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Thursday 5 June
BBCtv
Trooping the Colour

Earlier this year the country gained a new monarch, so this is the Queen’s first Trooping the Colour as sovereign. She had had a practice run of sorts last year when she took the place of the King, who was unable to attend due to ill health.

Although the scheduled programme ran for far longer, I’ve only been able to view about 20 minutes of this. With it being a traditional annual parade, it’s perhaps unsurprising that it seemed like little has changed. Aside from less variety in the types of shots used, I felt I could be watching something more recent. There is the same background silence befitting royal occasions and the commentary is quiet, slow and fairly reverential, while carefully imparting small details about the event.

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Thursday 17 July
BBC Light Programme
The Lives of Harry Lime ‘Too Many Crooks’

A couple of years ago I was admiring Anton Karas’s theme for The Third Man (1949) in Radio Luxembourg’s charts, and it appears there was also plenty of contemporary appetite for more from the film. It’s been many years since I saw The Third Man and I don’t remember much, but I think this superb radio series has persuaded me to revisit it.

Harry Lime has a meeting with a bank manager in Hungary, where he’s been offered money to help prevent a bank robbery and ensure the manager’s love rival is the one landed in it. But there are all sorts of double crossings and betrayals going on, with Harry ultimately the only winner. He ensures the police get the right people and has sent a young woman – the manager’s supposedly loyal lover – off on a train, with an implication that Harry may later renew their acquaintance.

The major selling point for The Lives of Harry Lime is Orson Welles, who reprises his lead role from The Third Man, as well as writing several episodes. He portrays Harry Lime earlier in his life, prior to the events of the film. In character, he also provides welcome narration to the story and I found him captivating.

The Lives of Harry Lime isn’t just about the plot; we aren’t following the action of the bank robbery up-close in real-time like we did with the train robbery in The Adventures of P.C. 49 last year. In fact, Harry pointedly tells us we aren’t going to hear the conversation of the would-be thieves because it is “vulgar”. Harry’s narration moves the story on in a humorous style that enhances the programme and really added to my enjoyment. I liked several of his descriptions, including when he set the scene on the night of the robbery:

The moon rises over the city and winks at its own reflection in the Danube. A lot of good Hungarians are in their beds. The others are in a nightclub called the Arizona, dancing the Czardas. They do not come into this story, so we’ll leave them dancing.

This is one of the few ‘outside’ productions that the BBC broadcast at this time. 16 out of the 50 shows made were broadcast, having been produced by Harry Alan Towers’ company, Towers of London – I’ll be hearing more from him in the future.

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Thursday 11 December
BBC Light Programme
Educating Archie

The idea of a radio programme starring a ventriloquist’s dummy sounds daft, but it’s surprising how well it works when you can easily forget about it. You can’t see Archie, so it just seemed like I was listening to a small boy – without knowing more about the show’s plot background, I’m unsure why they didn’t just go with that.

There wasn’t a particularly clear sitcom-like plot to this episode, yet it still trundled along nicely, though my attention did start to drop off towards the end. Archie’s teacher Mr Brough visits and discovers Archie has had the genius notion of pre-writing his Christmas thank you cards – the idea being that he guilt-trips people into buying him the expensive stuff he really wants. He definitely comes across as a cheeky lad with a habit of telling exaggerated porkies.

There is a steady stream of visitors actually, with voices like Hattie Jacques and Harry Secombe both familiar to me. It seems to be common to interrupt entertainment programmes with a musical performance and I think it’s Max Bygraves here.

I did have the feeling of listening to something from a truly different world when I heard a reference to a mangle. A friend of Archie’s, Monica, pops by and decides they should do Brough a good turn by ironing his trousers and this led to something else that intrigued me. After grabbing the iron Monica says, “I’ll plug it in the light socket, and off up the table…” Left with this image of an iron’s cord hanging from the ceiling, I vaguely recalled a documentary about early electrical systems (mainly that they were massive fire hazards). As electricity was first installed just for lighting, there were no other electrical outlets – or they were limited – so a plug that went into the light socket was used.

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Thursday 25 December
BBCtv
The Flowerpot Men ‘Musical Vegetables’

When I previously explored the 1960s, I explained that I was already familiar with several programmes from the Watch with Mother strand, and The Flowerpot Men is another one of them. Radio Times can’t make up its mind of how to bill the programme yet, so it switches between ‘The Flowerpot Men’ and ‘The Flower Pot Men’. Onscreen, it’s simply ‘Flower Pot Men’. Watch with Mother as a brand won’t actually be rolled out until next year and currently this segment is called For the Very Young, a name I rather like because it leaves it quite open as to who the audience might be. Up until The Flowerpot Men’s first episode last week, Andy Pandy had been the sole occupier of this slot, so it must have been nice for some variety.

