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''Mrs Dale's Diary'' was the first significant
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
serial drama. It was first broadcast on 5 January 1948 on the
BBC Light Programme
The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...
, later
BBC Radio 2; it ran until 25 April 1969. A new episode was broadcast each weekday afternoon, with a repeat the following morning. A few days after the final episode, a new serial drama, ''
Waggoners' Walk'', took over the time slot.
The main scriptwriter for many years was Jonquil Antony, and her first collaborator (under a pseudonym)
was
Ted Willis
Edward Henry Willis, Baron Willis (13 January 1914 – 22 December 1992) was an English playwright, novelist and screenwriter who was also politically active in support of the Labour Party. In 1941 he became the General Secretary of the Young ...
, later to create ''
Dixon of Dock Green
''Dixon of Dock Green'' was a BBC police procedural television series about daily life at a fictional London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. It ran from 19 ...
''.
The lead character, Mrs Dale, was played by Ellis Powell until she was dismissed in controversial circumstances in 1963 and replaced by
Jessie Matthews.
Format
An innovative characteristic of the programme was that a brief introductory narrative in each episode was spoken by Mrs Dale as if she were writing her diary.
The serial centred on Mrs Mary Dale, a
doctor
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other roles
** ...
's wife, and her husband Jim, and the comings and goings of a
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...
society. The Dales lived at Virginia Lodge in the fictional
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
Metro-land
Metro-land (or Metroland) is a name given to the suburban areas that were built to the north-west of London in the counties of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex in the early part of the 20th century that were served by the Metropo ...
-style suburb of Parkwood Hill. They had moved there from the real area of
Kenton, which straddles the border between the London boroughs of
Brent and
Harrow. Later in the series, to modernise the programme and its setting, the producers relocated the family in the fictional
new town of Exton New Town.
Mrs Dale's mother was Mrs Rosemary Freeman, whom Jim always called, rather gravely, "mother-in-law". Dr and Mrs Dale had a daughter, Gwen, and a son, Bob, who worked in the
motor
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...
trade. He was married to Jenny; they had twins. Gwen was widowed after her husband David was killed in a water-skiing accident in the
Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...
where he was holidaying with his rich mistress. Mary Dale's sister, Sally, (which she always pronounced "Selly") lived in Chelsea and moved in exotic circles. The Dales and their friends (along with Captain, Mrs Freeman's cat, apparently named after the rank of her late husband, who had been killed in the First World War) got along in almost perfect harmony. It was all respectable, comfortable and middle-class.
Treatment of homosexuality
The programme is thought to be the first British mainstream drama which depicted a character known to be
homosexual sympathetically in a leading part – Richard Fulton (portrayed by
David March), Sally's husband. It was a brave move to feature a gay man, especially when homosexuality was still illegal in the United Kingdom. Clearly the programme's makers considered the time was right for the subject to be featured. Richard Fulton, however, was an odd character to use, in several ways. Not least is that (though apparently based on the homosexual writer
Patrick White) Richard's history in the serial was heterosexual. He was in fact a character who had developed a lot, having been presented in the early days as a monster of petulance.
Changes to the format
On 26 February 1962, the serial was renamed ''The Dales''. The linking narratives by Mrs Dale were dropped. The reason was that the BBC was conscious that the series was considered by the media to be twee and hopelessly old fashioned. The changes included a new theme tune composed by
Ron Grainer
Ronald Erle Grainer (11 August 1922 – 21 February 1981) was an Australian composer who worked for most of his professional career in the United Kingdom. He is mostly remembered for his television and film score music, especially the theme mus ...
, composer of the theme music for ''
Doctor Who''. "
Dance in the Twilight" from
Eric Coates
Eric Francis Harrison Coates (27 August 1886 – 21 December 1957) was an English composer of light music and, early in his career, a leading viola, violist.
Coates was born into a musical family, but, despite his wishes and obvious talent, ...
' ''
Springtime Suite'' also served as a signature tune for a time.
