This Week In Britain (TWIB)
TWIB programs that can be viewed on line are highlighted in red
This section provides the background to a long running television series for the Overseas Information Service(OIS) together with some account of a few representative programs.
The overall information about the programs that were produced is very incomplete because of poor record keeping on the part of COI. If any viewer has any further information that can be added to this account please make contact using the email address that can be found on the Navigation Bar.
For details of all those programs for which information exists please go to the The Films We Made on the Navigation Bar.
This Week In Britain (TWIB) was first produced in 1959. The initial Film Division Producer was Roseanne (Rossie) Brownrigg who had recently joined the division from the documentary film industry.
By 1960 TWIB was well established and set to become a long running and popular series distributed to the Commonwealth and Latin America where it was called 24 Horas. The format was a short 5 minute film with a reporter presenting the program. The intention of the series was that the reports would be incorporated into local news and magazine programs. They would appear, to the viewer, as though they were reports produced by a correspondent of the local television station in the UK. The reports covered a wide range of people, events and innovations in a lively and friendly way.
The series was first produced in English with two versions for Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese. The programs were quickly taken up and led to further versions so that by the end of 1960 there were no less than seven versions of TWIB. One version for Canada, one for Australia, one for New Zealand, India, Nigeria and Southern Rhodesia, one in Persian, one in Arabic plus the two for Latin America. The reported usage in Latin America showed that it was quickly taken up in Mexico, Cuba, Honduras, Columbia and Brazil.
The format appealed to television stations since it tended to enhance their status by leaving open the suggestion that the report was their production. From the perspective of COI Film Division there was the added value of the station incorporating the reports into local programs because this tended to mean that transmission times were often at peak times. For example the Australian network ABC broadcast the series at 8.25 pm each Saturday evening for a number of years moving to 6.55 pm each Tuesday just prior to the evening news. The series continued until 1980 a run of nearly 20 years and over 1100 programs.
The reporter/presenters of each version of the series became personalities because of their regular presence and the longevity of the programs. Reporters such as Ann Forsyth and Noelene Pritchard became celebrities in Australia while Leda Casares and Madalena Nicol gained much the same status for the Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese versions respectively.
The content of the series covered a huge range of events and people in the course of some 1100 programs from 1959 to 1980. Subjects of early programs such as TWIB issue 5 in 1959 included Hampton Court Palace which was simply a piece of historical tourism. The arts included a program TWIB issue 751 in 1973 about the sculptor Barbara Hepworth. During 1974 and 1979 there were programs about social issues such as TWIB 813 in 1974 Meeting without Bars about help for families with a member serving a prison sentence while in 1978 there were a group of three programs, TWIBs 988 to 990, about the changing place of women in society.
Although over 1100 issues of TWIB were produced only relatively few records of the actual program content remain. The fault or blame for this sad situation lies squarely with the Film Library section of Film Division and also with the COI Registry who, in common with all departments of government, were the guardians of all COI files including film production files. For some reason many, many production files were “weeded “ by the COI Registry before being handed over to the National Archives for preservation leaving no useful content together with actual programs junked as lacking any historical value.
While the statistics of a program and its use tell one side of the story the actuality of making the programs is another. Happily some first hand memories of the day to day work of making the program have been provided by Jenny Lucas. Before joining Film Division Jenny had been on the information staff of the British Consulate in Chicago which gave her a useful insight into the use made of Films Division output by television stations and also the work of the Foreign Office Information Service.
JENNY LUCAS: A PROLIFIC WRITER & RESEARCHER:
Jenny writes:
In 1967 I joined the Film Division to work on the London Line series produced for North America. I was initially employed to help organise the weekly transatlantic conference link between BIS New York and Film Division John Hall, Head of Overseas Television Production and London Line Producer Adam Leys.
In 1972 I started working for This Week in Britain (TWIB). These are some memories of researching and writing for this weekly series screened on television in Australia, New Zealand, North America, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
The following list records those TWIB programs that have been so far been identified. A note has been made where Jenny was the writer.
1959
TWIB issue 2 was a program about the Highland Games that was bound to be attractive to expatriate Scots in the Commonwealth and elsewhere.
TWIB issue 5 a program about the the Palace at Hampton Court.
