Cecilia Grace Hunt Gillie ( Reeves; 17 August 1907 – 20 April 1996) was an English radio executive for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

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Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Early life

on 18 August 1907, at Alma Road, Sheerness, the

Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. ''Sheppey'' is derive ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. She was raised in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

and taught at

King Edward VI High School for Girls King Edward VI High School for Girls ''(KEHS)'' () is an independent secondary school in Edgbaston Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest o ...

. Gillie enrolled at

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

and graduated with a degree in

modern language A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such a ...

Career

In 1933, she joined the

...
Foreign Liaison Office, which had been recently formed at the time, and was made assistant to the foreign liaison officer Richard Marriott. During these duties, Gillie became especially worried with the arrangements of

Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe f ...

, the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

network's European director, with the two becoming close friends. She arranged from Broadcasting House for the uncensored broadcast of Murrow's report on

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

's ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

'' to the United States in March 1938. Gillie had her first assignment abroad when she assisted Marriott in establishing the BBC's Paris Office in 1939. The two worked in Paris during the

Phoney War The Phoney War (french: Drôle de guerre; german: Sitzkrieg) was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germa ...

period of the

, but returned to London in mid-1940 after the Battle of France. Gillie was appointed the BBC French Service's senior talks assistant and attempted to form a team of French broadcasters to contribute to the programme ''Les Francais Parlent aux Francais'' (English: The French Speak to the French) to control the expansion of the service necessitated by Nazi German control of French broadcasting. Peter Pooley, the creator of '' Radio Newsreel'' and theatre expert, consulted her and told her the stage director

Michel Saint-Denis Michel Jacques Saint-Denis (13 September 1897 – 31 July 1971), ''dit'' Jacques Duchesne, was a French actor, theatre director, and drama theorist whose ideas on actor training have had a profound influence on the development of European th ...

, was in England awaiting repatriation to France after the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...

demobbed him. Gillie persuaded Pooley Saint-Denis would be more useful in broadcasting. She worked as talks assistant, producer of the programme and mentored those working on it. By the war's conclusion, she had become the head of the BBC European Liaison Office in London, and was appointed the BBC's Paris representative in 1947. In the early post-war era, Gillie assisted

Documentation française La Documentation française is a French public publishing service of general documentation on major newsworthy problems for French administrations and the French public. It edits academic reports and studies of the French government as well as a pu ...

in giving a full account of the BBC French Service's contribution to the war effort, which went unpublished but was stored at the BBC Written Archives Centre in Caversham. She oversaw an increased interest in French cultural life on BBC Radio, mainly the

BBC Third Programme The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and intellectual f ...

giving the French a platform to be heard on. Gillie provided BBC Radio's current affairs and talk programmes with French experts who were fluent in English. Gillie left her post in 1958, when Robin Scott was appointed a representative in an era that saw an increased interest in television. She assisted Scott and fellow senior BBC staff member Noble Wilson on radio matters. In July 1962, Gillie was a producer on the BBC Third Programme production The French on the French, and appeared on the BBC Home Service programme ''

Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by ...

'' three years later to discuss her life in wartime with the writer Flora Groult. She retired from the BBC in April 1967, and moved to Mirabeau, Vaucluse near to river Durance. Gillie taught herself cooking and authored a cookery book. She also taught English in the local area, earning the nickname "La Dame Anglaise". As she was about to be filmed at length by BBC Television Archives for an interview on 20 April 1986, she had a major stroke, which made it difficult for her to communicate and incapacitated her. Gillie was cared for by a friend from Poland, and she had more strokes that almost rendered her unable to speak.

Personal life

Gilles was married to the broadcaster and correspondent Darsie Rutherford Gillie from 1955 until his death from illness in 1972. She was cared for by an old Polish friend and staff he found for her home in France. In 1995, Gilles was transported by plane on a stretcher to Warsaw, where she died on 20 April 1996. After being cremated, Gilles' ashes were scattered over the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillie, Cecilia 1907 births 1996 deaths People from Sheerness People educated at King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge 20th-century English women 20th-century English people BBC executives British radio executives 20th-century British businesspeople