I did find myself doubting whether I’d got the right date for this episode. Most guides give this broadcast date, but it isn’t titled in the programme listings and the way we are introduced to Bill and Ben, the eponymous flowerpot men, makes it seem more like a first episode.

One small technicality is that it’s unlikely I was watching ‘Musical Vegetables’ as it originally went out because the earliest broadcasts were live, with the stories only being filmed later – presumably a mixture of technical constraints, costs and then the realisation that these series were highly repeatable.

Like so many children’s series – especially those with some nostalgic attachment – I found The Flowerpot Men very relaxing. There is something about a narrator telling a story that is comforting – you don’t have to make an effort to perceive too much because an adult is there to fill you in. As none of the characters speak English, we also often need the narrator’s extra details to work out what’s going on. It enables you to switch off after a long day at playgroup/infant’s school. As today’s broadcast is on Christmas Day, it’s going out a little later than usual – 16.30 instead of the usual 15.45 – so it’s perhaps a welcome distraction while the grown-ups clear up after lunch.

The pace of the programme is incredibly slow, which is the main reason it is able to fill its 15-minute slot. Bill and Ben, our eponymous flowerpot men, poke their heads out of their pots, clamber out, then wander around a small patch of the garden. Today they have taken an interest in the gardener’s vegetables, but it’s a brief look really before Weed, a plant who sits between their pots, starts calling them back because she’s spotted the gardener. This aspect reminds me of other children’s programmes and worlds like that of the Toy Story films, in which the toys always ensure no human sees them moving, usually returning to the position in which they were left.

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The Newsagent
Radio Times May 30, 1952. Cover price: Threepence
‘A Writer on the Beat’ [Page 41] [Pilgrim Street box out page 44]

Pilgrim Street is described within Radio Times as a “series of documentaries” and “a series of six documentary stories”. It’s a little confusing because Pilgrim Street is actually one of the first police drama series. There is a reluctance to say this – most of Jan Read’s article gives the impression that these programmes are ‘documentaries’ but it’s not in the wholly non-fiction sense as we understand the description today.

We decided to take our cameras into the streets, the houses, the amusement arcades, and the public houses, where police work begins. Like the P.C. on his beat, we would be prepared for anything that might happen ‘on our manor’ as he would describe his station district.

Only the word ‘stories’ in the synopsis gives us any real clue on the listings page and it takes until the penultimate paragraph of this article for the show’s writer to bluntly state that the episodes are fictional. The emphasis is on providing viewers with as much realism as possible, with Read explaining his research credentials. Even with Read telling us that the series is fiction, it is still difficult to tell whether these programmes are more like dramatised documentaries than dramas.

Authenticity is deemed the most crucial element for this series and the programme is set to take a look at more ordinary police work, rather than the rare and frequently sensationalised murders. It’s intriguing that earlier in the year Cecil McGivern, Head of Television Programmes, thought, “these stories are pretty sordid without doing any real good” while also finding them “ordinary to the point of dullness”. As the series is missing, we can’t properly judge for ourselves.

Made with the cooperation of the Metropolitan Police, it’s safe to say that officers would have been portrayed favourably. Read says the programme aims to depict the police as “helpers and protectors of the public” but I was intrigued that a viewer research report revealed some of the audience thought officers were represented as “rather more polite and patient than is normal”.

‘Five Newsreels a Week’ [Page 41-2]

Historic news as we learn that Television Newsreel is to be broadcast every weekday, with a “composite” edition broadcast on Sundays.

Until now, there have been three editions a week. Philip H. Dorté, BBC Head of Television Films, ponders on some of the concerns viewers might have, including, “Will there be enough news to fill five editions a week?” This seemed a surprising consideration when Newsreel is still only 15 minutes long. However, his article conveys some of the challenges the team faces. With the programme being shot on film, it has to be processed, edited and a commentary added, so we’re told that “a film newsreel can never be entirely topical”.

I’d be curious what brief Newsreel had as it’s apparent that they are never going to be the first to deliver any important news – even the following day’s newspapers are likely to beat them to an audience. It’s not just the time it takes to create the finished product – sporting authorities are reluctant to provide access and when they do it’s with limitations. There is a preference to allow cinema newsreels to screen items first. Television is not exactly being stifled, but there is certainly an air that it should know its place, which is definitely below both cinema and radio.

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The Pictures
13 East Street
Certificate: A

I wasn’t that enthusiastic about sitting down with this as I’d done a few B-movies recently. However, Talking Pictures TV had a strange dearth of 1952 flicks for several weeks, so while the rest of the world slept in or went to church one Sunday morning, I sat alone in the pictures.

13 East Street opens with a man holding up a jewellery store, then making an escape out the back as the police arrive – they’re very prompt, but we figure out why later on. He legs it down alleyways and across various rubble sites, which I presumed were bombed out as they seemed only partially demolished. Despite ditching his trench coat and trilby, the police catch up with our man and he goes down for the armed robbery.

