Bowler Hats and Kinky Boots, by Michael Richardson

I’ve completed Part One of this enormous, comprehensive and highly readable volume, the 350 pages that cover production of the 1960s TV series The Avengers. The book goes on to cover the stage and radio versions, The New Avengers TV series, the 1998 movie and a whole load more besides — all beyond the scope of my latest research project. I hope to come back to this stuff another time.

In what I’ve read, Michael Richardson lays out an astonishing compendium of facts. If you want to know the make and registration of any vehicle in an episode, the make and calibre of any weapon or the identity of real-life locations, it’s all here. He’s clearly had access to production files and scripts, though it’s not always clear when the behind-the-scenes detail comes from contemporary paperwork or the later memories of cast and crew. As always with this kind of endeavour, I yearn for extensive footnotes spelling out the sources — which, admittedly, I’ve not always been able to include in the books I write myself.

In writing my own books, I’m acutely conscious of not simply listing a series of what took place on what date; the trick is to bring the material alive, to humanise it, teasing out the different personalities of those involved and the bigger story going on. There’s lots of that here and a lot that is suggestive. No one seems to have a bad word to say about gentlemanly Patrick Macnee, the actor in the leading role of not-always gentlemanly agent John Steed. His co-stars Honor Blackman (who played Cathy Gale) and Diana Rigg (Emma Peel) also meet with universal praise. With everyone else, I think Richardson frames things in the best of light but we can quite often read between the lines…

Again and again, I was astonished by the story being told here. There are often creative sparks and clashing egos. But even the hard numbers cited tell their own eye-popping tale.

I already knew that producers Sydney Newman and Leonard White at the ITV franchise ABC conceived The Avengers as a vehicle for actor Ian Hendry, keen to keep him under contract when another show, Police Surgeon, ended prematurely. What I didn’t know — what I can hardly get my head round — is that, from initial conception, it took just six weeks to get the first episode into production (p. 22). 

The idea you could have an idea for a series and get it made so quickly is unthinkable now. At the time, there were others working in television who would have found it unthinkable, too. No wonder there was a culture clash when Newman moved to the BBC and it took months to get Doctor Who started.

What was created so quickly remains compelling more than 60 years later. The first 15 minutes survive of Hot Snow, the first episode of The Avengers (1961). We see Ian Hendry established as a hard-working, cool young doctor with a nice fiancee — who is then shot and killed. It’s a cliche to kill a woman as an inciting incident like this but we at least get to know her first (it’s not simply her smiling at the camera while in bed), and her death is the pay-off to a very suspenseful sequence where she and Hendry chatter happily as they move round their home / office, oblivious to the villain who has broken in and keeps just out of sight (to them but not the viewer).

It’s slick and edgy and exciting, and then stops abruptly because the last two-thirds of the story are missing from the archive. The script included on the DVD box-set reveals what happens next: when the police seem unable to solve the crime, Hendry’s character investigates. In so doing, he meets the enigmatic John Steed (Macnee), who helps him uncover a plot to smuggle heroin, avenge the murder and bring the villains to book. Over subsequent weeks, Steed would call on him again…

Richardson is good on the logistics of production. At this stage, the actors would spend 10-14 days rehearsing each episode, with time out to film particular sequences that would lend a credible air or reality. They’d then spend a day at Teddington Studios, where after technical rehearsals they would perform the episode — “as live” if recorded in advance but often broadcast live. The episodes were made using electronic cameras and recorded on videotape, with its characteristic fluid and intimate feel. I’ve watched a lot of old telly, and The Avengers isn’t perfect — Richardson lists exactly when you can spit boom microphones in shot or actors fluff their lines — but it’s an ambitious, accomplished slick programme of its type.

That was recognised at the time. Made by and shown on the ITV franchise ABC, The Avengers did well in its first year. But, for reasons that Richardson explains, star Ian Hendry’s other commitments meant he wouldn’t be available for a second year. That could well have been the end of this series — a footnote in TV history rather than the icon it became.

Instead, the production team decided to make enigmatic Steed the new lead and introduce some new costars. For three episodes, scripts written for Hendry were given to Jon Rollason, playing an almost identical character. Richardson seems to suggest there was never any thought that they might extend Rollason’s contract — he was just a stopgap while they readied scripts for the two candidates to take the supporting role. Honor Blackman was contracted for six episodes as Mrs Cathy Gale, the tough anthropologist widow of a white settler in Kenya killed by the Mau Mau. Julie Stevens was contracted for six episode as singer Venus Smith, the scripts contriving means for her to perform numbers in each of her adventures. Blackman, of course, had her contract extended — and became sole costar to Macnee in Season 3 (1963-64).

Richardson explains why The Avengers proved such a hit, the way those involved made it something different and distinctive and fun. He tells us that the budget at this point was £5,100 per 50-minute episode (p. 79), still recorded basically “as live” on videotape at Teddington Studios. That budget is not too far from the £2,300 allocated to each 25-minute episode of Doctor Who being made by the BBC at the same time. But the team behind The Avengers had ambitions to sell their series to mainstream US networks, which required a higher resolution than could be achieved by videotape production in the UK at the time.

So, Season 4 of The Avengers (1965-66) was made on film. Each episode still took about a fortnight, but was now made bit by by, with about five minutes filmed per day. Instead of completing an “as live” production with a pretty much finished product, the film then needed editing and dubbing. It was all a much more expensive process — allocated £25,000 per episode and closer to £29,000 in practice (p. 132), more than five and a half times per episode compared to Season 3.