1963
TWIB issue 104 London Calling no further information
NFA ID N-529546
TWIB issue 199 The Caretaker a program about a theatrical production of this play making a hit in London
N-529499
1971
TWIB All That Jazz visits the Royal Academy of Music to hear Johnny Dankworth play
NFA ID 357373
TWIB issue 650 Village Colleges a program about a secondary school near Cambridge hat is used as a community centre and adult education centre when the school is closed
NFA ID 766356
TWIB issue 637 National Union of Students program about this organisation representing the interests of university students.
NFA ID 767651
1972
TWIB Aberdeen Oil Boom (click here to view from the BFI) a program about the huge changes taking place in the city of Aberdeen as a consequence of the oil exploration taking place over shore in the North Sea. Program presenter Michelle Brown Director Bruce McDonald
NFA ID 1916
TWIB Gypsies (click here to view from BFI). "It seems like all little girls like to play 'house' even if they've never lived in one", observes This Week in Britain presenter, Michelle Brown, on visiting the play centre at Bushey's Sandy Lane Caravan Site.
Hertfordshire was one of the first counties to implement the Caravan Act 1968 which enforced local authorities to provide licensed sites for travellers to park their caravans long or short-term. At the time of filming, Hertfordshire had provided eight sites and more were in the pipeline.
TWIB Sheffield Theatre (click here to view from BFI) meet a young Ian McKellen, treading the boards of the legendary Crucible Theatre. Presenter Michele Brown
NFA ID 2393
1973
TWIB 728 Red Deer a program about an experiment at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen to make venison then a readily available type of meat. Jenny Lucas was the researcher on the program and provides the following account of its production:
Red Deer was an early assignment with the TWIB unit and one that might well have wrecked my fragile career in films. Starting out in films is a perilous undertaking especially with no greater preparation than an English degree and 3 years as a junior Press Officer in a British consular post (Chicago). To survive in a highly competitive environment story ideas have to be good, and they must be capable of being produced within normal budget constraints. This story was about an agricultural research at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen where our contact Professor “B” who had pioneered the controlled farming of red deer, previously only hunted in the wild, with a view to the commercial marketing of farmed venison. It was important agricultural research and it was British!
Initial film research normally involves face to face meetings and location recces well ahead of filming but in this case both the Professor and location were an expensive journey away. So my research was confined to the telephone and letters flying back and forth (no faxes then) between me and an increasingly tetchy and media loathing professor who was, however, very keen that his important work, and he himself, be given maximum exposure. This rarely extended to returning phone calls. When he was prevailed upon to answer questions, it appeared to be through clenched teeth.
In this kind of situation it is hard to balance how far to push a tricky contact to get the story right or risk losing the whole project. Even a few days before filming, a query about the local weather forecast for our exterior shooting was met with a barked diatribe about the southerners’ ignorance of all things Scottish.
Every stage of research and scripting was discussed with the producer Tony Thomson who was aware of my fears but was passionate for the story. However, after one lively phone call of his own to Aberdeen Tony appreciated that our Professor fell into a category of uniquely difficult. For this reason he decided to accompany the director, Nick Hague and I to Aberdeen one day ahead of the Scottish based film crew who would join us for the one day shoot. He judged this would lend backbone to our on the spot recces and filming, every aspect of which had been cleared (theoretically) with the Professor over several weeks of long distance negotiation.
When we arrived at the Institute in Aberdeen, and after a considerable wait, the Professor met us to talk through the story and his interview. He then took us to see some of the deer stabled in the grounds of the institute and a newly born calf (our star). Next on our recce agenda was to see the domesticated herd that I had understood, was on the Rowett Institute’s land. The deer were indeed on the institute’s land but to our, and especially my own horror the Professor said this was over sixty miles distant, a fact he had not shared with us until then. The travel time there and back along rural roads was going to threaten our single and tightly scheduled filming day with limited light for exterior shooting and might also run us into additional crew overtime. It was at this point that the Professor had to attend to matters more serious than filming and passed us to the institute’s Press Officer – another of his closely guarded secrets - who took courteous care of us for the rest of our stay although obviously in constant awe of the Great Man.