Prison life looks grim but doesn’t last long as our man Blake and his cellmate Joey escape while being moved by train. Joey introduces Blake to his gang, where Blake quickly proves his tough-guy credentials. It’s only after all this that we discover that Blake is in fact an undercover police officer. I liked how far we followed his story before this reveal as he had made a convincing villain.

He’s got a wife, but is also flirting with one of the gang’s sort-of secretaries – do gangs have secretaries? Well, she’s helping with their business front. Blake then commits a couple of small thefts, yet a few incidents lead him to fall under suspicion. Throughout, a few gang members are unsure if they can really trust Blake, leaving plenty of low-level tension and atmosphere. This all builds to a great climax when the gang takes on a big warehouse job and Blake finds himself vulnerable.

Despite my reservations, I loved 13 East Street. It was fast-paced, tense and exciting. I was intrigued to see it was produced by Robert Baker and Monty Norman, with the former also directing. He would eventually start to be credited as Robert S. Baker and 10 years later the two of them would make The Saint together. It’s arguable that there are elements of the programme here: while we see some input from Scotland Yard, Blake is largely depicted as going it alone; there are fights, getaways and shootouts; and at under an hour and a quarter you could probably cut this down close to 50 minutes for a TV-length episode. There is even a Saint episode with a similar opening plot of Simon Templar getting caught thieving and sent to prison so he can uncover a criminal operation. The Saint is far more glossy, but this was wonderfully grotty.

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The Record Store

It’s only towards the end of 1952 that the NME begin to compile a singles chart based on physical record sales (more on that next year) so once again I’m looking at the number ones from Radio Luxembourg’s music chart, which are based on sheet music sales.

12 January
The Loveliest Night of the Year
Mario Lanza
★★★☆☆ HIT
This is a very operatic style performance and seemed lovely background music.

23 February
There’s Always Room at Our House
Guy Mitchell
★☆☆☆☆ MISS
I wanted this to stop as soon as it started. There are hardly any instruments on the record so there is not even an attractive tune to help you cope with these eager Americans welcoming you into their home.

22 March
Unforgettable
Nat King Cole
★★★★★ HIT
Nat appeared last year so I’ve already had a sampling of his fantastic voice. The only downside of this slow number was that it was too short – I wanted to listen for far longer.

24 May
A-round the Corner
Jo Stafford
★★★☆☆ HIT
Upbeat and relentless, this was simply too much of a fun earworm for me to dislike it. With lots of echoing and repetition, it’s an easy one to join in with after only a handful of listens.

14 June
Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart
Vera Lynn
★★☆☆☆ MISS
Like many, I associate Vera Lynn with the war, so it’s easy to forget that she was young enough to have a career far beyond that too. Although I enjoy her voice, it’s supported here by a choir of others who dominate too much for me. The record itself isn’t great – its lyrics include “we’ll meet again”, which instantly conjures up thoughts of Vera’s most famous record, but also serves to remind us that it’s a far better one.

23 August
The Homing Waltz
Alma Cogan
★☆☆☆☆ MISS
Inoffensive but also incredibly dull.

25 October
Here In My Heart
Al Martino
★★★★☆ HIT
Oh wow – Al has a big voice to kick this off and immediately grabs your attention. He’s pouring out his feelings and it feels powerful, backed with an impactful orchestra.

27 December
You Belong To Me
Jo Stafford
★★★★☆ HIT
I’d never even heard of Jo Stafford before I began exploring these charts, but I’m beginning to find I quite enjoy her music. Specifically, it’s her voice, which is slightly sultry in this number as she speaks to a lover, who appears to be going away. The images she conjures up of this lonely traveller are of them in jungles or Egyptian markets, and I did wonder whether she could be addressing a National Serviceman.

The post Time flight: 1952 appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

I’ve been really curious to sample some of Radio Luxembourg’s output – any, in fact. It seems like this fantasy station that I’ve only heard of – at least I have vague pre-conceptions about BBC radio; this era has been sampled in documentaries, films and various television programmes, while some of it is still frequently repeated on Radio 4 Extra, and you can explore even more online. In comparison, Radio Luxembourg feels elusive.

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Friday 19 January
BBC Home Service
Letter From America
LISTEN ON BBC SOUNDS

Alistair Cooke has been sending his radio letters from the US since 1946. I’ve listened to a small number of them before, partly just because I was intrigued by the notion of him doing these regular weekly programmes for over half a century. In this edition, I’m particularly interested that he’s informing us about television in America.

Alistair tells us that the newspapers in the US have recently begun giving television half a page, which is just as long as the radio schedules are given. “It used to be a little corner in a single column with the stations opening for business around five in the afternoon and going off at ten,” he says, which isn’t too different to how BBC Television is currently operating – except television in the US now begins at 9am and is on air until midnight.