In 1975, Matthews's biographer, Michael Thornton, wrote:
On 19 February, 1963, a plump and embittered fifty-six-year-old character actress called Ellis Powell walked out of Broadcasting House for the last time. She was not a star. In fact, she had earned less than £30 a week. But her voice was as well known in Britain as that of Queen Elizabeth II, for it was heard twice a day by seven million devoted listeners. Miss Powell was Britain's most sacrosanct fictional paragon, Mrs. Dale, in the radio serial ''Mrs. Dale's Diary''. And now, after fifteen years in the role she had created, the BBC had summarily fired her partly because of her drinking habits, and partly because it was felt that the role, and also the entire programme, was in need of a facelift. Three months later, at the age of fifty-seven, she died. Her friends believed she never recovered from the shock and distress of her summary dismissal by the BBC. In the last weeks of her life she worked as a demonstrator at the Ideal Home Exhibition
The Ideal Home Show (formerly called the Ideal Home Exhibition) is an annual event in London, England, held at Olympia . The show was devised by the '' Daily Mail'' newspaper in 1908 and continued to be run by the ''Daily Mail'' until 2009. It ...
and as a cleaner in an hotel.
''The Dales''
In its last years, ''The Dales'' became more sensational. Mrs Dale became a councillor, a position she had to give up after she had caused a man's death by careless driving. A heart attack forced Dr Dale to retire from practice. Perhaps the most famous storyline was Jenny's getting measles; listeners wrote in thousands complaining that she had already had measles in 1949.
When it became ''The Dales'', the show did try to copy ''
The Archers
''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural sett ...
'', which was originally a medium to disseminate information to the agricultural community, and to give an insight into rural affairs to the public. In ''The Dales'' the plots now revolved around medical conditions and problems. When the series ran a story about the importance of women having regular
cervical
In anatomy, cervical is an adjective that has two meanings:
# of or pertaining to any neck.
# of or pertaining to the female cervix: i.e., the ''neck'' of the uterus.
*Commonly used medical phrases involving the neck are
**cervical collar
**cerv ...
smear tests and checking their
breast
The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues.
In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and sec ...
s for
lumps, the junior health minister praised the programme, saying it had encouraged thousands of women to see their doctor.
The serial ran for 5,531 episodes, culminating with the engagement of Mrs Dale's daughter Gwen to a famous TV professor on 25 April 1969. On news of its demise,
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
MP
Peter Bessell
Peter Joseph Bessell (24 August 1921 – 27 November 1985) was a British Liberal Party politician, and Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall from 1964 to 1970.
Early life
Bessell was educated at Lynwyd School, Bath, Somerset, and was a C ...
attempted to introduce a reprieve for the series in
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
. The
BBC Sound Archive
The BBC Sound Archive is a collection of audio recordings maintained by the BBC and founded in 1936. Its recordings date back to the late 19th century and include many rare items, including contemporary speeches by public and political figures, fo ...
holds only five complete episodes of ''Mrs Dale's Diary'', and seven complete episodes of ''The Dales''.
Spin-offs
Over the years it ran there were a number of books written around the characters, several authored in whole or part by Jonquil Antony, the most important scriptwriter at the beginning and for many years. In 1970, the year after the programme finished, she took back her former characters after a fashion, publishing ''Dear Dr. Dale'', a novel set after the end of the serial.
In the same year Charles Simon, who had played Dr Dale in the Jessie Matthews years, did his own continuation of the story, going on tour in ''At Home With The Dales''. This show has its place in theatre history as the first professional venture of
Cameron Mackintosh
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh (born 17 October 1946) is a British theatrical producer and theatre owner notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "th ...
, later renowned for large-scale musicals. The Dales play was written by Charles Henry, who was soon discovered to be the versatile and experienced Charles Simon. Later dates in the tour were cancelled because the audience did not seem to be there. "It would have been different if Jessie had done the tour" Charles Simon remarked a few months later (to actor Roger Sansom, with whom he was in a broadcast). He was, however, the only member of the radio cast to make the transition.
The play was published, but has seldom been revived. In 1972 it received an amateur production at Rugby Theatre, with Bridget Watson as Mrs Dale and Harry Roberts as her husband the doctor. The only professional revival seems to have been in 1997 at the Kenneth More Studio Theatre in Ilford, when Angela Ellis and Roger Braban played the senior Dales.
Catchphrase
The phrase seized on by caricaturists as typical of Mrs Dale's narrative was "I'm rather worried about Jim..." Indeed, the phrase was a staple of many comedy programmes, radio and television, in the early 1960s aiming to poke fun at safe, staid and undemanding middle-class lifestyles. The last episode ended with Mrs Dale saying, "There's one thing that won't change – I shall always worry about Jim..."
Parodies
''Mrs Wilson's Diary''
Mrs Dale's Diary was the basis of ''
Mrs Wilson's Diary
Prime Minister parodies are a long-running feature of the British satirical magazine ''Private Eye'', which have been included in the majority of issues since the magazine's inception. The parodies consist of one arch satirical personification of t ...