What astounds me is that they could find the investment to do this without a US sale agreed, all on the gamble that there would be a deal. They had made most of Season 4 before that the deal was made, with production taking place on The Danger Makers, the 20th of 26 episodes, when on 25 November 1967, the sale to the American ABC network was announced. (Yes, confusingly, a series made by the British ABC was sold to a US network with the same name.) The deal entailed making the next season in colour, with a corresponding rise in budget.

Seasons 5 and 6 cost £50,000 per episode (p. 191 and p. 264) — more than the combined budget of 12 episodes of Doctor Who, still being made on videotape at the same time. All eight episodes of the Cybermen invading contemporary London in The Invasion, plus all four episodes on the alien world of The Krotons, and you pay for a single colour episode of The Avengers in late 1968. Which was still a year before ITV even began broadcasting in colour. It’s a gobsmacking amount of money. The gall of it! The chutzpah!

So, when towards the end of production on the third episode of Season 6, the US network executives thought the series had taken a wrong turn, there was an extraordinary about turn, detailed by Richardson. The producer and script editor were fired and a new crew were brought in, led by Brian Clemens. Under his direction, the three episodes were reworked, they changed the colour of lead actress Linda Thorson’s hair and introduced a new leading character introduced in Mother (Patrick Newall). According to Richardson, Clemens came in with carte blanche to do as he liked and he seems to have spared no one’s feelings where there were things he didn’t like. Basically: high drama.

By this point, says Richardson, The Avengers was being sold to 70 countries and ABC in the US moved it to a primetime slot at 7pm on Mondays. On 28 March 1968, the Stage called “it the most successful British television series ever to appear on the American network” (p. 293). But this was also its downfall, which came swift and sure.

The success of The Avengers depended on how it fared against the competition on US TV. That competition, says Richardson, was Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and I Dream of Jeannie on NBC, and Gunsmoke on CBS. There’s a reason you’ve probably heard of them: they were the big guns of TV. Against them, The Avengers ranked 69th in ratings. Despite the extraordinary gamble and the work of all those involved, chasing the US market so doggedly also sealed the series’ fate.

News broke in the Daily Mail on on 24 January 1969 that the ABC network in the US had decided not to take any more episodes. Despite sales to 90 countries (!), the loss of the US network meant the enormous costs of production made the series no longer viable. The end came brutally fast: just a month later, on 28 February, Macnee and Thorson filmed their last scenes as Steed and Miss King. 

Steed, at least, would return a few years later. But it feels so abrupt, so frustrating, so wrong. Like the death of the fiancee in the very first episode, it’s utterly compelling. I want to dig in more. In fact, I’ve some threads to follow up now as part of ongoing research into something not yet announced. I hope to have more on the personalities involved, the crises and the drama...

Cue dramatic music by Johnny Dankworth and cut to the ads.

Exterminate! Regenerate! by John Higgs

This magnificent book is officially out next week but I've just received mine, and a proof copy found its way back in time to me at the end of last year. I couldn’t put it down.

It’s an absorbing, engaging and gossipy history of all of TV Doctor Who (1963 to now), full of new insight and detail. John takes an unflinching, warts-and-all approach, at times detailing bad — sometimes shocking — behaviour by people involved in making the show and also by its fans. Some moments here make for very uncomfortable reading. But while unflinching in addressing these elements, the book on the whole is a joyous celebration and cultural history of a British institution, shrewdly picking out why this knockabout series has had such lasting, wide-ranging impact.

So much is squeezed into 400 pages: it feels both comprehensive and breezy, and therefore bigger on the inside. I love that equal weight is given to each era of the series, and how non-judgmental John (usually) is of any given period: he’s an objective observer, so we can judge for ourselves. 

As a hardcore nerd writing books and for Doctor Who Magazine, and popping up on documentaries, I know quite a lot of the source material used here, which means I’m in awe at how John has come up with something fresh. Repeatedly, I thought, “Oh, I’d not considered it like that before…” It’s a provocative read and I don’t always agree with John’s conclusions. But then that’s part of the fun — a book to grapple with and argue over, and be part of.

The link between the Doctor’s relationship with his granddaughter in the first year of the series and Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop (pp. 52-56) is particularly inspired. If John is right about this, it may well have been influenced by the BBC serial version that ran for 13 episodes 1962-63, with Patrick Troughton as Quilp, Ron Grainer providing music and Betty Blattner supervising make-up. 

The idea of the Time Lords being, effectively, the BBC (introduced p. 107 and returned to several times) is also brilliant. The thing about the snow globe commissioned by director Ben Wheatley (p. 339) is completely new to me and magnificently boggling. 

And I’m really taken by the idea of Doctor Who as “megafiction”, almost as if its huge volume, longevity and reach mean it has passed the point of singularity. Here, feel it … It’s alive.

See also:

• In his book The KLF - Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds, John discusses the alchemical magic brought to Doctor Who by original story editor David Whitaker (and, in the edition, cites me)
• Me on Love and Let Die by John Higgs

Remembering / Forgetting The Savages

The animation of otherwise-missing 1966 Doctor Who story The Savages is out now. It includes Stuart Denman's 100-minute documentary Remembering / Forgetting The Savages, in which Toby Hadoke explores in depth the history, context and meaning of this lost adventure.

I'm one of the punters involved, asked about such things as The Joy of Sex and the Doctor's reacting vibrator (yes, really). 

The Savages sees the departure of companion Steven Taylor, played by Peter Purves. You can find out what happened to him next in the audio stories The War to End All Wars, The Founding Fathers and The Locked Room.