In contrast, in the UK television is certainly not considered on par with radio at this time; television only gained its own department within the BBC last year – previously it had come under the radio departments. It also seems astounding that the television schedules appear to have rapidly expanded across the day in a way that won’t happen on this side of the pond for over 30 years. We’re told that “they start at nine in the morning with a programme called Morning Chapel and The News, and then end at midnight with The News,” but I do wonder about the quality of what’s going on in between.

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Sunday 25th February
Radio Luxembourg
Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh

The BBC has had to begrudgingly accept Radio Luxembourg’s existence. The station broadcasts across Europe in several languages, with its English language service going out during evenings and for longer on Sundays.

Before the war, the BBC had unofficially let it be known that artists who appeared on Radio Luxembourg were unlikely to be offered more work from the BBC. This turned out to be a rather poorly considered gesture, with several artists choosing Luxembourg, and the BBC soon realised they were shooting themselves in the foot by excluding some of the most successful and popular artists from their service.

Despite a wartime break, Radio Luxembourg has gone from strength to strength. Its burgeoning listening figures have resulted in growing revenue from an increasing number of sponsors. I haven’t been able to pin down the sponsor for Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, though I’ve found reference to a chocolate company, and Rowntree’s and Fry’s have been among those sponsoring other programmes. The general arrangement for the station at this time is that the sponsor pays Radio Luxembourg for the programme’s airtime, but it also pays the performers and the producers of the programme material.

Just from hunting for an episode, I’d learned that Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh is set on an RAF base. It’s odd to be listening to a programme that started during the war. Much Binding in the Marsh had begun on the BBC General Forces Programme before moving to the Light Programme and would only spend one of its seven series on Radio Luxembourg.

I am presuming the money was a big attraction – two of the show’s stars, Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne, were offered £50,000. I don’t know what the BBC were paying but that seems like a phenomenal amount of money for 1951. It’s surprising that the show then returned to the BBC – all the more so considering the Corporation’s ongoing antipathy towards a commercial station that appears to have effectively stolen their product. It does make me wonder what went wrong to tempt the performers back to the BBC.

So many post-war things I’ve encountered seem to feature the services. Undoubtedly, this appealed because they had recently been a common if not prominent part of many people’s lives – and still were because National Service would last until the early 1960s. I think that while most people might have wanted to move on from the war, they had fond memories of comradeship, or at the very least they could relate to the same experiences.

I rather enjoyed Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh because so much of it was wordplay. It would take a few more episodes for me to get a handle on the various characters; although there weren’t too many, they seemed to come in and out very fast without chance for me to quite determine who they were.

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Monday 30 April
BBCtv
Henry Moore
WATCH ON BBC ARCHIVE

A documentary on sculpture would not have been my ideal viewing selection as I’ve no interest in the art world, and I did think I might find this examination of Henry Moore a bit of a chore.

The production team has arranged to film Moore at work over a period of months, both in and outside his studio. Therefore, I was surprised by how little we hear from the man himself, which did seem a shame. In a half-hour programme, he speaks for only a few minutes. Instead, we hear from an unseen narrator throughout almost the entire documentary, reminding me of The Debate Continues from last year. Here though, there were sections when the narrator was relaying the artist’s own views and I would have preferred to hear this first-hand.

I liked that there were relatively long stretches of silence at times during montages of Moore’s sculptures. Even music can tell us how we are supposed to feel about something, so it was nice to be given time to simply look and absorb, without having any information or opinions imposed upon us.

What I most enjoyed was the demonstration of how one of Moore’s giant metal sculptures is created, right through from the first designs. I was intrigued to realise that though the design and initial work is the artist’s, the sheer size of the final piece means industrial-style castings are required to be fabricated and then pieced together. While it is undoubtedly largely Moore’s work still, he must be reliant on and trusting of everyone else involved in the process.

From the start of the programme it was clear that Moore’s sculptures are of an abstract style. Despite the explanations provided, some of it looked, frankly, naff to me. I found myself thinking: that is supposed to be a person? That twisted metal or concrete? My imagination can only be stretched so far. Perhaps that’s the problem…

I was reminded of the day our small 6th form English class was walking through the school grounds and our teacher paused to point out a sculpture. It was a huge granite blob and I’d been passing it every school day for over five years. Our enthusiastic teacher told us how this giant misshapen object represented a concept (I cannot remember what), and I just couldn’t see it. No matter how much he tried to help us, I couldn’t accept that this was anything but an eyesore.

By the end of the programme, I had to conclude that Moore’s work simply wasn’t to my taste, yet I had enjoyed learning about the process of its design and construction.

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The Pictures
Old Mother Riley’s Jungle Treasure
Certificate: U

Although the name Old Mother Riley was vaguely familiar to me, I had no idea what to expect from this film. Luckily, Talking Pictures TV provided a brief Who Was Old Mother Riley? intro programme that gave me more of an overview.

