PROVING that sometimes history can be relevant today, in the past week we have been hearing a lot about the BBC ’s impartiality in light of Gary Lineker’s tweet that was critical of the UK Government’s policy on asylum seekers.
In this second and final part of a short series on the early history of the BBC in Scotland as it reaches its 100th anniversary, I will show how impartiality was a major issue for the BBC as far back as the 1920s, and detail how that remarkable Scotsman, John Reith, defined the BBC’s impartiality in a fight with – you’ve guessed it – a Conservative government.
For what it’s worth, and again this is a lesson from history, Lineker got it right in my opinion – the language used by Tory ministers about refugees is indeed reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. What is really disturbing however, is the creed of people like Stella Braverman that everyone must adopt the same attitude towards refugees. Substitute the words Briton for German and refugee for Jew in this sentence and you’ll get my point: “He who thinks like a German must despise the Jew.” That was stated by Joseph Goebbels…and there are numerous similar comparisons that could be made.
It’s all about demonising the ‘others’ and making them the scapegoats for political and cultural failure. History shows us that, with few exceptions, such demonisation usually fails in the long run, as happened to the Nazis.
But first, back to the early years of the BBC in Scotland. The opening of station 5SC in Glasgow on March 6, 1923, was deemed a success and really was a marvel as station director Herbert Carruthers had only two weeks to put the event together.
That Carruthers even managed to get a small orchestra playing in the tiny studio at Rex House in Bath Street, Glasgow, was a triumph of ingenuity, and both innovation and ingenuity were to become bywords in the early days of the Scottish end of the BBC.
As managing director of the British Broadcasting Company, Reith was pleased that his Scottish “baby” was up and running, and on the same day of the first broadcast he appointed James Cameron as superintendent of all radio engineers in Scotland and the north of England. A son of the manse, Reith also approved a Sunday religious broadcast and the first of these was made on April 15, 1923, featuring hymns and a sermon by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Rt Rev Dr John Smith.
As I predicted, little mention was made by the BBC on its anniversary last week of the two forerunner studios that broadcast from Glasgow in early 1923, including 5MG, which provided not only the new BBC station’s location at Rex House but also much of its apparatus – and also Cameron himself, who had worked for 5MG. He would go on to have a long and distinguished career with the BBC on the technical and managerial side of the organisation.
Also from 5MG came Kathleen Garscadden, daughter of George Garscadden – the G in 5MG, the M being Irish-born Frank Milligan – who made her first broadcast for her father’s station before joining the BBC’s 5SC station.
She was just 26, and had previously sung alongside Carruthers on his piano and organ.
Garscadden would become arguably the most famous employee of the BBC in Scotland, a trained soprano who was also a skilled organiser of programmes, and above all a purveyor of entertainment for children. She was known as “Auntie Kathleen” – Carruthers liked to call his presenters “Uncle” or “Auntie”, though the soubriquet “Auntie Beeb” dates from much later.
Garscadden would have a 37-year career in broadcasting that lasted until her retirement in 1960 when fulsome tributes were paid to her for her work for children.
Much less appreciated was her remarkable talent-spotting ability, a task she carried out “behind the scenes” for the BBC.
Among those discovered by Garscadden and given their first broadcasting opportunities were the likes of Stanley Baxter, Rikki Fulton, Jimmy Logan, Fulton Mackay, John Grieve, Moira Anderson, Molly Weir and many others.
Speaking to BBC Scotland in 1984, Garscadden recalled those early days at 5SC.
“It was great fun and, of course, very, very amateurish. We just went out and bought [sheet] music every day for the programmes, put fairy tale books on the piano, seized a book and just read it. Everything was just done on the spur of the moment.”
CHILDREN’S author and broadcaster Lavinia Derwent – the pen name of Elizabeth Dodd MBE (1909-89), whose Tammy Troot stories were read out in the 1920s on Auntie Kathleen’s Children’s Hour – once summed up Garscadden’s role within the BBC in Scotland: “The BBC under Lord Reith kept such a tight hold on the purse strings that the habit was difficult to break and employees hesitated before requisitioning even a new pencil. Yet, in spite of such restrictions, Auntie Kathleen in her day was a power in the land and will always inhabit a special niche in the annals of broadcasting.
“For many years Kathleen’s was the best-known voice in Scotland, eagerly listened to in cot and castle. She provided wholesome entertainment for myriads of young listeners – for old ones, too.”
As I wrote last week, John Reith was determined to expand the BBC in Scotland and in James Cameron he found a committed collaborator who drove forward the establishment of stations in Aberdeen (call sign 2BD, which opened on October 10, 2023), Edinburgh (call sign 2EH, opened on May 1, 1924) and Dundee (call sign 2DE, opened on November 12, 1924).
All the Scottish stations were linked by Post Office land lines and frequently interacted with London and other stations across the UK.