Alex Andreou's Podyssey podcast

The Dr is one of the expert "muses" featured in Alex Andreou's new Podyssey podcast series.

Each episode begins with Alex retelling a Greek myth - Echo and Narcissus in episode 1, Orpheus and Eurydice in episode 2 - before going on to explore its cultural influence into the modern day. 

• Alex Andreou's Podyssey on Apple podcasts
• Alex Andreou's Podyssey on Spotify
• Alex Andreou's Podyssey on Podtail

In episode 2, the Dr refers to a brooch of a lyre strung with hair from the head of the poet John Keats, which she wrote more about (with pictures) in a blog post last year, ‘Touch has a memory’: An Object of Friendship.

The Dr previously featured as an expert witness in the BBC radio series 1922: The Birth of Now and the one-off documentary John Ruskin's Eurhythmic Girls, the latter co-produced by me.

Terror of the Suburbs, with Matthew Sweet

The Blu-ray set Doctor Who: The Collection Season 7 has been out for a few weeks. It includes the documentary I co-produced, Terror of the Suburbs, a clip from which has just been posted on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel:

Now that people have had a chance to see Terror of the Suburbs in full, I have permission to share some photos from the shoot.

Terror of the Suburbs was directed by Jon Clarke and edited by Robin Andrews at Eklectics. Presenter Matthew Sweet spoke to Alex Moore (assistant location manager on Doctor Who 2022-24), Dr Adam Scovell (writer and historian), Subhadra Das (also a writer and historian) and Dr Rupa Huq, MP. It's produced by me and Thomas Guerrier for executive producer Russell Minton at BBC Studios.

Director Jon Clarke and camera op Lewis Hobson on Ealing High Street
where Autons once invaded

,

Presenter Matthew Sweet on the corner of Ealing Broadway and Ealing High Street,
outside the Autons' favourite branch of M&S

Jon and Lewis line up a shot with Matthew

Lewis, Jon, expert guest Alex Moore, Matthew Sweet and me
(Photo by Kitty Dunning)

Me looming in the foreground while the team interview Dr Adam Scovell
outside Ealing Film Studios

Dr Adam Scovell and Matthew Sweet at Ealing Film Studios

Nice Vibez, Lime Grove

Jon records Subhadra Das and Matthew Sweet in Chiswick

Subhadra and Matthew in Chiswick

Jon records Matthew's reaction shot in front of a brick wall

Matthew and Jon in front of the Palace of Westminster,
the south side of the river popular with alien invasions 

Matthew and Dr Rupa Huq, MP at Portcullis House

Jon and Matthew in front of Elizabeth Tower

An Independent Woman, The Autobiography of Edith Guerrier

An archivist pal asked if I was any relation of Edith Guerrier (1870-1958), the subject of Tirzah Frank’s fascinating “The ‘Boston Marriage’ of Edith Guerrier and Edith Brown”.

I’d not heard of her before but, looking up details, Edith’s great-grandfather was George Guerrier (1771-1824), my direct ancestor — my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather. My grandfather’s grandfather, William George Guerrier (1827-1920) was the cousin of Edith’s father, George.

Edith wrote an autobiography under the title A Little Woman of New England, which was published as An Independent Woman in 1992. It’s about how, from modest beginnings, she set up  a series of clubs for girls, largely from Italian and Jewish immigrant families. That leads to a long career with Boston Library, included a nine-year campaign to get a Bill passed into law. She meets various famous people such as Louisa May Alcott (hence the original title of this autobiography) and some US politicians who would later be president. It’s an evocative story and full of great historical detail. 

There’s not a lot of detail about her 40-year relationship with Edith Brown, though a couple of things, I think, are telling.

The first meeting with Edith Brown and their setting up home together are described in a chapter titled “A Single Woman”. They’re clearly a close partnership from the off, a duo. In that sense, at least, Edith Guerrier isn’t single. The title is consciously ironic.

Then there’s the following comment towards the end of the book, where Edith Guerrier speaks of her retirement from Boston City Library, mandated when she turns 70:

“In looking ahead, all my plans had been made with regard to the things my dearly beloved comrade and I would do together, but before time came Edith had passed into the next life. After nearly forty years of closest companionship I was left to face retirement alone, never doubting, however, that she still lived vitally and radiantly beyond this bourne of Time and Place.” (p. 127)

Otherwise, there’s not much on the Ediths’ relationship. We hear of their holidays — to Italy, to Amsterdam and Switzerland, an evocative trip to post-war Ypres in 1922 and then England. We learn how these trips inspired their work back in the US, such as in setting up a pottery. But Edith Brown, who went on these trips and led some of the work that followed, is an almost ghostly presence in the text. 

Edith Guerrier names lots of different people: her various relatives, the famous people she encountered, a range of people she worked with or who supported her work. But she is discreet about Edith Brown. And she also, notably I think, doesn’t name the female school friends she went to stay with in her teens, or the cowgirl she once ran away with on a “marauding expedition”.

“I had practically no companions and I longed to become acquainted with a girl about my own age who bought our milk from her father’s ranch several miles out on the high prairie … I had made up my mind that it would be a good thing to see the cowgirl’s ranch and I wished nothing to interfere with the plan.” (p. 45)

It is all, I think, suggestive.

Edith Guerrier is much more interested in demonstrating the impact of a little time and investment on those who don’t have much. We see the impact on her of earning six dollars a week rather than three, and of the $300 she is somehow awarded as compensation for the loss of her great-great grandfather’s ship in the War of 1812 (p. 75). Inheritance, patronage and government grants have a transformative impact on her and her community. 