Mother Riley is a loud, clumsy old woman, and at the start of the film she and her daughter are working in an antique shop. Mother Riley is visited by a ghost, who directs her to buried treasure he left on an island. I wanted the jungle treasure hunt indicated by the title, but it took an age to get there. The comedy before they leave is all physical and I wasn’t that engaged by it – I enjoyed it more when they boarded a plane and introduced some wordplay.

Mother Riley is an over-the-top character that I might have found grating, except by the time they had landed on the island it was a reasonably sized ensemble cast.

After a jungle trek the group can hear native singing and music. We eventually see one black man in a tribal-style outfit, only for him to turn to a nearby radio and switch off the native music. As the group ponder whether he might speak any English, one of them steps forward and realises he recognises the man – they were at the same public school together. I rather liked this gag for highlighting the characters’ (and possibly the contemporary audience’s) preconceptions, but ultimately it’s all downhill after this.

The depiction of the island’s other natives is appalling as the English visitors behave like people confident that an imperialistic empire is behind them. They quickly find slaves to carry their belongings (as well as Mother Riley) and the suggestion for testing a potentially dangerous water crossing is that the natives can go first.
Despite my reference to a ‘jungle’, this looks like a very cheaply made film; there aren’t many sets and it’s mostly studio bound. The beach set is pretty small and gets used multiple times. We never get so much as a point-of-view shot of the sea and the only time we see the outside of the plane is when it’s blown up in a model shot – which I did admittedly enjoy because: exploding models!

I can see why people got so much joy out of the Old Mother Riley films – this is daft, farcical fun. Old Mother Riley’s Jungle Treasure is the 17th one in 15 years, with one more to follow next year. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Old Mother Riley is played by Arthur Lucan in drag with his wife, Kitty, playing Mother Riley’s daughter. It was a double act that went back to their music hall days, which makes this an interesting link to much older culture.

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River of Steel
Certificate: U

This fantastic little animation was made in cooperation with the British Steel Council and while it does have a BBFC classification for public showing, it seems more likely to have been made for industrial settings. The steel takes centre stage as we are shown it processed, then how vital it is to our world. We watch infrastructure and homes lose their steel, then get magically restored; everything from bridges and cars to armchairs and nappy pins. It’s lively and colourful and abstract so I found the whole film really engaging.

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The Frogmen
Certificate: U

The Frogmen is about a special underwater section of the US Navy. They’re depicted initially as an arrogant lot, feeling that the skilled and risky nature of their jobs puts them above the ordinary seamen. They clash with their new commanding officer, and this provides a storyline throughout the film.

I fancied The Frogmen for the chance to see a young Robert Wagner, who I greatly enjoyed in It Takes a Thief when I visited the 1960s. The rest of the cast were not familiar to me. I was also drawn in by the promised underwater action, which proved impressive for the period and was the highlight of the film for me. Although it mostly consists of the men setting up their explosive charges, later on, there are full on vicious knife fights.

I was reminded of Thunderball (1965), a Bond film that is lauded for its innovative underwater sequences. The Frogmen is certainly far more limited – I think there may have been only a single submergible camera. It also lacks the incidental music that helps make Thunderball’s sequences so exiting and entertaining. On the other hand, the frequent silence, bar the men’s breathing apparatus, does itself provide a tense atmosphere for The Frogmen. Combined with the monochrome visuals, which result in a murky darkness near the ocean floor, such scenes effectively depict the discomforting uncertainty of being alone and vulnerable with the unknown.

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The Record Store

I’m following Radio Luxembourg’s music chart based on sheet music sales. One of the problems with ranking the most popular songs based on sheet music sales is that songs were often recorded by numerous different artists around the same time. Therefore, for some of 1951’s top songs, I’ve listened to a couple of different versions to see how they compare.

Looking through, I’m glad I’m only a visitor to the 1950s because 1951 was not a good year for me in terms of music. There wasn’t much I liked, with some of my hit choices only just making it. The sheet music buyers of 1951 also seem to have preferred the stuff I didn’t as those songs spent far longer at the top of Radio Luxembourg’s chart.

6 January
I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat
Mel Blanc
★★★★☆ HIT
I was sure I was going to hate this but it’s really fun! I imagine it may have been bought for or by lots of children over Christmas.

27 January
Beloved, Be Faithful
Teddy Johnson
★★★★☆ HIT
Until last year, Teddy was a presenter on Radio Luxembourg, but he’s now returned to his former profession and seems to be making a decent go at it. Teddy has a grand, posh voice and his singing style takes me back to watching old films at my grandparents’ house. I enjoyed this upbeat song.

Beloved, Be Faithful
Donald Peers
★★☆☆☆ MISS
Ooh, no – this is far more maudlin than Teddy’s rendition!

3 February
The Petite Waltz
Billy Cotton Band
★★★☆☆ MISS
The Billy Cotton Band are popular regulars on BBC radio at this time. I was on the fence for this instrumental – 2.5/5 is probably more accurate. There are tinkly pianos, trumpets, yet nothing stands out and there is no star moment.