Somehow or other the filming worked to schedule, the Professor delivered a good interview, with his beautiful deer and calf close by and the threatening grey day (every cameraman’s dread) held fine for the hillside shoot, but only just. We wrapped the film gear and raced the long miles to Aberdeen as high winds turned to gale force. At the airport which, in the early seventies before the oil boom, consisted of a tiny building called a Terminal and a few simple outbuildings, we were told that the plane on the tarmac with its wings flexing like waving corn would be the last flight out of Aberdeen that evening. The plane took off. The journey felt something like being on a trampoline in a lift shaft. Everyone on the flight was very quiet and fairly green, except for Nick Hague who was sitting next to me and completely unaffected by turbulence.
In the early nineteen seventies it was not uncommon for the scientific community to be wary of journalists and less than happy to communicate their work to the public. The professor was of this persuasion and I was too inexperienced to uncover the existence of a press officer who should have been our interface throughout, or request precise location details. Red Deer was Produced by Tony Thomson, Director Nick Hague.
NFA ID 9348
TWIB 744 Keith Michell a program about the actor, singer, painter, Keith Michell, better known to millions of television viewers as Henry VIII in the successful film and television series, had just been appointed Director of the Chichester Festival Theatre. TWIB presenter Michele Brown talks to him about acting and living on the set of his latest film ‘Moments’.
NFA ID N-465143
TWIB issue 750 Men's Fashions a program about exclusive London tailors in Savile row and the Kings Rd. Interview with tailor Tommy Nutter COI Producer Tony Thomson Director Nick Hague
NFA ID N-399917
TWIB 751 Barbara Hepworth at 70 visited sculptress Barbara Hepworth at her home in St Ives on her 70th birthday. Researcher Jenny Lucas said I cannot remember who put up the idea of a 70th birthday profile of this great British artist but I know I was very excited at the prospect of researching and writing it. Director Eric Halliday and I travelled by train to Cornwall and St Ives to meet her and plan the filming.
The taxi deposited us on the steep slope of the street where her studio was part of her home. It is still there today as part of Tate St Ives. The large airy space was full of work in progress. It opened on to stone paving and the even higher slope of her garden that had been landscaped into an outdoor gallery of larger works. Seventy years of age seems quite ancient to people in their thirties, but even so I can remember appreciating that Barbara Hepworth was still an attractive and rather sexy lady. Still photographs unkindly emphasize an unusually steep forehead. But in life bright eyes and vivacity were everything. She wore a kimono and had coiled a silk scarf around her hair. Even the languid way she traced the air with her cigarette was fascinating. She had a distinctive way of speaking; soft but dry textured, like a wave dragging across wet sand. She allowed space between her words and sentences. In my memory it was a calm delivery and free from superfluous sub-text. And the form of her work all around us echoed this purity of style.
She was very welcoming and, although her continuing workload and celebrity status must have made great demands on her time she made us feel perfectly at home and with all the time in her world at our service. I said she was welcoming, to both of us, and always friendly and courteous but I noticed one surprising thing. Although, as researcher, I asked most of the questions her answers were only ever directed to Eric sitting and observing nearby. When we returned for filming, bringing with us our handsome young Mexican presenter, Silverio, even prior to filming she gave her answers only to him. I believe this was an unconscious thing.
TWIB 751 Barbara Hepworth at 70 Produced by Tony Hinton, Director Eric Halliday Research/writing Jenny Lucas
NFA ID 9847
TWIB 769 Ironbridge Gorge (click here to view from BFI) the world's first iron arched bridge spans more than its eponymous gorge - it's also a vital link with our industrial heritage. This episode of the This Week in Britain series brought this important Shropshire landmark to audiences across the Commonwealth and beyond. A reflection of the growing recognition, in the second half of the 20th century, that archaeology and conservation shouldn't be confined to Roman ruins and castles.
NFA ID 720630
1974
TWIB Science and Survival Dr Kit Pedlar talks to reporter Michelle Brown about the impact of technology on the environment
NFA ID 9771
TWIB Bespoke Bike (click here to view from BFI) two-wheeled dreams come true at the legendary Witcomb Lightweight Racing Cycle Shop in Deptford, London, where you can be measured up for your new bicycle and see it take shape. Master frame builder and racing cyclist Barry Witcomb shows his prowess as he forges a new hand crafted frame, while the rather flustered presenter takes a shiny new set of wheels out for a spin. Presenter Michelle Brown
TWIB Norwich Renewal (click here to view from BFI) a report on plans to develop and restore parts of the city.
NFA ID 9792
TWIB Monty Python's Flying Circus (click here to view from BFI) this is the Latin American edition of this program about Monty Python.