There’s something, too, about the indirect impact of this kind of initiative. They hoped, for example, that the pottery would make some money. However,

“We learned many useful facts about pottery making and became convinced that the leisurely product of a studio demands rather than provides a steady income.” (p. 96)

But that doesn’t mean it failed.

Annoyingly for my purposes, editor Mary Matson says in her preface,

“I have made excisions. I have omitted her discursively genealogical ‘Part 1’ on the history of her forbears, while making liberal use of the material in my own introduction.” (p. xx)

According to a written account by Edith’s father, the Guerriers are "of Huguenot descent, one of a body settling on the banks of the Thames about 1685.” (p. xxviii). That matches what I’d learned elsewhere, with the first Guerrier, Jean, arriving at the Huguenot church on Threadneedle Street in London on 6 December 1677.

Again according to Edith’s father, her great-grandfather George (my direct ancestor).

 “was a farmer on the Isle of Dogs, and when he died he left considerable property, but [his son, Edith’s grandfather] Samuel Guerrier’s portion of the inheritance was swallowed up in an unsuccessful book publishing enterprise. He pursued clerical occupations, having but a precarious subsistence through many years and finally died in the care of my half-brother Will Guerrier at an advanced age.” (Ibid).

This Will Guerrier (1795-1850) is another of my direct ancestors.

Samuel’s son George (1837-1911), had been a freight clerk when he visited a panorama (presumably in London) showing a rather fanciful view of Mississippi, complete with monkeys. This inspired him to emigrate to the US at the age of 19, in 1856 (pp. 33-35). During the Civil War, he was Second Lieutenant of Coloured Infantry, and fought at Yorktown and the siege of Fort Wagner, and was,

“wounded at Gaines Mill and captured. For six weeks he had lain in Libby Prison, an experience he refused to talk about.” (p. 81)

Edith is sure that this, and other aspects of his war service, ruined his health. Even so, on 2 September 1867, he married Emma Ricketson, the daughter of an abolitionist, who died of tuberculosis when their daughter Edith was three.

Edith says her father was keen that she learn French (but that she never had much success). 

“It may have been because of our French ancestry, and because our name, which according to the family legend was given by a French king to a distant ancestor for prowess on the battlefield.” (p. 59)

I’d like to read more about Edith and her father’s accounts of their — and my — family history. And I wonder if, when the two Ediths were in London in 1922, they looked up some of her relatives there. Her father’s cousin, William George Guerrier, died in 1920, but his son and nine year-old grandson were there. 

That grandson was my grandfather. And I wonder if, just possibly, that man I knew once met Edith.

How they Broke Britain, by James O’Brien

This is a righteously angry account of the past 15 years of politics in the UK, under Conservative (mis)rule. O’Brien ends with the disastrous mini-budget announced on 23 September 2022 by Kwasi Kwarteng, Chancellor the Exchequer to Prime Minister Liz Truss. The book is about the cascade of errors and bad-faith actions that, over more than a decade, got us to that point.

It’s divided into chapters covering, in turn, Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre, Andrew Neil, Matthew Elliott, Nigel Farage, David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss (with an afterword in my paperback edition written in February 2024 about Rishi Sunak). It is necessarily wide-ranging to cover the myriad interconnections between politicians, think-tanks and allies in the media, and between politicians in the UK with movements and cabals abroad. It is densely packed with evidence. The result is engrossing (due to the author) and intensely infuriating (due to what he describes).

One example will give the flavour:

“In August 2019, Thiemo Fetzer, a professor in economics at the University of Warwick, went further:

‘I gathered data from all electoral contests that took place in the UK since 2000, and assembled a detailed individual-led panel data set covering almost 40,000 households since 2009. Through these data, I studied to what extent an individual’s or region’s exposure to welfare cuts since 2010 was associated with increased political support for UKIP in the run up to the Brexit referendum in 2016. The analysis suggests that this association was so strong that the 2016 EU referendum would have resulted in a clear victory for Remain (or the referendum might never have happened) had it not been for austerity measures such as extensive cuts to public spending.’ [Quotation from Thiemo Fetzer, ‘Did Austerity in the UK Lead to the Brexit Crisis?’, Harvard Business Review, 23 August 2019]

In other words, David Cameron and George Osborne created the dissatisfaction and distress that would prompt many people to vote for Brexit. Into this space sashayed the deliberate and deceitful demonisation of workers from other EU countries, perpetrated by Nigel Farage and co., and the unkeepable promises about prosperity punted by the likes of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, drawing on erroneous economic modelling.” (p. 242)

O’Brien is good at making these connections: the way one misguided policy or deliberately cynical action has had far-reaching negative effects. The incidents he describes are usually well known — they were often leading stories on the news — but he shows how they are symptoms of a wider culture of privilege and personal connection. He shows how each headline is an incremental steps towards that mini-budget.

In some ways, I think this book picks up the baton from The Blunders of Our Governments (2013), by Anthony King & Ivor Crewe, but whereas that largely describes a bunch of well-meaning professionals whose fault is unconscious bias, O’Brien digs into something much more pernicious: a protection racket, effectively, to line the pockets of the haves by preying on the have-nots. 

But it is also about the fantasies of those involved: their actions, their supporters, driven by beliefs that fly in the face of reality. The perceived threat of immigration or of public spending, the perceived bias of the media if it is not wholly supportive, a whole pack of straw dogs. Worst of all is the lofty disdain when it all goes wrong, the certainty — despite all evidence — that they will yet be vindicated.