The Petite Waltz
Anne Shelton and Dick James
★★☆☆☆ MISS
This version sounds quite different to the instrumental, but I didn’t like it anymore with lyrics.

17 February
Tennessee Waltz
Patti Page
★★★☆☆ HIT
Just about a hit for me. It’s a much slower waltz than either of the versions of The Petite Waltz and therefore I couldn’t see it as a dance number. However, I did think it was very relaxing. It spent over two months at the top of the charts so clearly it went down well.

21 April
Mockin’ Bird Hill
Les Paul and Mary Ford
★☆☆☆☆ MISS
It makes a change to hear a guitar on a record when so much of the music I’m hearing has traditional orchestras. I found this very twee though and it was like listening to a nursery rhyme.

30 June
With These Hands
Nelson Eddy and Jo Stafford
★★☆☆☆ MISS
I played this record numerous times because I couldn’t make up my mind about it, yet the more I heard it, the drearier I found it. I did actually like both singer’s voices together, but the song itself let them down.

21 July
My Resistance is Low
Hoagy Carmicheal
★★★☆☆ HIT
Although I liked this, I don’t think the lyrics are particularly good – they don’t convey a great deal. The song sounded like it belonged in a musical, which meant that it felt slightly odd to hear it in isolation.

18 August
Too Young
Jimmy Young
★☆☆☆☆ MISS
Slow, soppy and dull.

Too Young
Nat King Cole
★★★☆☆ HIT
Much better. It’s still soppy and fairly slow because that’s the song, but there’s a nice piano instrumental and Nat King Cole is far more engaging.

10 November
Longing for You
Teresa Brewer
★★☆☆☆ MISS
Crikey this is a bit too sickly sweet for me.

The post Time flight: 1951 appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

There will be few reading this who have not had television as a constant throughout their lives – certainly since childhood. I’ve found it fascinating to start getting my head around an era of broadcasting where television is a minority medium. One of the best summations I’ve heard was from writer and producer John Wyver; I was intrigued to hear him explain that “television is not the stable, domestic” thing it would become by the late 1950s, describing it as “an extension of radio”.

1950 is an appropriate time for me to begin this project. It’s the first full year of the BBC transmitting television to the Midlands, marking the start of television’s expansion beyond London. There were 126,567 combined TV and radio licences in 1949, which had more than doubled to 343,882 by 1950. This rate of increase would only continue. For now though, these are relatively small numbers; television’s audience is a lucky, middle class minority.

Radio broadcasts are being enjoyed regularly in far more homes – the radio-only licence reached its peak in 1950, numbering 11,567,227 – and the dominance of sound broadcasting would remain for several years. To reflect the continued importance of radio in people’s lives during these years, I’ve decided to include radio programmes in my schedule too, and you will notice that I’ve mixed them in with the television programmes.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

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Thursday 27 July
BBC Light Programme
The Adventures of P.C. 49 ‘The Case of the Black Diamonds’

If exploring this era’s TV is like visiting a foreign country, looking into radio feels like being plonked on a passing asteroid heading for another galaxy, with only the vague memories of a junior encyclopaedia and some Professor Brian Cox documentaries. In situations like these, it’s very useful to be able to call for help to friends at Transdiffusion HQ. For instance, why is it called the ‘Light Programme’ when it’s not actually a programme as I understand the term and is in fact a radio station? If your radio knowledge is similarly patchy, start here.

With albums, podcasts and audiobooks to choose from, I am usually overwhelmed with audio choice, yet I’ve never been much of a radio listener in the modern day – actually, that’s an understatement; I haven’t regularly listened to current radio in over a decade. I have listened to some radio series from around this period though. Most are from a few years later, but I have ventured earlier with a few 1940s episodes of It’s That Man Again – often known simply as ITMA. All this radio I’ve been drawn to has been comedy, although my experience with the far-more-recent Big Finish audio plays meant I was curious to hear some radio drama.

The Adventures of P.C. 49 has been running since 1947 and a film version (with a different cast) was released in 1949. Its sequel, A Case for PC 49 will appear next year and this time some of the radio cast will be involved.

This show’s title had given me the impression that the eponymous P.C. 49 would be front and centre, yet he doesn’t appear until over halfway through and most of the episode sticks with the criminals. We follow them as they plan, carry out and then attempt to get away with a train robbery.

I really enjoyed the exciting action, particularly during the theft itself, which involves one of the thieves – Tom, a train employee – clambering across the train’s roof and dangling down to get across the compartments, unseen. He nervously panics when the guard he had planned to cosh sees his face, and Tom decides he has to do him in.

I hadn’t expected to know any of the main cast, so it was nice to have familiar voices among the guests with John Laurie and Gordon Jackson. Elsewhere, Mary MacKenzie plays Janet, a young woman who plans the whole venture. Her posh English accent stood out next to the other two’s Scottish ones and, combined with her harsh roguishness, she conjured up an image of the deceptive ladies I’ve come across in The Saint books.