'' in the fortnightly
satirical magazine ''
Private Eye''. The writers (primarily
John Wells) presented Mrs Wilson as seeing herself as comfortably middle class, in contrast to the working class pretensions (and middle class actuality) of her husband, for example the
Wincarnis
Wincarnis is a brand name of a British tonic wine, popular in Jamaica and some other former British colonies. The name is derived from "wine ''carnis''", from the Latin meaning "of meat." It is a fortified wine (17%) now made to a secret recipe o ...
(a brand of tonic wine) and the
worsted
Worsted ( or ) is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead, a village in the English county of Norfolk. That village, together with North Walsham and Aylsham ...
suits with two pairs of trousers (
Wilson was from
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...
, a town known for the manufacture of worsted cloth).
''The Goon Show''
The show was mentioned in the following episodes of ''
The Goon Show
''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 19 ...
'':
* In an untitled episode (s02 e01 - 22 January 1952), listeners are given an example of how ''Mrs Dale's Diary'' would sound as produced by Americans. It includes over-hyped music, multiple in-show advertisements for bizarrely named products, and ends with several murders.
* In ''The Man Who Tried To Destroy London's Monuments'', (s04 ep02 - 9 October 1953), Eccles regains consciousness and is told he is in Mrs Dale's Diary.
* ''Nineteen Eighty-Five'', (s05 ep15 - 5 January 1955), in which mention is made of ''Mrs Dale's Real Diary'' when the character Bluebottle is reading a book:
:''Seagoon'': I want to read it. What's it called?
:''Bluebottle'': It's called Mrs Dale's ''Real'' Diary.
:''Seagoon'': Mrs Dale's...?? Heavens -- would the BBC stop at nothing? So this was how they kept the masses from thinking.
:''Bluebottle'': Eheehee! Look at this page! Eheehee! It's a Three-D picture of Mrs Dale in her nightshirt being chased by
Richard Dimbleby
Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator.
As host of the long-running current affairs ...
... Eheehee! Eheeheehee! Eheeheeoooooughhhh... pauses to wipe drool off chin.
It was also one of the recordings used for torture in the BBC Listening Room, that episode's parody of
Room 101
The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell.
The use of contradictory ...
.
* ''The History of Pliny the Elder'' (s07 ep25 - 28 March 1957):
:''Seagoon'': Fear not! We shall fight them up hill and down Mrs Dale!
''Round the Horne''
* The programme was often a 'target' (albeit an affectionate one) on the BBC Radio comedy ''
Round the Horne
''Round the Horne'' is a BBC Radio comedy programme starring Kenneth Horne, first transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The show was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, who wrote the first three series. The ...
'', referred to as "''Mrs Dire's Dreary''", with the part of Mrs Dire being played by
Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Charles Williams (22 February 1926 – 15 April 1988) was an English actor of Welsh heritage. He was best known for his comedy roles and in later life as a raconteur and diarist. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the 31 '' ...
.
References
External links
Nostalgic look at ''Mrs Dale's Diary''
Published references
* ''Mrs Dale's Diary: Gwen's Love Story'' (No writer given) Pub:Chambers, 1951
* ''BBC Year Book For 1952'' Pub: British Broadcasting Corporation 1951
*''Mrs Dale At Home'' Jonquil Antony Pub: Macdonald, London, 1952
* ''Mrs Dale'' Jonquil Antony & Robert Turley Pub: The World's Work 1958
* ''The Dales of Parkwood Hill'' Jonquil Antony & Robert Turley Pub: The World's Work 1959
* ''Mrs Dale's Friendship Book'' Jonquil Antony Pub: Arlington Books 1961
* ''The Dales'' Rex Edwards Pub: British Broadcasting Corporation 1969
* ''Dear Dr Dale'' Jonquil Antony Pub: Corgi 1970
* ''Pulling Faces For A Living'' James Dale Pub: Victor Gollancz 1970
* ''At Home With The Dales'' Charles Simon Pub: Samuel French 1971
* ''Evening All: Fifty Years Over A Hot Typewriter'' Ted Willis Pub: Macmillan 1991
* ''Broadcasting It'' Keith Howes Pub: Cassell 1993
{{BBC Radio 2
British radio soap operas
Fictional diaries
1948 radio programme debuts
1969 radio programme endings
BBC Radio 2 programmes
BBC Light Programme programmes
Medicine and health in fiction