TWIB 813 Meeting Without Bars, Wakefield Prison a program about Wakefield Prison Family Centre. Jenny Lucas was the researcher.
A friend did voluntary work at a nearby prison. I discovered that the Family Centre was specifically to help prisoners’ families. In the purpose built family visitor centre on monthly visiting days the prisoners could meet their families over a cup of tea or coffee in pleasant, comfortable surroundings and the children enjoy the play and book reading area.
Until that time families, who might have had to travel hundreds of miles for their precious visit, (usually by train or bus) were forced to wait, even with babies and toddlers outside the prison entrance whatever the weather, until visiting time began. It seemed an unjust punishment for blameless relatives. We approached the Home Office about filming the new centre stressing that since This Week in Britain was for overseas distribution only it would never be screened in the UK. On that understanding we were allowed to film and even interview prisoners and their families. I was told later this was the first time such access had been granted by the Home Office. We filmed husbands and wives together in the coffee table area and close by the children had plenty of toys and games to keep them busy and even an exotic aquarium to investigate. The interviews were powerful but the pictures said everything about the difference this initiative meant to all those involved. TWIB 813 Meeting Without Bars Producer: Tony Thomson Director: Eric Halliday
NFA ID 1424
TWIB 835 :THE BEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD a program about the Savoy Hotel in London. Jenny Lucas was the researcher and writer. In the early nineteen seventies encouraging tourism was high on the UK’s agenda and the Savoy Hotel had recently had a lot of publicity as one of the best managed hotels in the world. The story was suggested as a mix of glamour and successful business practice and likely to have a strong appeal for Middle Eastern and North American visitors to the UK.
I warmed to the Savoy’s people skills when I turned up for the first recce with a painful sore throat. We were to work through lunch but I felt instantly better when the Savoy’s famous chef, Trompetto presented me with a delicate creation of sole in a silky lobster sauce – his medicine for a sick researcher - and it worked! Through all our research and filming the Savoy’s Head of Public Relations, Susie Orde gave us enthusiastic support as did all her colleagues.
This was not always the case in filming. The more usual pattern is of huge enthusiasm at initial meetings, but when the reality of the painstaking detail and the sheer slog required tomake a broadcast quality film becomes clear, enthusiasm can soon melt away. This was never so at The Savoy, probably because the whole training of staff was focused on problem solving and pleasing even the most difficult customers. If we came into this category they certainly never stopped smiling or producing tea and coffee of high quality for an eternally parched film crew who could not leave the set. The essential task of keeping the crew happy and refreshed was usually shared between the Production Assistant (when not chained to the shot list) and the researcher.
A great bonus for us was a star interviewee who was a special fan of the Savoy. The American film and Broadway actress Elaine Stritch and her husband had made their permanent home in a suite at the Savoy. Eric Halliday decided to interview her in the American Bar, and true to her professional discipline, after a short briefing she gave a sparkling performance describing the special pleasure of swapping the responsibilities of being home owners for the luxury of life at the Savoy. She managed to make her views on a mere hotel extend to her wider feelings about life in Britain. Her sincerely held personal views were worth a thousand lines of script.
One special memory of the Savoy film was the recce a week or so before filming. Director Eric was keen to film the chef Trompetto in the roar and bustle of his restaurant kitchen. We asked to meet him there at noon for Eric to study the set-up. What we had not expected was an invitation to lunch in Trompetto’s office. Our hearts sank. However tempting, this would lose us crucial recce time. What we had not known was that Trompetto’s “office” was a glass walled space in the very heart of the kitchen so that he was never remote from the action. A small round table was laid with crisp white linen, silver and crystal and I remember that he chose as the main dish, sea bass with fennel (uncommon on English menus in the seventies). It was a working lunch for all three of us. Every few minutes one or other of his team would stop in the open doorway to ask advice on the texture of a sauce, or quality of an ingredient or show off a batch of exquisite Mille-feuilles or check paperwork for Covent Garden Market sourcing the next morning.