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Saturday 12 October
BBCtv
The Debate Continues
WATCH ON BBC IPLAYER

My first television programme of the decade was a documentary on the reconstruction of the House of Commons, which had suffered bomb damage during the war. I found it informative as though I knew the Commons had been damaged, I hadn’t realised it was so extensive that Parliament had had to move out.

There was some talk on the war – presumably in case a few viewers had failed to notice the Luftwaffe – then we watched trees being felled and skilled craftsman recreating various aspects of the previous version of the Commons. I particularly enjoyed seeing the wooden carvings take shape – today someone would upload it to social media with #satisfying. I could gradually start to match up sections with the House of Commons I’m familiar with in the present day. It was slightly different because I’ve never seen the interior in black and white, then I remembered that 1950s viewers were unlikely to have seen much, if any, of the House of Commons before. This must have been all the more fascinating for them.

With so little programming surviving in a complete form, there must have been good reason for The Debate Continues to have done so. One reason is that it wasn’t made on expensive-and-temptingly-reusable videotape, but by the BBC Film Unit. Created in 1948, the Film Unit was soon separated from Outside Broadcasts and the majority of its output consisted of the BBC’s twice-weekly newsreels, as well as travelogues and documentaries. The Debate Continues is also clearly capturing an historical moment with speeches from Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Leader of the Opposition Winston Churchill.

However, for me the more exciting appearances were those of the Royal Family. I’m used to seeing Queen Elizabeth on telly, so I tend to take a glance at her hat on the news and that’s about it. But I’d almost forgotten I’d time travelled – when the royals arrived for the reopening ceremony, it was the King who stepped out of the leading car with his wife, the (other) Queen, whilst Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret followed in a second car. I associate King George VI with radio and cinema newsreels and was taken aback by the realisation that people could actually watch him in their own homes.

I was fascinated by the explanation of procedures. The events we watch are in Westminster Hall but we are told that the royals had been to see the new House of Commons chamber the day before; the significance of this is underlined when the narrator (one of a couple of unnamed voices) tells us it’s the first time a king has set foot in there since Charles I. George VI’s visit seems to have gone down better and didn’t impinge on Parliament’s right to exclude the monarch because the new chamber hadn’t actually been formally occupied yet.

Several speeches are made. It sounds ceremonially grand because it’s so grovelling towards the King – there is an emphasis on His Majesty allowing the people to use his Palace of Westminster. In the present day, there is not such widespread and unequivocal respect for the Royal Family, and I think many people’s reactions would be, “His palace? Our taxes have paid for it.”

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Monday 30 October
BBC Light Programme
Paul Temple and the Vandyke Affair ‘The Sitter In’

I am vaguely aware that there was a Paul Temple television series, but I knew nothing about that or the radio version. From this episode I gathered that Paul is some sort of private detective. A child has gone missing and, him having already been contacted by the mother, Mrs Gladstone, the police also turn up asking for Paul’s involvement. It’s clear Paul knows the officers but it’s not apparent why they are asking for his help – they’re stumped yet we’re not informed why Paul should do any better.

I was expecting the kind of excitement and thrills I’d had with The Adventures of P.C. 49, but Paul Temple was more about the intrigue slowly unfolding itself. There are minimal sound effects and everything is built around conversations, with numerous interviews as Paul and his wife start speaking to everyone involved.

While Mrs Gladstone, a widow, was out for the evening, her 18-month-old little girl was being looked after at home by Miss Millicent, an “elderly spinster” and the ‘sitter in’ of the title, who also disappeared at the same time.

Miss Millicent lives with Miss ‘Queenie’ Edwards and I’m calling it that they’re a couple. A friend of Mrs Gladstone says that when he told Queenie of Miss Millicent’s disappearance, “She seemed awfully upset”. Despite the “elderly spinster” badge, Miss Millicent is also described as an “old girl” and based on previous experiences, I’m inclined to believe she may only be around 50. With Queenie more specifically described as “about 30”, they have a large age gap, yet we’re still told that Queenie is “a sort of paying guest” and “they’ve been together for years”.

Although I enjoyed the episode and feel tempted back by the cliffhanger, I’m a tad sceptical about the serial’s ability to hold me until the end – I’m used to audio plays that are under two hours in total and, at eight episodes, I feel this Paul Temple may be too long for such a slow-moving drama to keep my attention.

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The Pictures

In 1950 there were 4,583 cinemas across the country and UK admissions stood at almost 1.4 billion. For a comparison to today, by 2020 the UK had 843 cinemas (interestingly, the total number of screens for 2020 was 4,596 – perhaps due to the fact that almost half of all UK cinemas are now multiplexes, with 5 or more screens) and 2019’s admissions had reached 176 million – and this is the industry following a revival.

