The Vision of a Nation: Making Multiculturalism on British Television, 1960–80 PDF
Preview The Vision of a Nation: Making Multiculturalism on British Television, 1960–80
The Vision of a Nation Making Multiculturalism on British Television, 1960–80 Gavin Schaffer The Vision of a Nation This page intentionally left blank The Vision of a Nation Making Multiculturalism on British Television, 1960–80 Gavin Schaffer ProfessorofModernHistory,UniversityofBirmingham ©GavinSchaffer2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014978-0-230-29298-7 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6–10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorhasassertedhisrighttobeidentifiedastheauthorofthiswork inaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2014by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-0-230-29298-7 ISBN 978-1-137-31488-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137314888 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. Transferred to Digital Printing in 2014 To Joseph and his Grandpa Steve This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgements viii 1 TheVisionofaNation:Introduction 1 2 ‘TheFirstBridge’:ProgrammesforImmigrants onBritishTelevision 18 3 RaceinNewsandCurrentAffairs:PrinciplesandPractice 67 4 DealingwithRacialExtremes:NewsandCurrentAffairs underPressure 96 5 What’sBehindtheOpenDoor?TalkingBackonRacein Public-AccessBroadcasting 143 6 TheRiseandFalloftheRacialSitcom:Laughterand PrejudiceinMulticulturalBritain 178 7 StrugglingfortheOrdinary:RaceinBritish TelevisionDrama 231 8 Conclusion 273 Bibliography 276 Index 286 vii Acknowledgements The research behind this book was only possible thanks to the under-acknowledged efforts of dedicated archivists across the UK. In particular, I would like to thank Stephen Parton at the ITA Archive in Bournemouth and Rachel Lawson and Els Boonen from the BBC’s WrittenArchivesinCaversham.TheWrittenArchivesareanextraordi- nary repository of British history, staffed by brilliant people, and I feel privilegedtohavespentsolongworkingthere. IamalsogratefulforthesupportofmycolleaguesattheUniversities of Portsmouth, Birmingham and beyond. Being able to chat to schol- ars like James Jordan, Sadiah Qureshi, Panikos Panayi, Tony Kushner, MatthewHilton,ChrisMoores,KieranConnell,TimGrady,PaulLong, Kim Wagner, Vanessa Jackson, Christopher Hill, Tom McCaskie and HelenWheatleyhasprovedinvaluableatdifferentstagesoftheproject. WeareluckyattheUniversityofBirminghamtohavesomefantastic students, whose ideas and support have fuelled this research at many points.Inparticular,IwouldliketothankSaimaNasar,AmyEdwards, ZoeDennessandZahraKassamaliforimputingtheirideas,aswellasall themembersofourContemporaryBritishHistoryreadinggroup. Of course, I owe a debt of gratitude to those people who took the time to be interviewed for the book. I have been both touched and inspired by the generosity of Owen Bentley, Paresh Solanki, Tommy Nagra, Jack Smethurst, Peter Ansorge, Tara Prem and Jagtar Basi. Most of all, I am grateful to Stephanie Silk for her interviews, her advice on themanuscriptandforthewonderfulcoverimage. I would also like to thank Jen McCall and her editorial team at Palgrave, especially Jon Lloyd. Jen has been passionate about this project from its beginning and I have come to rely on her energy and enthusiasm. Finally,asever,Ineedtothankmyfamilyandfriends,whosesupport neverwavers:Mum,Dad,Joel,and,mostofall,Christina. viii 1 The Vision of a Nation: Introduction In 1978, an argument erupted at the BBC about illustrations in some ofthebooksthataccompaniedchildren’seducationprogrammes.Writ- ing to a host of high-ranking BBC officials, John Robottom, from the MidlandsdivisionoftheEducationalBroadcastingCouncil,complained that‘alltheseareportrayalsofwhiteadultsandchildrenwhenitwould have been so easy to vary this’.1 Giving short shrift to Robottom’s concerns, Geoffrey Hall, the Head of Schools Broadcasting on Televi- sion, responded that he would ‘certainly oppose’ any decision not to recommend literature simply because ‘none of the cartoon faces in the teacher’s notes have been shaded in’. Focusing on the quintessen- tially English cartoon versions of Arthur English and Jack Wild in teachers’ notes for Everyday Maths, Hall flippantly argued: ‘Perhaps we shouldhaveblackedthemup!’2Farfromfindingthisresponseamusing, Robottomcontinuedtomakehiscase. in most urban areas, a disproportionately high part of the audience forthisserieswillbeblackorAsian.Thisdoessurelyconstitutesome case for considering the images projected on the screen and in the broadcasts.Yes,Ithinkyoushouldhaveshadedinsomeofthefaces.3 While ostensibly the most modest of arguments about representation, thisdisputewasoneofmanyamongbroadcastersabouthowtoreflect Britishmulticulturalism.Aswasgraphicallyillustratedinthiscase,these debates were very much about ‘making’ in the most conscious sense of the term, so that making multicultural television in the 1960s and 1970s could boil down to discussions between white executives about whether or not to ‘shade in’ the faces of cartoon characters. In this way,televisiondebatedhowbesttorespondtowhatwasperceivedtobe 1
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