Keeping a film crew fed and watered was not always as easy as it was at the Savoy. In the nineteen seventies the minimum film crew as ordained by the film union, the ACTT consisted of Cameraman, Assistant Cameraman, Sound Recordist, Assistant Sound Recordist, Electrician (the Spark) plus Film Director, Production Assistant and Researcher/Writer. In those days where to house and feed members of the crew posed a special kind of problem when on location at certain military establishments. On one occasion the Director and possibly the researcher and PA were regarded by their hosts as “Officer” class but, as explained quietly to me by our courteous liaison officer as we wrapped for lunch, the jeans and t-shirted members of the film crew would surely be happier eating with the “other ranks” in a separate Mess. Our Director explained that to maintain operational morale it was custom and practice in the film business to eat together as a team. We excused ourselves to eat at a nearby pub to great relief all round.
NFA ID 4368
1975
TWIB 856 Andrew Grima a program about the "doyen" of modern jewellery
NFA ID 6558247
TWIB 862 The Pearlies program about the traditions of the the Pearly Kings and Queens in London
TWIB 869 Assay Office was a program about the work of the Assay Office proving the quality of gold and silver objects and marking them with a seal of quality and date.
NA ID INF6/1315
1976
TWIB 896 Mix and Match was a program about interior decorating and matching paint with the same colour of wall paper.
NFA ID 767110 NA ID INF6/1316
1977
TWIB 963 RHS Wisley was a program about the gardens and research at the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley.
TWIB 978 SPITHEAD – The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Review of the Fleet a program about this event. Jenny Lucas wrote this account of the filming. The original idea for our film of the Queen’s Jubilee Review of the Fleet was to film our presenters at Portsmouth Harbour with the vast array of ships from all over the world in the background using Library footage for the rest of the story, including archive material which I would research at the Imperial War Museum and with whom the COI had good, long-standing relations. But I felt it was a shame not to get out amongst the action and Pat Brawn supported an approach to the Australian High Commission which is how we came to shoot the story from on board the Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne, with immense and cheerful cooperation from the Captain and crew.
On the shoot day we travelled by a small tender out to the ship. It was a short but bumpy ride! The director Bill Metcalfe was standing with the crew below deck and after ten minutes or so his face seemed exceptionally off-white. But all was well and the sun even came out for our Australian presenter’s sign off to camera. Bill had chosen to film this on the main deck with the ship’s company in the background performing their “Manning Ship” drill; edging the deck in a continuous line, each man facing out to sea, standing rigidly to attention with their backs to camera.
Our presenter, Diana Maclean, was in the foreground facing camera. She had a short piece along the lines: “This has been a momentous and historic day for so many of the world’s navies. This is Diana Maclean, for This Week in Britain, from the deck of Her Majesty’s Australian Ship, Melbourne, anchored at Spithead, England”. After she had signed off the camera was to widen the shot to see every man, (listening like mad for the cue), raise his cap to three rousing cheers, simulating their action as the monarch sails past to inspect her fleet Diana was an experienced and totally dependable presenter and much appreciated by her fellow Australians during our long shooting day on their ship. Some of these sailors and their families might well have seen our delightful Diana presenting news from Britain in the weekly TWIB slot close to the evening news. She was their lovely ambassadress for the very best of Australian womanhood. And here she was signing off from their ship.
The sailors doffed caps and cheered right on cue but the camera position wasn’t quite right. We had to go again, Diana then asked me to check her hair. Take two and “Action”, she spoke and she sparkled but she fluffed one word. The sailors held to attention as Diana went again…and again. Four takes, four doffing of caps and more cheering. The director was utterly supportive and gave Diana a few moments to collect herself. The sailors never moved a muscle. Action and take 5 was under way and “…This is Diana Maclean for This Week In Britain from the deck of…..(fluff)…Oh…SHIT!!!! Oh dear! What she could not see but we, behind the camera could, was that the whole line of sailors facing out to sea, still rigidly to attention shivered like a Mexican Wave along the long length of the deck with the impact of hearing this unexpected turn of phrase from their sweet and lovely girl!
We got there in the end and it was a lovely program. TWIB 978 Spithead Review. Producer Pat Brawn: Director Bill Metcalf
1978
TWIB Sidewalk Surfing (click here to view from BFI) in this Spanish edition of TWIB these London boys and girls are making the most of Skate City on the south bank of the Thames in the shadow of Tower Bridge. Skate City was Britain’s first commercial skate park, built on the crest of skateboarding’s 1970s wave. Built for skaters by skaters it appears a mini-Mecca for those who chose to grind away the daily grind.
