(a)
NOTE by PROFESSOR JOHN HILTON
on his visit to the British Sector, February 17, 18, 19, 1940.
I have nothing to report substantially different from that which was reported by Mr. Ryan and Mr. Wilson in their note to the B.B.C. of a few weeks ago.
Among the men with whom I spoke, the first choice for listening was Variety; with Gracie Fields of course, at the top, but with any well-known comedian high up on the list. Sing-song stuff and lively back-chat was in good demand.
But most of the listening seemed to be background listening. For this purpose “a good cinema organ” would be hard to beat. My little jest that it was an instrument which could play anything, especially tiddley-winks, got hardly a laugh.
I found no enthusiasm anywhere for the spoken word - except perhaps for the news in rare spasms. Lord Haw-Haw had one or two devotees who said either that he was a scream or that he ought to be tapped on the head with a sledgehammer; but I suspect their real feeling was the naughty thrill at listening to what they knew was uncensored and possibly “inside” stuff.
When I asked what they wanted me to talk about, supposing they could bear to listen to a Talk, I either drew a complete blank or got confused or half-hearted answers.
It was more easy to discover what they didn't want than what they wanted. Hot sport (football, dogs or racing): no interest whatever in that. Not politics. Not books or theatres. Above all else, nothing about the war or about international affairs. No heavy solemn stuff at all.
Those who had known my Talks in the past wanted the sort of thing I used to do in “This and That.” Simple plain things about goings on at home - in family life and in neighbourly life. They wanted anything that linked up the life at home with their life out there; for they think more of home (of “letters and leave”) than anything else. In so far as I deal with their lives out there, they would like me to discuss the lesser trials and the larger humours of such a life. In doing that, they would like me to be blunt and outspoken and indiscreet - as I used to be.
I brought away one overruling impression. It is that the thing of all things needed on the programme for the Forces is a person who will be on the air daily, at the same hour, to speak for ten minutes on those homely and personal matters with which the mind and feelings of the soldier are all the time deeply and intimately concerned.
The speaker should be one who could become known and accepted as the soldiers’ candid friend - sometimes genial, infuriating, never boring, but always honest and straightforward.
He should give the impression of having only just scraped past the censor, and of occasionally going beyond his authorised text. He should in very fact be one who will stand up for the right to say on occasion extravagant and even outrageous things - provided of course they need saying. If it could be put about (with truth!) that he had been reprimanded more than once and threatened with suppression, so much the better. There would be thus created an inclination to switch on to him Just in case it was one of those times when he “went in off the deep end.”
He would have to divide his time more or less equally between wandering about the British Sector, talking with men of all ranks and officers of all conditions; dodging about London and the provinces talking with common folk in their homes and with military high-ups in their offices. He would of course, invite and probably receive a large correspondence from the men with the Forces. He would answer (or have answered for him) each letter.
He would have to be fed and assisted by a small syndicate of well-chosen and well-informed persons - including a professional jester. The first drafts of most of his scripts would have to be prepared for him; for it is beyond the power of any man to gather the material for 1,400 words a day, put them on paper, and deliver them at the microphone.
Whenever possible he would be personally at the microphone - either at Langham Place or at one of the Regional Broadcasting centres; or at Paris or Lille. But it would often occur that he would need to record a Talk or two beforehand; in some exceptional cases perhaps, as many as half a dozen. It should never be announced that the Talk was from a record. (Later: Mr. Wellington has given me reasons, which I accept, why this is a dangerous course to embark on.)
It is my profound belief that in this way an approach to the soldier could be laid down and built up which would be of immense value during the period of waiting for the land war to begin; and of superlative value during a time of crises - due either to battle stress or to nerve strain.
For the troops to be able to switch on at a fixed time every day to a man whose word they trusted might easily determine the issue of our part of the land war.
The ten minutes I have in mind
must
be daily. Weekly would be of no use at all.
I would not have it thought that I suggest myself as the ideal or the best person for such a series; nor am I at all sure that I should want to give up all other activities for such a task; even if no-one more likely were on offer. At whatever cost or trouble of searching the best possible person for such a role should he found.