Not delusions of grandeur but delusions of the grand. 

David Whitaker wrote 35 episodes of Crossroads

I’ve just received my copy of Doctor Who Chronicles — 1970, from the makers of Doctor Who Magazine. It features, on pp. 28-31 “Cross purposes”, my article on the back and forth of personnel between the production teams of Doctor Who and the ATV soap opera Crossroads, me arguing that the 1970 reboot of Doctor Who owes as much to the soap as it does to the oft-cited Quatermass. 

Several writers worked on both Doctor Who and Crossroads at different times, including Barbara Clegg, Terrance Dicks, David Ellis, Paul Erickson, Brian Hayles, Don Houghton, Malcolm Hulke, Peter Ling, Derrick Sherwin and my bae David Whitaker. I trace who did what when, and the direction of travel back and forth between the two series.

But this new article originates in me being wrong. Here is the full story, with a wealth of new information about David Whitaker.

On page 332 of my biography David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television, I quote a Sunday Times story by ‘Atticus’ (Michael Bateman) from 8 March 1970, criticising actions by David Whitaker ‘who used to write for Crossroads.’ I respond to this: ‘David had written episodes of the soap opera Compact, not Crossroads.’ In fact, I now know David wrote for both.

A number of things led me to the wrong conclusion in my book. First, I had access to various CVs and potted biographies of David from over the years, which tend to emphasise the great variety of film and TV he worked on. None of them mention Crossroads yet they include many things that didn’t make it to the screen or for which he didn't receive on-screen credit. 

For example, a report in the Australian TV Week from 18 May 1974, which interviewed David, claimed he’d written ‘a number of episodes of The Saint, The Avengers and Danger Man’. He’d had a meeting about potential work on The Saint and may have pitched an episode of Danger Man… But he doesn't have a credit on any of these shows and there's no evidence that he was ever commissioned to write full scripts for them. It seems that David, not uniquely in the industry, exaggerated a little to bulk out his CV. I thought if he had worked on Crossroads, or even gone for a meeting with the production team, he would have included it on a CV. 

I was able to verify that David is not credited as writer on any surviving episodes of Crossroads. When researching at Birmingham Central Library, I leafed through old copies of listings magazine TV Times but the random selection of Crossroads episodes I found did not credit the writer (or director or producer). This was, as we'll see, an oversight on my part.

IMDB, as yet, does not credit David for any episodes of Crossroads but I already knew it was missing many screen credits I could trace from other sources. I ran David's name through The Kaleidoscope British Independent Television Drama Research Guide 1955-2010 edited by Simon Coward, Richard Down and Christopher Perry (2010) and various online archives but his name didn’t come up in relation to Crossroads. 

In addition, one of the people I interviewed for my book told me that they didn’t think David wrote for Crossroads as it was a programme they watched and they would have spotted his name. In all, it seemed fair to surmise that ‘Atticus’ in the Sunday Times had muddled things up: David Whitaker worked with writers Hazel Adair and Peter Ling on developing their BBC soap opera Compact and is credited as writer on seven episodes of that; but he didn’t then work on their ATV soap Crossroads.

Then, late last year, Doctor Who Magazine #610 boasted an extended interview with former producer Philip Hinchcliffe, in which writer Benjamin Cook noted that Hinchcliffe had written for Crossroads. In a footnote on page 26, Ben said that “David Whittaker” — two Ts — had also written for the soap. 

I ran some online searches to see if I could corroborate this and ended up finding a photograph of the cast and crew of Crossroads (image 12588028vh) that has been added to Shutterstock since I wrote my book. Second from the left in the bottom row is David Whitaker. Which, flipping heck, is pretty conclusive evidence that he worked on the series.

The caption with the photograph tells us who some of the other people are: 

“Crossroads: Behind the scenes cast and crew picture circa early 1970s - featuring, including Rollo Gamble (TV Director, 1st R, back row), Jack Barton (TV Director and Producer, 3rd L back row), Tish Hope, as played by Joy Andrews (5th L, middle row), Noele Gordon as Meg Richardson, Ann George, as Amy Turtle, Susan Hanson, as Diane (2nd R middle row), David Whitaker (TV Script Writer - former BBC TV series Doctor Who writer, 2nd L btm row), Reg Watson (Producer, seated centre on chair), and others”

I think Hazel Adair and Peter Ling are in the front row, Ling in glasses and moustache at Reg Watson’s knee. Second left on the back row, stood between Rollo Gamble and Jack Barton, may be fellow director Alan Coleman. (Three of the people in this photograph figured in Russell T Davies' 2023 drama Nolly, namely Noele Gordon played by Helena Bonham Carter, Susan Hanson played by Chloe Harris and director Jack Barton played by Con O'Neill.)

I was especially taken by the sight of Rollo Gamble in the top-right corner, as he played Squire Winstanley in 1971 Doctor Who story The Daemons. It was this that inspired my new article for DWM.

The photograph seems to show cast and crew on the roof of Bradford House, on Bradford Street in Digbeth, which ATV rented for rehearsals. As my friend David Jennings astutely notes, the skyline matches the view in pictures taken in 2007, and the view would have been very different from the original ATV Centre in Aston or the new complex on Broad Street, which opened in 1970. Since Cleo Sylvestre, who joined the cast in an episode first broadcast on 27 January 1970,  doesn’t feature among the cast in this photograph, I think it must have been taken in 1969.