TWIB 998 Women At Work Britain's Grand National has been called the most exciting horse race in the world. But like some other areas of sport it had always been closed to women. But the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act removed some of the last barriers for women in sport. The program featured Charlotte Brew, first woman in the world to race in the Grand National, and champion golfer Vivien Saunders about how the new equal opportunity law has affected their sporting lives. Program included comment from Lady Howe of the Equal Opportunities Board. It was one of three programs Produced by Adam Leys and Annabel Olivier-Wright Directed by Bill Metcalf and researched by Jenny Lucas whose account of the program follows:
Adam Leys had the idea of three TWIBs on a common theme that could be seen, as either individual five minute “stand alone” reports or edited together as a fifteen minute program. The overall theme was how women’s working lives were changing in what was still predominantly a man’s world.
In 1978 it was unusual for women to work as stevedores (my dictionary definition is “man employed in loading and unloading ships”). There had been initial opposition to their job appointment, but at the time of filming our two lady stevedores worked in harmony with their male colleagues at Chatham Docks, and they managed perfectly the piercing whistles necessary for shore to ship signaling. Our career women included one of the first women to pilot a civil airliner, a Grand National rider and a champion golfer employed as a professional coach at a well-known Surrey Golf Club. When researching the story Bill and I became of aware of a certain tension amongst club members some of whom resented a woman instructing them, however distinguished her sporting credentials.
TWIB 990 Women At Work Jobs for the Girls (see also TWIB 989 above) In the past many women had to choose between having a family and pursuing a career. But now more women than ever before were combining the two. TWIB reports on two British schemes where employers have had the vision to adapt conventional work patterns to meet the needs of working mothers: one involves a housewife who works with a computer terminal in her own home and the other an industrial day nursery to help out factory mums. Participants in the film include: homeworker Val Sheehan and her boss Steve Shirley; and nursery founder Carole Cowan and employer Richard Wright. Also includes a brief comment from Lady Howe of the Equal Opportunities Board
TWIB 1014 Henry Moore at Eighty a program about the famous sculptor. Memories of the program by Jenny Lucas who researched and wrote the script. When I read about the many national events planned to celebrate Henry Moore’s forthcoming birthday I asked Producer Annabel Olivier-Wright if we could make a profile as we had done for Barbara Hepworth five years earlier. I also asked if there was any chance of Peter Greenaway directing.
Before taking on the Henry Moore film Peter made it clear that he was not a great admirer of Moore’s current work. Before Peter began his career as a Film Division film editor he had studied at art school. He recognized the significance of Moore’s early work and its influence on contemporary British art but I think he felt that Moore had little significantly new to say. He wanted us not to fear to reflect some of this in the script and to try to tease something out of the man during the interview.
The recce and first day of filming were at Moore’s Hertfordshire home which included a huge garden gallery space. Moore had strong feelings about large pieces being seen from all angles and in the changing light of the open air and wanted people to be free to touch and explore the texture of his work. Our discussions were mainly in his garden studio where tables powdered with fine plaster dust were strewn with small maquettes and shells or stones found on walks, especially those scoured by the elements into what looked to me like miniature “Henry Moores”. Mr Moore was a neatly dressed, courteous, man, nothing like the popular concept of “the artist”.
On the first shoot day the weather was slightly overcast but after a brief recce Peter asked if we might film part of the interview in the garden in front of his sculpture of a reclining woman, placing the artist somewhere between thigh and knee. The shot was being lined up when Moore suddenly noticed a small graze on the sculpture’s surface that he was aware the camera might pick up. He thought it might have been frost damage. Peter was reluctant to change the interview position, which framed Moore and his reclining figure to best effect with other sculptures in the background. But Henry Moore was equally reluctant to reveal a blemish on his work. There was no time to do a proper repair and as it was clouding up we were in danger of losing filmable light. I remembered the make-up kit in my handbag and scrabbled around for my mascara. He smeared in a blob mixed with pale foundation that faded down to an acceptable beige-brown match. Moore was happy again, and so were we all.
There was a second day of shooting by the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens where Moore’s work was being shown in the park outside. In this grand setting we were filming an interview with Alan Wilkinson, curator of the Henry Moore Gallery in the Art Gallery in Ontario, Canada to which Moore had donated many works. TWIB was screened on Canadian television. We were also shooting the links by the various presenters. The English language presenter that day was an attractive screen presence but without any autocue we put considerable demands on our performers. In this case I had written a short to-camera piece, some 4-5 lines but one line was a problem and it took several takes to get it right. In addition to the English language presenter, there were also presenters for the Latin-American Spanish and Portuguese and Arabic versions.