But Reith was determined that Scotland should have its own programming as well as feeding into the national broadcasts from London, and on December 2, 1923, 5SC broadcast the first programme in Gaelic.
And on May 9, 1924, it was 5SC which carried out an experimental broadcast to schools – this strand would become a mainstay of the BBC in years to come.
Reith was very much a creature of empire, however, and among other directions he gave was that all broadcasts should be delivered in “received pronunciation” which became known as “BBC English”. Accents were heard but the vast majority of broadcasts were conducted in what we now might call “posh English”.
At that time, the British Broadcasting Company was being funded by a mixture of sponsorship and income from the sales of radios, receivers and a cut from the sale of receiving licences by the Post Office, but Reith was already looking to a new form of income for the Company – and a new constitution along with it.
His argument to the Government was that if they wanted a national broadcaster, then that company needed to become independent of business and government. He persuaded his board of directors to push for a new entity, the licence-funded British Broadcasting Corporation, which was duly created by Royal Charter on January 1, 1927 and had a 10-year lifespan before renewal.
Before then, however, the broadcaster suffered its first great crisis – and that was over a question of impartiality. You will remember the Reithian Principles, to inform, educate and entertain, and to these must be added Reith’s decree that the BBC should be impartial in its reporting of news and events.
Then came the General Strike of May, 1926. The Conservative government wanted to commandeer the broadcaster to pump out its anti-strike propaganda which would have seen the BBC end up as a radio version of the British Gazette, the Government newspaper edited by Winston Churchill. In Scotland, the company would have to follow suit – it was made clear that there would be no editorial independence for 5SC.
The then 37-year-old Reith decided to personally intervene and get Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to call off his attack dogs like Churchill.
In 1967, Reith told journalist and broadcaster Malcom Muggeridge what happened on the day the General Strike started. He said: “I had an interview with the Prime Minister and Stanley Baldwin was on the other side of the table, walking up and down and smoking a pipe and I was making a passionate appeal that the Government should leave the BBC alone and trust me – that’s what it came to, I suppose.
“He said to me I am going to put this to the Cabinet in terms of trust in the managing director. He said, ‘Is that alright?’ And I said yes, fine. There were grumbles in the Cabinet. They weren’t happy about this and there was a division.”
Reith recalled that the majority accepted it but there was a minority, “in particular Churchill, and [Lord] Birkenhead – I didn’t like him” who were very unhappy.
While Churchill – who called Reith’s stance “monstrous” – busied himself with the Gazette, Reith issued instructions that the General Strike was to be reported without bias and with impartiality, including the initial success of the strike. He personally took charge of every news bulletin during the strike and at one point turned down the Archbishop of Canterbury, who wanted the Government to back down. It was Reith himself who broadcast the news that the strike was over.
The first and arguably the greatest test of the BBC’s impartiality was won by Reith and his views prevailed for decades. I leave it to The National’s readers to judge whether that impartiality continues.
It was a relief to Reith and all the BBC’s staff when the corporation came into being peacefully and with immediate success.
THE BBC in Scotland went on to greater heights, the groundbreaking Children’s Hour presented by Kathleen Garscadden soon becoming a national treasure after it began in October, 1927. The first weekly sports bulletin, broadcast at 6.45pm on a Saturday, began on November 26, 1927, and the following year a distinctive nightly Scottish news bulletin started.
I have decided to call a halt to this history of BBC Scotland at that point, for as I frequently write, I consider that anything that has happened within living memory – with a few exceptions – cannot be classed as history. But I can’t leave this account without an appeal to the BBC to carry out an exercise in democracy which I consider would not only assist students of recent Scottish history but also be a fantastic public relations exercise for Auntie Beeb.
Kenny Munro, indefatigable director of the Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust, has asked BBC Scotland to consider releasing its vast film archive to the public, perhaps through the National Libraries of Scotland (NLS). His particular interest is the work of acclaimed documentary filmmaker Jim Wilson, the centenary of whose birth is this year.
Munro specifically wants public access to Wilson’s films about Geddes, Hugh MacDiarmid, Margaret Tait, Neil Gunn, Compton Mackenzie, John Grierson, Alistair MacLean and Lewis Grassic Gibbon.
Munro told me: “In the Guardian last October there was a very encouraging article which implied that BBC London was democratising access to their film and sound archives. It therefore seems essential that BBC Scotland now follows that lead and negotiates a ‘Transfer Agreement’ with NLS to promote the ‘sharing’ of unique cultural filmic history currently ‘locked up’ in the BBC Film Archive.
“I’m optimistic that with further lobbying this will be recognised as great public relations exercise by BBC and also to ‘give back to the folk of the UK’ the films they paid for with generations of investment in TV licences.”
I can foresee problems with the BBC’s protection of its copyright, but Kenny Munro’s point about this archive being paid for by licence holders is well made. So come on BBC Scotland – why not celebrate your 100th birthday year by giving the Scottish people access to your film archive?
