 6pm and 7:30pm.
The light program only started at 9am, the Third at 6pm.

Has David said what a contrast with today.
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 4:11 pm   #25
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Default Re: Tonight's television

David, thank you!
Lawrence, I never heard it called 'Mrs Dale's Dreary', always 'Mrs Dale's Dairy'!

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Old 13th Nov 2018, 5:09 pm   #26
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My daughter and i stumbled across a well hidden, overgrown and boarded up house in Norfolk a few years ago- entry would have been inadvisable/illegal but the outbuildings were all open- and...well, it would have been rude not to investigate. A few months later the place was demolished, lovely knapped flint walls with brick corners, pantile roof, all gone (No great surprise)

Amongst the disintegrated paint tins and unidentified rusticles was an ancient comfy chair on which sat a disintegrating copy of the The Sunday People from July '79, which i simply couldn't leave behind:

There are 4 main listings for Beeb 1/2, ITV Midlands and ITV London. Less detailed listings for Southern, Anglia, Granada, Yorkshire, Westward, HTV, BBC Wales,and 'Channel'.

BBC1 ran from 0900 to 2330 on this day,
BBC2 from 1355 to around 0045.
ITV from around 0900 to Midnight.

The impact of the VCR a few years later can't be underestimated- come in from the pub and watch a film of your choice after midnight- wow!

Pics 1 & 2- Rediffusion Ad- £20 back when you trade in your B&W.
Pic 3- One of those intriguing little anecdotal clips that catch your attention. A Welsh woman and her boyfriend allegedly have 2 unpleasant brushes with what might be a poltergeist.
Unreadable from the photo but i managed to piece it together. Valerie Tabbut, where are you now!?

Dave
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 5:56 pm   #27
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RE Davids interesting info clip [post 21]. The Beeb managerial/dismissal process isn't doing much better today if you follow current events, Radio 2 being just one example. The catch phrase around Mrs Dales Diary [as used repeatedly on Round The Horne to illustrate the dullness] was "I'm ever so worried about [the husband] Jim!" I've got lots of interesting yellowing program details myself, extracted from roof spaces etc including cameras and [rarely] even cash! In addition I've got early mags and Radio Times issues to peruse. As Loudon Wainright says "The Good Old Days are good and gone now. That's why they're good-because they're gone!"

I don't fully agree with Loudo but it is easy to be nostalgic for things such as one channel and rather grim schedules. TV was so new and difficult to access in the fifties that almost anything was put up with. Plus it was all based on the Reithian principle of what middle class people assumed was good for everyone else, sometimes a potters wheel [now called slow television] and a spot of glamour ie a woman in a a Ball Gown introducing things and talking to viewer in a condescending manner [still in vogue] eg the One Show. The huge poster outside the Art Gallery at Bury for the current Victoria Wood Exhibition sums things up beautifully. It carries the punchline from her 50's Announcer sketch. "We'd like to apologise to viewers in the North..... It must be terrible for you !!!"

There is lots on TV but buried in the media avalanche. Ironically you really need the "Radio Times" mainly but not exclusively bought for TV coverage [plus an interest in TV] to plough through it all. There's plenty of nostalgia fictional, practical and historical to be had but I don't blame anyone for being dismissive and opting out-I do that re the Internet from time to time. Very often Television is interesting, informative and entertaining. Peter Jacksons WW1 restored footage was available on our screens at the weekend [BBC2]. I had a [slow] trip on the Ghan Railway across Australia recently [BBC4]. I've almost caught up with the now regular problems with western rail routes via Paddington 24/7 CH5 Mondays and there is always much much more, especially on BBC4 but like saving all those mobile phone photos, it takes some effort, you let a machine decide what you want to view or just don't bother with it at all. Then you end up like the Judge in the sixties saying, "Who are these Beatles?"
Anyone near a Fopp outlet can get the Hunter Davies book I Read The News Today, Oh Boy for £3 [or cheaper at 2 for 1]. Shocking really considering it's quality and insights into the music and the period in history.

Dave W

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Old 13th Nov 2018, 6:27 pm   #28
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"Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible."

They should put that notice up today and then give us some normal programs, not all the mostly tat now seen.
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 8:00 pm   #29
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The Young Ones drew heavily on broadcast comedy:

'Are you going to bed, Vyv?'

'No, i'm just going to watch the dot for a bit longer'

and-

'That ends tonight's programmes from BBC2, we wish you a very good night. Don't forget to switch off your set'

'Why?'

'Cos it'll blow up, you silly boy'
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 11:02 pm   #30
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I liked those moments, like the warning caption telling viewers not to stuff people in old fridges.
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 11:06 pm   #31
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Presumably then it was OK to put them in new fridges
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Old 13th Nov 2018, 11:37 pm   #32
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Mum always used to listen to Mrs Dale's Diary, but the only thing I can remember is that she had an elderly gardener called Monument whose deafness used to get worse whenever he was asked to do something he disliked, saying something like "Your lips are moving, but there's no sound coming out". While I don't remember "I'm worried about Jim", it was evidently said a lot because I do remember one of the then recently ex-Mrs Dales (I forget which one) being interviewed on (presumably) ITV and being asked by the interviewer to say it.

What I do remember are the BBC's public service announcements of the era, one of which was lampooned in one of Ken Dodd's radio shows.