Impressive as 1950’s statistics are, I wonder whether many people realised that admissions had already passed the start of a steep decline. Nonetheless, at the start of the decade television is a relatively minor affair for most people. If we go by the UK’s population, cinema attendances work out at more than twice a month per person. Surveys showed that more than half of admissions were of people going twice a week or more.

I’m far from a film buff – I’ve always invested too much time and interest in television to fit films in, even though I’d like to see more. It might seem easy and obvious to explore cinema through the top films for each year, but I’ve seen several of them and I can guarantee you probably have too – you’ll certainly have heard of them. Plus, I’m not sure these films are necessarily representative – they’re exceptional, and so also potentially the exception in any given year.

Instead, I’m mainly going to visit the alternative picture palace of Talking Pictures TV. Their admission prices are very reasonable and, hopefully, it should provide me with a varied choice of film treats.

Cheaper By the Dozen
Released: 31 March
Certificate: U

I have not seen the 2003 film of the same name, but from its synopsis I think it is quite different and doesn’t sound like a strict remake of this one. This can only be for the best. While the 1950 version of Cheaper By the Dozen was billed as a comedy, I found few laughs and it was barely entertaining.

At the start of the film, the family’s father, Frank Gilbert, whistles and then times how long it takes the kids to appear. They then jump into line in age order for him to inspect how clean their hands are. One lad in a baseball uniform is admonished for his dirty palms, which seems bizarre because he is a young boy who has been playing outdoors and has literally just been yoinked inside. Although the film is set in the 1920s, I found it odd that this whole scenario is presented seriously and acceptable – it resembles a similar line-up in The Sound of Music, but the father there is depicted as harshly authoritarian.

Much of what I saw seemed highly twee and stereotypically ‘perfect’ American family at times, with umpteen cries of “Oh, gee!” The children also refer to their parents with “Ma’am” and “Sir” at times, which stood out, even though it is something I’ve come across before.

I think my biggest issue is that the film doesn’t have one overarching plot and is simply a series of disconnected scenarios bolted together.

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The Record Store

When I previously visited the 1960s, I started tuning into the Singles Chart each year. It wasn’t often to my taste in the earlier years, but that in itself proved educational – the music I’d most associated with the decade wasn’t necessarily what I found in one week’s Top 10 or 20.

I’ve always been more of an album person, so thought I might travel through the 1950s with those instead… except the UK didn’t have an album chart for much of the decade. Back to singles? Well, there wasn’t a singles chart until 1952 either.

I did have another option for 1950 though: Radio Luxembourg was among the few commercial radio stations whose airwaves could reach British ears, and they broadcast a sheet music Top 20. I decided to listen to the year’s number ones, and I’ll see how this arrangement goes until we get a chart based on record sales.

You’re Breaking My Heart
Ink Spots
★★★★☆ HIT
This reminded me of a 1930s’ crooner number and I’m partial to a bit of Al Bowlly, so enjoyed it.

Hop Skotch Polka
Billy Whitlock
★☆☆☆☆ MISS
Instrumental. I wanted someone to please make all the bells to stop.

The Harry Lime Theme
Anton Kara
★★★★☆ HIT
This piece from 1949’s The Third Man features a lovely bit of acoustic guitar.

Dear Heart and Gentle People
Dinah Shore
★★★★☆ HIT
Nice and jolly, but the word ‘wholesome’ was what mainly came to mind.

Music! Music! Music!
Teresa Brewer
★☆☆☆☆ MISS
The lyrics in this repeatedly refer to the “old nickelodeon” and by the end I was still unsure what that was. A jukebox? Google tells me yes but also a cinema. It had previously just been a TV channel to me and I’d assumed it was a nonsense word.

(If I Knew You Were Comin’) I’d’ve Baked A Cake
Eve Young and the Homesteaders
★★★☆☆ HIT
First song I was familiar with, though possibly by a different artist. This was cheesy and felt suitable for a children’s party, while also having a nice guitar lead.

My Foolish Heart
Billy Erkstine
★★½☆☆
I’m on the fence with this one. Billy has a very deep voice, but I wasn’t sure if I really found this performance that impressive.

Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered)
Doris Day
★☆☆☆☆ MISS
A slow, quiet song that needs a more stunning singing voice to be the star of it.

Silver Dollar (Roll, Roll, Roll)
Eve Young and the Homesteaders
★★☆☆☆ MISS
Irritating.

Goodnight Irene
Frank Sinatra
★★★☆☆ HIT
It isn’t the big band style I know Frank for, but I still found it enjoyable.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Gene Autry
★★★☆☆ HIT
I’m used to hearing the Bing Crosby version and if I hadn’t, I would probably be happy enough with Gene’s version. Yet it’s clear why one has gained more popularity; Gene’s Christmas number has an instrumental section while, even without that, Bing’s version is much faster and more upbeat.

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