Secret Diary of a 1970s secretary

'The secret diary of a 1970s' secretary'* is my diary for the year 1971, written when I was 19 years old and working as a secretary in London for the BBC.  The book was published by Constable in 2016.

Intended as a way to keep myself occupied in the evenings, it describes what it was like to work in an office in those days of taking shorthand notes and using manual typewriters. It relates not-too-happy visits home to my parents, while during the week I lived in a dreary girls' hostel near Victoria Station.  There are trips to the shops and the cinema, a couple of walking holidays in the UK and extensive takeaway curry-eating.  But most of all, the diary tells the story of my relationship with much older man.

Reactions to the book, and especially to this relationship, have been mixed.  Some readers found it worrying and thought Frank, the man involved, was predatory.  On the other hand, several readers recognised the dilemma of getting involved with someone 'unsuitable' and many found it a touching and bittersweet story.  For my own point of view, please read the following post.

*The hardback edition is entitled: 'Portland Place: the secret diary of a BBC secretary'.

The Frank Browne controversy

A little while ago I attended a meeting of a local book club, whose members had just read the Secret Diary.  After an interesting and stimulating discussion the final question was, 'What did you and Frank actually do in the lift?'

Even so many years later I didn't feel comfortable with answering that one in great detail (who would!) but I answered her question and it has occurred to me since that a clarification should be posted here too.

When I first re-read the diary I noticed that, to begin with, 19-year-old Sarah is only too happy to describe in detail the early stages of her relationship with Frank Browne. She sees it as both an exciting romance and an opportunity to learn about what that involves.  But as 1971 wears on, her comments become more cautious.  Some things, she says, are too private to write, even in the diary, so she resorts to generalities about it being 'beautiful' instead.  Yes, there were developments, but it would be wrong to assume that they imply wholesale shagathons between floors in the Langham. 

Editing the diary, I thought it best to stick with what was written then.  If this girl was sensitive enough to want to avoid writing everything down at the time, it would be wrong to elaborate forty years later and end up using risible anatomical details.  I was happy to leave readers to draw their own conclusions. After all, it didn't matter what we actually did, it was the emotional side of the relationship and how young Sarah matures as a result of it seemed interesting. 

However, some readers have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Sorry, but I must disappoint them.  It wasn't that simple.  By June 1971, when Frank returned to work after his operation, I knew that I wanted to enjoy as much of being with him as I could but I also drew boundaries to protect myself.  Meanwhile, Frank was so afraid of losing his job he didn't want to risk 'going too far' either.  Hence his repeated invitations for me to visit his flat, all of which I refused.

The Swinging Sixties with their liberated attitudes to sex didn't permeate the suburban world in which I grew up until some years later.  Having been raised in the 1950s, I thought sex was something you did after marriage, not before.  Of course, by the time I wrote the diary I realised that in practice behaviour was much more flexible, but I still thought you should only have sex with someone if your relationship had the potential to become long-term - a far cry from today.  So the diary reflects my struggle to decide where to draw the line with Frank, who was married and unsuitably old yet alluringly good humoured and fun to be with.

I might have been daft to have become involved with him, but in the end I was sensible, even that evening under the Westway.  I survived unscathed and, as I wrote in the Afterword, I will always be grateful to Frank for our experience together. 

The mystery of the vanishing BBC

As mentioned, the title of the paperback edition of my book, 'The secret diary of a 1970s secretary' changed from the hardback edition by removing any reference to the BBC.

It's no particular hardship to me, a rose by any other name and all that, and I'm not entirely sure of the reasons for the change myself, but it raised a few thoughts.

“Portland Place” was chosen as the title because it sounded classy and conjured up the area around Broadcasting House and the Langham, where so many of the events in the diary take place. But would it make you think of the BBC? It turned out that not everyone connected the street with the corporation.  And, as it turned out, many readers found it a bit misleading, thinking they were going to read thrilling revelations about BBC radio stars.  Maybe they thought the book would resemble the old American soap opera, 'Peyton Place'?