Having found this photograph, I got in touch with Benjamin Cook to ask what sources he’d drawn from. He pointed me back towards the Kaleidoscope guide, which lists 24 episodes of Crossroads written by David Whittaker — two Ts — between 22 July 1969 and 27 February 1970. But there were also numerous gaps where no writer was credited at all, leaving the tantalising prospect that Whitaker had written more.

The Kaleidoscope guide lists episodes of Crossroads on the basis of their first transmission on the ATV network (as some other ITV regions showed Crossroads days or even months behind). I double-checked against copies of TV Times for the Midlands region (the one served by ATV) at Birmingham Central Library and found David credited for eight episodes covering that same period, 22 July 1969 to 27 February 1970.

But the reason for the discrepancy swiftly became clear. At the time, Crossroads was broadcast four times a week, Tuesday to Friday, and the listings in TV Times usually credits writer, director and producer only on the Tuesday. The implication is that the same writer and director were assigned blocks of four episodes at a time — a week’s worth. David was therefore credited on eight blocks of four episodes, or 32 in total. It was consistent work, one block per calendar month between July and February. And nothing either side.

The TV Times listings usually include a line of dialogue from the episode in question, instead of precis or recap (which might spoil the plot). This gives some flavour of the drama. What's more, the lines of dialogue seem to be from the opening moments of each episode. That meant I could relatively easily match the listings printed in TV Times with the soundtrack of an otherwise missing episode - part of a cache of 1960s episodes of Crossroads on the Internet Archive - and show it was one written by David.

* UPDATE 12 March 2025. David Jennings has been in touch to add to the total. The TV Times for the week of 27 September 1969 lists Peter Ling as writer of Crossroads on Tuesday, 30 September. But then David is credited for Wednesday, 1 October. There's no writer credit for Thursday or Friday, but the assumption is he oversaw that whole block of episodes bar the first one. 

David Whitaker's 32 episodes of Crossroads are as follows, with quotations, cast and crew details as per the ATV region TV Times:

1. 
   Episode 1116, 6.35 pm, Tuesday, 22 July 1969 (the day after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left the surface of the Moon)


   
   “Amy: Any more surprises and I’ll jump out of my skin.”

   
   Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Michael McStay (Steve Mitchell); Pamela Duncan (Mrs Cordelia Fitts); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); William Avenall (Mr Lovejoy); Gillian Betts (Josefina Rafael); Susan Travers (Elena Brandt); Eva Wishaw (Tessa Wyvern); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Ralph Lawton (Sgt Yorke); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Jack Haig (Archie Gibbs).
   
   WRITER DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR ROLLO GAMBLE PRODUCER REG WATSON
   
   Full listing for this episode in the Anglia-region version of TV Times (because I couldn't get a very legible picture from the bound edition of the Midlands version!):
   

   
   
   
2. Episode 1117, 6.35 pm, Wednesday 23 July 1969
   
   Jill: “I know. You’re so innocent and misunderstood. But can’t you see how much trouble you’re causing?”
   
   Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Eva Wishaw (Tessa Wyvern); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Susan Travers (Elena Brandt); Pamela Duncan (Mrs Cordelia Fitts); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Michael McStay (Steve Mitchell); Bay White (Mrs Arden); Gillian Betts (Josefina Rafael); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); John Bradbury (Musician).
   
   DIRECTOR JACK BARTON

   
   
3. Episode 1118, 6.35 pm, Thursday, 24 July 1969
   
   Malcolm: “Burn the dinner! Chuck it in the dustbin!”
   
   Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Michael McStay (Steve Mitchell); Eva Wishaw (Tessa Wyvern); Gillian Betts (Josefina Rafael); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Pamela Duncan (Mrs Cordelia Fitts); Jack Haig (Archie Gibbs); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Ralph Lawton (Sgt Yorke).
   
   
4. Episode 1119, 6.35 pm, Friday 25 July 1969
   
   Same quotation and listing given as for Thursday.

   
   
5. 
   Episode 1132, 6.35 pm Tuesday 19 August 1969
   
   Diane: “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
   
   Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Doris Wellings (Mrs Grimble); Ted Morris (Willie Mayne); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Colin Spaull (Jacko Gregg); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Philip Garston-Jones (Commercial traveller); Ann George (Amy Turtle).
   
   SCRIPT BY DAVID WHITAKER: SCRIPT EDITOR MALCOLM HULKE: DIRECTOR JACK BARTON: PRODUCER REG WATON

   
   
6. Episode 1133, 6.35 pm, Wednesday 20 August 1969
   
   Mr Lovejoy: “Am I such a tyrant?”
   
   Cast: Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Susan Hanson (Diana [sic] Lawton); Doris Wellings (Mrs Grimble); Ted Morris (Willie Mayne); Ralph Lawton (Sgt Yorke); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Gillian Betts (Josefina Rafael); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Philip Garston-Jones (Commercial traveller); Eve Whishaw (Tessa Wyvern).
NB no credit for Noele Gordon.

   
   
7. Episode 1134, 6.35pm, Thursday 21 August 1969
   
   Joesfina: “Now, now, Mrs Hope—you’re match-making.”
   
   No cast given.

   
   
8. Episode 1135, 6.35 pm, Friday 22 August 1969
   
   Diane: “Wouldn’t it be better to tell Mrs Richardson about the gambling?”

   
   No cast given.

   
   
9. Episode 1148, 6.35 pm, Tuesday 16 September 1969
   
   Booth: “I have strict rules.”
   
   Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg); Hilary Wontner (Sir Geoffrey); Ann George (Amy Turtle); David Lawton (Mr Booth); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Gillian Betts (Josefina Rafael); Jon Kelly (Frank Adam); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Paul Large (Paul Tatum); Jane Rossington (Jill).
   
   WRITER DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR ALAN COLEMAN: PRODUCER REG WATSON.

   
   
10. Episode 1149, 6.35 pm, Wednesday 17 September 1969
    
    Amy: “It gives you confidence to have a revolver in the palm of your hand.”
    
    No cast given.

    
    
11. Episode 1150, 6.35 pm, Thursday, 18 September 1969
    
    Meg: “Why didn’t Malcolm confide in me?”

    Sir Geoffrey: “I’m offering you a lifeline. You must take it.”
    
    No cast given.

    
    
12. Episode 1151, 6.35pm, Friday 19 September 1969
    
    Meg: “Are you certain he doesn’t need any stitches?”
    
    No cast given.
The audio of this episode survives.
    
    (Episode 1156, 6.35 pm, Tuesday 30 September 1969 credited in TV Times to writer Peter Ling)
    
    
13. 
    Episode 1157, 6.35 pm, Wednesday 1 October 1969
    
    Nick: “I hope you’re wrong about Mrs Grey.”
    
    Cast: Roger Squires (Harold Brackett); Isabella Rye (Mary-Lou Patterson); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Brian Kent (Dick Jarvis); Gaby Vargas (Vivienne Miller); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Eva Whishaw (Tessa Wyvern); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey)
    
    WRITER DAVID WHITAKER : DIRECTOR JACK BARTON : PRODUCER REG WATSON
    
    
    
    
    
14. Episode 1158, 6.35 pm, Thursday 2 October 1969
    
    No cast or details given.
    
    
15. Episode 1159, 6.35 pm, Friday 3 October 1969
    
     “He’s dead... He’s dead!”
    
    Cast: Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Elisabeth Croft (Miss Tatum); Brian Kent (Dick Jarvis); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Eva Wishaw (Tessa Wyvern); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Isabelle Rye (Mary Lou Patterson); Jack Haig (Archie Gibbs); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Gaby Vargas (Vivienne Miller); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey)
    
    
16. Episode 1172, 6.35 pm, Tuesday 28 October 1969
    
    Mrs Grey: “That’s why I’m here.”
    Malcolm: “Because of me.”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Michael Anthony (Col. St Clair); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Denis Gilmore (Terry Lawton).

    
    SCRIPT DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR ALAN COLEMAN: PRODUCER REG WATSON
    
    
    
    
    
17. Episode 1173, 6.35pm, Wednesday 29 October 1969
    
    Jill: “Thick quickly, Uncle Dick, because I mean what I say.”

    
    No cast given.

    
    
18. Episode 1174, 6.35pm, Thursday 30 October 1969
    
    Diane: “Why don’t you order champagne?”
    Terry: “A beer’s not going to break us is it?”
    
    Cast: Elisabeth Croft (Miss Tatum); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); John Henderson (Mr Meddows); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Beatrice Shaw (Mrs Seymour); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Brian Kent (Dick Jarvis); Denis Gilmore (Terry Lawton); Brian Hankins (Derek Maynard); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder).
    
    
19. Episode 1175, 6.35pm, Friday 31 October 1969
    
    Gypsy: “Shall I read what the cards say for you, Lady?”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Brian Hankins (Derek Maynard); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey); Malja Woolf (Gypsy); Beatrice Shaw (Mrs Seymour); Denis Gilmore (Terry Lawton); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); John Henderson (Mr Meddows); Elisabeth Croft (Miss Tatum).
    
    
20. Episode 1188, 6.35 pm Tuesday 25 November 1969
(Crossroads now in colour)
    
    No quotation
    
    Cast: Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); John Gatrell (Commander Boone); Denis Gilmore (Terry Lawton); Sally-Jane Spencer (Caroline Boone); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Elisabeth Croft (Miss Tatum); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Eva Wishaw (Tessa Wyvern); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson).
    
    SCRIPT BY DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR ROLLO GAMBLE: PRODUCER REG WATSON.

    
    
21. Episode 1189, 6.35 pm, Wednesday, 26 November 1969
    
    Terry: “The Commander? He didn’t land me this one?”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Eva Whishaw (Tessa Wyvern); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Gillian Betts (Josefina Rafael); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Denis Gilmore (Terry Lawton); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey); Jack Haig (Archie Gibbs).
    
    WRITER DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR ROLLO GAMBLE: PRODUCER REG WATSON
    

22. Episode 1190, 6.35 pm, Thursday, 27 November 1969
    
    Archie: “Do you want to make £100?”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Jack Haig (Archie Gibbs); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Eva Whishaw (Tessa Wyvern); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Brian Hankins (Derek Maynard); Jean Aubrey (Kathy Knight); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey).

    
    
23. Episode 1191, 6.35 pm, Friday, 28 November 1969
    
    Amy: “Oh yes… here, he’s not leading you astray is he?”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Jack Haig (Archie Gibbs); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Gillian Betts (Josefina Rafael); David Davenport (Malcolm Ryder); Elisabeth Croft (Miss Tatum); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Brian Hankins (Derek Maynard); Jean Aubrey (Kathy Knight); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Eva Whishaw (Tessa Wyvern); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey).

    
    
24. Episode 1209, 6.35 pm, Tuesday, 30 December 1969
    
    Mr Lovejoy: “Your way is not the only way.”
    Mr Booth: “Your way is certainly not the right way.”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Jacqueline Stanbury (Joanne Peterson); Roger Tonge (Sandy Richardson); David Lawton (Mr Booth); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope); Nicola Davies (Angela Davy); Beatrice Kane (Miss Davey).


