City and Suburban
By JOHN BETJEMAN THE sad death of Rupert Annand, at Bath, who used to be one of the best producers in that best of BBC depart- ments, the Western Region at Bristol, prompts me to write about producers on the wireless. You hear `produced by so-and-so' at the end of a programme you have enjoyed and you forget the name. Wireless producers never get the credit they deserve, yet they are as important as editors are in journalism and, so far as television is concerned, as directors are to films. An editor only has to read the manuscripts he commissions and to cut and alter them if he thinks fit. The wireless producer has not only to collect material for his pro- gramme, but consider a written manuscript from the point of view of how it will sound when read out loud. He has to cajole the nervous, placate the temperamental and restrain the over-confident. In addition he has to see that broadcasters keep to the rigid timing of a programme, which is worked out very often to the last second. The excellence of the BBC is due to producers just as much as to successful broadcasters.
PULLING THE RUG FROM UNDER London University, not content with wrecking Bloomsbury. because it has no co-ordinated plan for that area, is now renew- ing its campaign for the destruction of Collcutt's tower of the Imperial Institute. Student journals are busy denigrating the building. And in the Evening Standard last week I read of tests being made to discover whether the tower will be able to stand alone in safety when the rest of the building is pulled down. If you look at the Imperial Institute, you will see that the tower is cunningly designed to rise from the centre of the building and that the porch, wings and entrance hall are its buttresses. I should have thought that any design incorpo- rating the tower must include some sort of buttressing, whether that which exists or new work.
ST. JOHN'S, SMITH SQUARE Nobody knows what is going to happen to St. John's, Smith Square, Westminster (1721-28) by Thomas Archer. This noble baroque ruin gives four temple-like terminations to the four streets which enter the square. Before it was bombed. the interior was not very distinguished. for it had been spoiled by subsequent generations. But the exterior is still a delight. It seems that .the Church does not know what to do with it and I wonder whether the LCC would think favourably of Mr. Louis Osman, the architect's, suggestion of turning it into a medium-sized concert room for mediaeval music, and Orlando Gibbons and Blow, and performances of Monteverdi and Palestrina. He said the church could be easily roofed with light aluminium or even with tarpaulin. At the same time. Archer's original design for the four corner towers might be carried out. This consisted of pinnacles instead of the sugges- tion of four spires, the remains of which can still be seen rising from some of the towers today.
999 A friend told me of an earnest headmaster of a private school who was trying to bring Christianity home to his boys and make it 'up to date.' He ended his talk by pointing at one of his pupils and saying, 'Now what would you do if the Messiah came to your village'?' The boy paused before answering, 'I'd telephone the Vicar.'
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