In 2016, as the full horror of the Jimmy Savile scandal and other investigations into the behaviour of famous personalities, it seemed the way the BBC operated in the seventies had become toxic.  In several interviews about my book I had to grit my teeth and answer questions assuming that any romance on BBC premises between two lowly members of staff had to be viewed in the same light as the abuse of children by sociopathic, highly-paid, popular entertainers, and the fact that it happened while I was working in a department making sex education programmes for chil
dren was an additional irony.  I was even rung up by a documentary programme producer in the hope I could spill the beans on allegations about a tv presenter - whom I had never met. 

  Apart from local radio stations and their Alumni Group, the BBC has been jittery about the book. I also received an abusive email from someone who should have known better - one of Miss Sharp's relatives who was also a respected journalist and married to a high profile BBC presenter.  She told me she hoped the would vanish without a trace.  A feature prepared for a Radio 4 magazine programme was also pulled at short notice.

 

I believe that, in its candidness, the diary offers an authentic account of what it was like to work for the BBC in those days;  worthy, responsible, bureaucratic, friendly and occasionally boring, but far from a hot-bed of vice.

 

It's disappointing that for whatever reason the publishers chose to remove any reference to the BBC in its title.  Nonetheless, the book has pleased many readers and for this I am very grateful.

 

School broadcasting and sex education

This pamphlet was published in 1971 by the BBC at the request of the School Broadcasting Council. It is a report on the broadcasting of television and “radiovision” (radio and filmstrip) programmes to primary schools to support sex education.  The programmes began transmission in 1970, and from the time they were first announced there was a huge controversy.  The BBC was criticised in the press, and letters of protest poured in to the SBC's office on the top floor of the Langham.  

There was a lot of misunderstanding.  The primary programmes were mostly about growth and development, birds' eggs, kittens, where babies come from and so on, while critics imagined the BBC was forcing kids to watch explicit material.  The letters were sometimes thoughtful, some contained objections based on religious views; others were written in green ink and enclosed diagrams or bizarre images.

The report is a careful evaluative study of the programmes, how they came about, how they were used and so on.  Despite its clarity and impartiality, the flames of controversy spluttered on. In May 1971 Mrs Mary Whitehouse and the NVLA listed their objections to various schools programmes and proposed that the Government, in the form of the then Secretary for Education, should take over BBC schools broadcasting; that Secretary being one Margaret Thatcher (The Guardian 31.5.71 p. 5).

As I edited Portland Place I noticed a couple of things in relation to this report.  The first was, gosh, I typed the first draft and did the final checking with my boss.  That's something I can be proud of, although at the time, and with youthful arrogance, I describe the report as "boring", which it isn't.

The other is that while the SBC bosses frantically searched their offices for a copy of one of the programmes, or tried to establish the exact colour used in the wrappings of a packet of condoms, one young woman with a very limited grasp of sexual knowledge embarked on her own course of private tuition in the subject. How and what she learned is the central story of the diary.

Portland Place, a verse review, by Gill Bazovsky

 

Readers of the diary will know that one of my best friends in 1971 was Gill Bazovsky, at the time a senior secretary in the School Broadcasting Council.  Gill was of enormous help when I was editing the Secret Diary by confirming details and giving her opinions on people and events.  After the book was published, she wrote this poem about it.  Sadly Gill died in 2020.

 

'Portland Place' - a verse review!

Long ago in far-off London
Swinging sixties just gone by,
Sarah Shaw, a fledgling author,
Joined our band of fliers high.

Portland Place was our location,
Education was our game.
Stately BBC was 'Auntie'
Still upholding Lord Reith's name.

In the schools across the kingdom
Our broadcasting could be heard.
In the classroom not a whisper,
Children switched on by the Word.

But what is this? Sex education
To be introduced in schools?
Mary Whitehouse ranting madly,
Bringing out her sharpest tools!

But it's only frogs and tadpoles
On the television screens -
Hardly any frames with humans -
Yet Mrs Whitehouse raises screams!

'The thin end of the wedge is coming -
Children know not how to sift!"
Sarah, meanwhile, penning diary,
Was being switched on in the lift!

Thus it was a secret diary
Came to light in Sarah's home
And her yesterday became her present
So now I broadcast - and recommend - her tome!
  
by Gill Bazovsky