"And here is an announcement. The BBC would like to remind listeners that it is possible to cause considerable annoyance to your neighbours by playing your radio loudly with your windows open. [ pause] Another good way is to set fire to your dustbin! "
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Old 14th Nov 2018, 12:01 am   #33
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Wow, how things trigger memories. I remember that I thought it was Mrs Dale's Dairy.... I knew just what a dairy was, but hadn't a clue about diaries. I'd never heard of them.

One thing from the early sixties stuck in my head was the funniest thing on radio I think there has ever been.

A piece on 'I'm sorry, I'll read that again' took some standard songs and expurgated them:

I could have <beep>'d all night,
I could have <beep>'d all night,
And still have <beep>'d some more
I could have spread my <beep> and <beep>'d a thousand things I've never <beep>d before
I'll never know what made it so exciting, for all at once my <beep> <beep> <beep>

and so on. It's amazing how juvenile minds fill in the gaps. I've never heard this repeated. Did the copyright holder or the BBC censors blow a fuse?

Supremely funny!

Just try it with any well known song, a morse key and a practice oscillator.

David
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Old 14th Nov 2018, 12:22 am   #34
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Default Re: Tonight's television

Quote:
Originally Posted by David G4EBT View Post
A clip from Wiki:

The lead character, Mrs Dale, was played by Ellis Powell until she was sacked in controversial circumstances in 1963 and replaced by Jessie Matthews.

On 19 February 1963, a plump embittered fifty-six-year-old character actress Ellis Powell walked out of Broadcasting House for the last time. She wasn't a star - in fact she had earned less than £30 a week. But her voice was as well known in Britain as that of Queen Elizabeth II, for it was heard twice a day by seven million devoted listeners. Miss Powell was Britain's most sacrosanct fictional paragon, Mrs. Dale, in the radio serial Mrs. Dale's Diary.

Then after fifteen years in the role she'd created, the BBC summarily fired her partly because of her drinking habits, and partly because it was felt that the role, and the entire programme, was in need of a facelift. Three months later, aged of fifty-seven, she died. Her friends believed she never recovered from the shock and distress of her summary dismissal by the BBC. In the last weeks of her life she worked as a demonstrator at the Ideal Home Exhibition and as a cleaner in an hotel.
Wasn't these incidents the basis of the movie

The Killing of Sister George ?

starring the great Beryl Reid
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Old 14th Nov 2018, 1:06 am   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler View Post
A piece on 'I'm sorry, I'll read that again' took some standard songs and expurgated them:
It's still around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEOI...youtu.be&t=364

I used to think Andy Pandy was a girl.
Well he was voiced by a female narrator, what was I supposed to think?
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Old 14th Nov 2018, 1:57 am   #36
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A connection with Sister George? Not heard that one before Charlie but the relationship was featured in a brilliant TV Doc recently! Did you see Beryl in the BBC's original Smiley's People warning... "Eyes Wide Shut George"... "Eyes Wide Shut" the title of Kubrick's last film and a Secret Service term for not visible in plain sight!

I thought you must have your finger on the pulse [so to speak] Graham.
Dylan wrote some "children's songs" [on the Under A Red Sky LP] at one point-including "Handy Dandy". They were derided for their content but at the same time, the Sunday Times academic word feature pointed out that it was a, century's old, early version of Andy Pandy-with a long history-very strange!

I think my Victoria Wood quote should have ended with "them" not "you".
A single word can make a big difference of course.
"Say the Word and you'll be free" as the Beatles observed.
"In the beginning was the word", as Hunter Davies [and the Bible] point out!

Dave

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Old 14th Nov 2018, 2:28 am   #37
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A connection with Sister George? Not heard that one before
Dave
The stage play debut was just after her dismissal, and unlike the film, it involved a radio celebraty, so it seems likley.

Wikipeadia also suggests the death of the Grace Archer character could have been an influence.
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Old 14th Nov 2018, 10:05 am   #38
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Referring to the Radio Prrogram Schedules in that press cutting, one thing that jogged my memory was the very limited amount of regional variations broadcast on the Home Service-maybe no more than 2 or 3 hours per day. Here in N. Oxfordshire we could receive London, Midland, Northern, Welsh and West transmissions, but they were almost always the same program. It's no wonder that Luxembourg was so popular, and that Pirate radio attracted large audiences 10 years or so later. In the 50s & 60s I., and no doubt many others, used to listen to R. Eireann and AFN when these stations were audible in the U.K. That having been said, I also liked a lot of the Light Programme's output, including 'Mrs. Dale's Diary'.
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Old 14th Nov 2018, 10:38 am   #39
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They also did the Des O'Connor 'dirty' song book.

The BBC has copies of all the original broadcasts, they don't repeat some of them due to today's sensitivities in some areas let's say.
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Old 14th Nov 2018, 10:49 am   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler View Post
A piece on 'I'm sorry, I'll read that again' took some standard songs and expurgated them:

I could have <beep>'d all night,
Also
Two little boys had two litte <beep>
each had a wooden <beep>
gaily they <beep> each summers day
<beep> both of course
etc

and that was in the days before "gay" had it's modern meaning.

I reckon one of the universal constants of nature is the amount of good programs on TV. The more channels, the more it is spread out and the more rubbish any individual channel becomes. Then again, were interludes etc. really better or was it just that it was all new at the time and anything would have been interesting? My father used to watch test cards for hours.
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