There was no hard and fast rule about who conducted an interview. Some directors liked to pose the questions but others preferred to be free to concentrate on directing the shoot. For most programs I worked on, I was seated up tight to the camera to ask the questions and give the interviewee the correct eye-line. If we had three or four presenters in tow (for English, African, Latin-American Spanish, and Arabic language versions) time could usually permit multiple interviews. In this case our presenters would take turns to film establishing 2-shots with the interviewee and then film their questions to camera.
The exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery had opened ahead of Moore’s birthday on the 30th July. Before going off with the film crew to shoot individual sculptures in the park Peter asked me to look after Michael, a musician friend who was visiting the exhibition that day. In glorious sunshine we sat amongst the daisies while he told me about various projects he and Peter were working on. I am sure that Peter would have liked to have commissioned his friend Michael Nyman’s work for the Henry Moore film but TWIB budgets could not stretch to that. One of their first major collaborations was still in the future – for Peter’s film The Draughtsman’s Contract.
1979
TWIB 1045 What About the workers? was about the issue of workers representatives on the boards of directors in companies
NFA ID N-533348
TWIB Wrecks Into Racers was about a scheme to rehabilitate your offenders who steal cars that gives them an opportunity to do up old wrecks of cars to enable them to be raced
NFA ID N-515411
TWIB 1046 Erin Pizzey a program about this campaigner for women who had suffered abuse herself. Jenny Lucas researched and wrote the script.
This was the last TWIB that I researched and scripted before moving to the science series. I did however have several meetings with Erin Pizzey and she is one of the TWIB subjects who made a powerful impression. At this time of writing her name is rarely mentioned, yet she made a profound difference to the lives of vulnerable women and their families when she set up her first safe houses for battered wives. This happened almost be chance when a woman in Erin’s own community needed support and a place of safety.
Her campaigning story is remarkable but it is the impact of Erin Pizzey’s powerful personality that, over thirty years later, still stays in my mind. Over a century earlier those who met Florence Nightingale described how her iron will combined with winning charm (when needed) contributed to the revolutionary changes she forced on the 19th century medical and military establishments. When I first met Erin Pizzey I recognised similar qualities of the persuasive power required to move mountains of bureaucracy and public indifference. First, she had to convince those in denial that victims of domestic violence really did exist, and on a much larger scale than imagined. Secondly, that society had a responsibility to create safe havens for battered wives and their children too.
A film about battered wives was an unusual choice for TWIB and might have been difficult to sell to the Foreign Office since it depended on the admission that Britain had a real social problem. The selling point, (reinforced by positive producer support) was that we could say with certainty that this was a problem shared by every society in the world but that a woman in Britain had found ways to help protect such victims in the context of a society with a strong social conscience.
Janice Kay reminded me that Erin Pizzey was often forced to confront dangerously violent husbands or partners trying to get unlawful access to women sheltered in her refuges. But it was part of her philosophy that women should be helped to regain their trust in men even when that trust had been so brutally damaged and she co-opted strong and sensitive men as team members. Thanks to the impact her work made worldwide her campaigning led to similar refuges in many other parts of the world. TWIB 1046 - Erin Pizzey Producer: Annabel Olivier-Wright Director: Janice Kay
NFA ID 619440
TWIB 1087 What the Dickens was a visit to Rochester for costumed celebration where Charles Dickens wrote most of his last three books
NFA ID N-532509
TWIB Theatre of Technology was about the use of technology in theatre productions
NFA ID N-515234
TWIB 1103 Where there is Muck there is Brass use of household waste as landfill when covered with fertile soil to create new farmland,
NFA ID N-533016
TWIB 1104 Water Skiing about the first world water skiing championships to be held in the UK
NFA ID N-533155
THE LAST PROGRAM IN THE SERIES WAS PRODUCED IN 1980. IT WAS TWIB 1127 COUNTRY DIARY THE CONCEPT OF THE PROGRAM HAD RUN ITS COURSE. IT WAS TIME FOR A CHANGE.
To see a list of all the TWIB titles that have been identified please go the Films That We Made on the Navigation Bar.
This is a very incomplete account of the TWIB series. If anyone has more information or memories of the series please write in through "Contact Us".