The Archers are Left at the Post
IAM pretty sure that I was the first writer to make a new edition of Who's Who the subject of a full-length review. It was rather a good, or perhaps I only mean rather a readable review; it appeared in the Spectator of January 5, 1934. I am far from regarding innovation as an end in itself, but I propose to devote this article to the cultural significance of a pocket diary for 1957 which came on the market last week.
It says on the fly-leaf that the diary is published by Waterlow and Sons Limited and 'authorised' by the British Broadcasting Corporation. On the cover it says 'Mrs. Dale's Diary, 1957.' It was given a fair wind, or anyhow a vigorous puff, by the Home Service last week. 'Here is a BBC announcement,' announced the announcer, and reeled off the blurb. Listeners were told that they could buy the diary from the BBC.
* * * Looked at from a purely functional point of view, Mrs. Dale's diary is impeccable. Its compilers, wisely undisdainful of precedent, not only start the year off on 1 Jan. (a Tues, and also, they remind us, New Year's Day) but carry it on right through the time-barrier of 365 days to 4 Jan. 1958 (a Sat., on which the sun will rise at 8.5 and set at 4.5, unless Sir Ian Jacob has made some hideous mistake). There are pages for memoranda and for monthly cash accounts. There is also a fly-leaf embodying a useful proforma headed 'Personal Items,' on which the diarist is invited to record his watch number, size in gloves and telegraphic address.
I always rather distrust people who begin their criticism of something by saying that they do not feel entirely happy about it; for what is there that any of us does feel entirely happy about? Yet it was, I am afraid, in these words that I would have expressed the malaise which crept over me as I tried to visualise the sort of person who would start off a new year by writing down in his, or rather in Mrs. Dale's, diary the number of his watch, his size in gloves and his telegraphic address. I cannot say that my confidence was restored when I noted, at the foot of the same page, these entries : Weight St lb. Date Height ft in. Date Perhaps it is only that I am getting out of touch, that nobody tells me anything. But are there, among my com- patriots, people who when they buy a pocket diary wish to record in it, along with their season ticket number, their TV licence number and their size in gloves, their weight and their height and the date? Possibly there exists in the backrooms of the BBC some graph showing that, between one January and the next, the stature of television licence-holders fluctuates in an unpredictable and interesting manner, like Alice's did in Wonderland. But reason tells me that this hypothesis is physio- logically improbable, and I cannot draw courage from it.
• It is, in a way, courage that one needs when one examines the garnishings of this pocket diary. In these illusion and reality art mixed in proportions which cause one to boggle, to reach for the banisters, to peer into the shrubbery for Prospero.
Twenty-five years ago one of my brothers was covering for a well-known news agency the State trial in Moscow of some British engineers who had for no particular reason fallen foul of their employer, the Government of the USSR; the story was front-page news in this country and one day there was handed to my brother in court a telegram from his editor-in-chief. 'Require more Tacitean thumb-nailers.' it said; and it is to Tacitean thumb-nailers of Mrs. Dale and her family that the opening pages of this diary are largely devoted. ('She is practical, efficient, well-adjusted and as dependable as a rock.') But these are mixed up with photographs and particulars of the actors and actresses, who are not imaginary people; we learn, for instance, that the favourite colour of Miss Ellis Powell, who plays Mrs. Dale, is mauve and that her size in stockings is 10. As if all this was not sufficiently bewilder- ing, we are given the 'Household Hints' of Mrs. Morgan, who on the air is a George Belcher-type comic cook. None of her hints bears any relation to Mrs. Morgan's mentality, as projected by the BBC to several millions of devoted listeners, and the last of them shows every sign of having been ghosted by someone who ought to have declared an interest; it reads, 'If reception is poor consult your radio dealer about the new interference-free listening on v.h.f. sets.'
Mrs. Freeman (Mrs. Dale's mother) contributes recipes for Rock Buns, Webster Cake, Doughnuts and Apple Charlotte. There is a drawing of Virginia Lodge, where the Dales live and on whose roof the absence of any form of television aerial is a tribute to the BBC's impartiality. There is a plan of Parkwood Hill which, 'although technically a suburb, has something of the cosiness of the village community, where everyone knows everyone else and is keenly interested in their affairs.' I was relieved to see that this demi-Paradise, 'reached from the West End by an anonymous train-service,' has two railway stations, 'both on the High Street.' This should simplify the problems of escape.
I know nothing about the market in pocket diaries-, though I presume that those who produce for it run risks and have to reckon with keen competition from their rivals. The diary I use is, like many others of its kind, not on sale to the public but only to past or present members of one particular regiment, whose charitable funds benefit from the small profit it makes. It is a wonderful diary, a kind of encyclopxdia, full of the Standard Time in Different Parts of the World, Time on Board Ship, Badges of Rank, Useful Addresses, Postal Information, Dimensions of Sports Grounds and Latest Olympic Records. Its pages bristle with anniversaries. In this week alone we recall the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the beginning of the Battle of Ypres, the Victory (inappo- sitely enough) of the Nile, and the British Declaration of War on Germany in 1914. Over the same period Mrs. Dale offers us only 'astronomical information based on the Nautical Almanac by permission of the Controller of HM Stationery Office.'
I would not criticise the BBC for sponsoring and promoting this silly kickshaw if they told us why they felt impelled to do so. I recognise their right to a monopoly in the great popular appeal of the well-adjusted Mrs. Dale. But what, when they allowed their coat of arms (motto : 'Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation') to be printed on the fly-leaf of this huckster's, come-along-take-one-dearie product, did they think they were doing? Popularising Mrs. Dale and her way of life? Putting Parkwood Hill on the map? Building up a fund from which to give away prizes to morons on television? Or what?
They ought to tell us. You can't have Mrs. Freeman's Webster Cake and eat it. STRI X
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