Diary
What on earth has happened to the Video Recordings Act? It began life as a Private Member's Bill as far back as 1983, received Royal Assent last July and is now waiting on the sidings. If the damage being done by video horrors was as severe as some MPs engaged in the Bill were saying a year ago, it must be a lot more serious now. I am told that the sudden death of Lord Harlech in a car crash has delayed matters. He was Presi- dent of the British Board of Film Censors which, under the Act, was to take on extra staff and vet video films starting with the backlog (which must be now enormous). I can well see it may be difficult to find a man willing to succeed Lord Harlech in these grisly duties, but I can't for the life of me understand why an Act put on the statute book nine months ago amid cries of urgency from MPs has to be shelved for want of a President to the BBFC. In any case, the Act was six months old before Lord Harlech died. The pornographers must be laughing all the way to the bank. Come back, Mrs Whitehouse, all is for- given.
Tn the resentment being expressed by
some Tories at the £58 decision on the BBC licence there is a parallel to the campaign which right-wingers in America have launched against Columbia Broad- casting System. The Americans, gathered under the flag of Fairness in the Media Group, led by Senator Jesse Helms, con- sider that CBS shows too much liberal skirt, is the most anti-Reagan network and needs fresh direction. So they have been shaping up for a takeover. Given that CBS has a revenue of some £5 billion and profits of £200 million, the right-wingers have their work cut out and the smart money in Wall. Street is on CBS, not FMG. Now I think there is a case for saying that the BBC spends foolishly, and for opposing the £58 on that account. To declare that it is subversive, politically biased, hostile to the Right and so on is another argument altogether. It joins hands not only with Senator Jesse Helms on the Right but also with people like Benn on the Left who also want the news media tailored to their political tastes. I once heard Lord Good- man asked if the BBC was biased to the Left. No, he said, but young men and women seeking careers are inclined to take one of two courses. If they are satisfied with the world as it is, they will tend to join solid institutions and professions. If they think the world needs putting right, they will be drawn to the media, particularly television, because it affords an opportun- ity to do something about it. I think that's nearer-the mark than some Tory MPs. Tsuppose Lord Goodman's dictum must also apply to film producers. Kenneth Rose in his column in the Sunday Tele- graph this week points out what a travesty the film A Passage to India presents of the Raj. He blames it on E. M. Forster's 'mean and querulous mind'. I'm not sure about that. Attenborough's highly acclaimed Gandhi was also a travesty of the Raj, What a strange people we are. We accuse the Russians of rewriting history. Under the guise of popular entertainment we do exactly the same, to prove, it seems, that our past has been disgraceful. Yes, I see what Lord Goodman had in mind.
One cannot be sure what sort of an Easter message will be coming from the Bishops this year; but I know where part of mine will come from. I have kept in my papers a piece which appeared in the Spectator some 30 years ago, 16 April 1954 to be exact. The writer, who is not named, discussed how Christians are to reconcile their Easter faith with the advent of the hydrogen bomb which had just exploded on the world. Part of his message was that new weapons had alarmed imaginations and stirred fears, but had introduced no new moral issues. The substance of it was that this world can never be made free of physical disasters of one kind or another. The comfort of Easter, on the other hand, lies in the message that Man and his world were thought worth redeeming. Two other sentences indicate this anonymous writer's thinking:
The tomb was not burst open to make civilisation safe, but that individual sinners might be assured of reconciliation with God.
And by way of conclusion:
Men, it is the Christian faith, are not set to grapple with their problems, unaided and alone. If they are now bewildered and afraid before their own handiwork the words of the first Easter will resound for them to hear: `Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.'
Not very fashionable teaching today: yet I fancy there are some who would be glad of 'How does one tell there's a postal strike on?' such a message from the pulpit this Easter morning.
Isee from publishers' lists that two books on amateur cricketers are due to appear within a few days of each other this month. One, by Jim Swanton, is a biography of G. 0. (Gubby) Allen; the second, by David Lemmon, is a life of Percy Chapman. What a poignant coincidence for those with long cricket memories! Gubby Allen has been a pillar of the game, still is, for longer than most of us can remember. A. P. F. Chapman, by contrast, was one of cricket's tragedies, a fallen star. They were born within a couple of years of each other; both were at Cambridge, where Chapman got his Blue as a freshman. When I was a boy, the family lived near Chapman and his attractive wife in Hythe, Kent, and I have countless memories of him in the field. I have not read Lemmon's book and, alas, I don't have to in order to recall the story. Chapman's patron, George Mackeson, then connected with the family brewery, was a benign cricket enthusiast. Percy got a job in the brewery, so he could continue to play amateur cricket — for Kent, for England, and for Hythe, whose XI was Mackeson's first love. I once saw him while batting for Hythe hit eight balls clean out of the ground into the canal, dug a century earlier to protect us from Napoleon. At his peak, he was an even more exciting left- hander than Frank Woolley. At very silly point he would absorb tremendous off drives and then shyly bring the ball (which seemed to have disappeared) out of one of his enormous hands. He was a great catcher, and in the end the brewery caught him. When Percy Chapman died at 61 he had long been an alcoholic.
Ithought the London dealer, Maggs, did well last week to get Leslie Hore- Belisha's political papers for £18,000. They
had been in the hands of Hore-Belisha's former secretary, Hilda Sloane, who died last year. He was a politician towards whom controversy travelled like a heat- seeking missile. The papers will have some juicy passages. The first time it occurred to me that Hore-Belisha was really rather odd was when as Minister of Transport he designed and launched the crossings and beacons which still bear his name. At one point he invited the press along to witness a dialogue on the subject between him and an American comedian, Eddie Cantor. After a bizarre circus act in the Minister's room, I was privileged to get an interview with Mr Cantor. I have kept a record of it:
This. fellow Belisha is all right. He's got something. These beacons are fine. Call them .balloons, pineapples, bananas, any- thing, but if they save life they are good. When you have met a man like that, you know that you have been close to great- ness.
William Deedes
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