11 NOVEMBER 1949, Page 14

Unhappy Families

The B.B.C. is causing me serious disquiet about myself. I have had great good fortune in my own family life ; why, then, am I over- come with the bitterest dislike whenever the B.B.C. deals with family life? On sound, Mrs. Dale's Diary, or Family Hour, anguishes me. In Television there is Mr. Eric Maschwitz's Family Affair. I mentioned this last week. I felt it could hardly be worse. Yet on Saturday its second instalment plumbed ultimate and unsuspected abysses. Could it be that it is because I like families that I detest these programmes about families, and because I feel they are calcu- lated and contrived travesties ? 0, reform them altogether I