    
    WRITER DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR ALAN COLEMAN: PRODUCER REG WATSON

    
    
25. Episode 1210, 6.35 pm, Wednesday, 31 December 1969
    
    Eve: “Do you remember I told you Michael was out of the country?”

    Mrs Hope: “Yes.”

    Eve: “Diane met him at the El Dorado.”
    
    Cast: Roger Tonge (Sandy Richardson); Jacqueline Stanbury (Joanne Peterson); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Jane Rossington (Jill Richardson); Nicola Davies (Angela Davy).

    
    
26. Episode 1211, 6.35 pm, Thursday, 1 January 1970
    
    Mr Booth: “Mr Lovejoy’s quite an elderly gentleman, isn’t he?”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Claire Davenport (Miss Worbeck); Jacqueline Stanbury (Joanne Peterson); David Lawton (Mr Booth); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Roger Tonge (Sandy Richardson); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope); Nicola Davies (Angela Davy); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker).

    
    
27. Episode 1212, 6.35 pm, Friday 2 January 1970
    
    Michael: “Take a look in the mirror sweetheart, and give yourself a shock.”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Paul Greaves (Michael Phillips); Roger Tonge (Sandy Richardson); Jacqueline Stanbury (Joanne Peterson); Claire Davenport (Miss Worbeck); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope).

    
    
28. Episode 1225, 6.35 pm, Tuesday 27 January 1970
    
    Eve: “How much will you pay me to tell my story to your paper?”
    
    Cast: Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Michael Mundell (Marcus Allison); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Doreen Keogh (Mrs Candour); Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper).
    
    WRITER DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR ROLLO GAMBLE: PRODUCER REG WATSON.

    
    This was a notable episode, featuring the introduction of new regular character Melanie Harper, played by Cleo Sylvestre (who had also had a role in David’s 1965 Doctor Who story The Crusade). Sylvestre later recalled:
    
    “Enoch Powell had been making those terrible ‘Rivers of Blood’ speeches, which resulted in a lot of racial tension up and down the country, especially in cities like Birmingham. Reg [Watson, producer of Crossroads] must have picked up on this, and decided to create one of the first regular black characters in a British soap… Melanie Harper was Meg’s adopted daughter who, until then, had never been mentioned. Melanie arrived from France, where she had been studying, and viewers just accepted her. It was great. It was wonderful.
    
     “At the very end of an episode, I walked into the motel with a suitcase and rung the reception desk bell. The receptionist came out and I said 'Can I speak to Mrs Richardson, please?’ and she said ‘Yes. Who shall I say is asking for her?’ I replied, ‘Tell her it’s her daughter.’ And then the music came up. What a cliffhanger! This was the first time Meg’s other daughter had been mentioned.” - Cleo Sylvestre, interviewed by Stephen Bourne as part of ‘Soap Queens’ at the NFT, 2001
     

29. Episode 1226, 6.35 pm, Wednesday, 28 January 1970
    
    Peter: “The Bishop wants to see me as soon as possible.”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Doreen Keogh (Mrs Candour); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Michael Mundell (Marcus Allison); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope).
    

30. Episode 1227, 6.35 pm Thursday, 29 January 1970
    
    Meg: “I’ve had some news about Malcolm, Mrs Grey—you’re the only one I can talk to.”

    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Doreen Keogh (Mrs Candour); Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper); Ann George (Amy Turtle); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); William Sherwood (The Bishop); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey).
    
    
31. Episode 1228, 6.35 pm, Friday, 30 January 1970
    
    Mrs Hope: “Angela, either you do come, or I’ll say what I have to say to your aunt… and to the police.”

    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); ; Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Michael Mundell (Marcus Allison); Nicola Davies (Angela Davy); Patricia Greene (Mrs Grey); Doreen Keogh (Mrs Candour); Neville Hughes (Peter Hope); Nadine Hanwell (Marilyn Hope); Beatrice Kane (Miss Davy).

    
    
32. Episode 1241, 6.35 pm Tuesday, 24 February 1970
    
    Eve: “He’s still critically ill. I could have helped him you know. He begged me—and I refused.”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Kevin Frazer (Rex Drayton); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Jon Kelley (Frank Adam); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker).
    
    WRITER DAVID WHITAKER: DIRECTOR JACK BARTON: PRODUCER REG WATSON

    
    
33. Episode 1242, 6.35 pm, Wednesday, 25 February 1970
    
    Meg: “There’s only one way to get some sanity into this motel and that is to set fire to everyone and start all over again.”
    
    Cast: Noele Gordon (Meg Richardson); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); Jon Kelley (Frank Adam); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); David Lawton (Mr Booth); Kevin Frazer (Rex Drayton).

    
    
34. Episode 1243, 6.35 pm, Thursday 26 February 1970
    
    Nurse: “You really shouldn’t have come back, Miss Baker. I did say we’d get in touch with you if there was any change.”
    
    Cast: Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren); William Avenell (Mr Lovejoy); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Ann George (Amy Turtle); Lee Clark (Delivery boy);  Kevin Frazer (Rex Drayton); Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Sarah Child (Nurse).
    

35. Episode 1244, 6.35 pm, Friday 27 February 1970
    
    Melanie: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Diane: “When I woke up in the middle of the night you were missing.”


    
    Cast: Cleo Sylvestre (Melanie Harper); Susan Hanson (Diane Lawton); Peter Brookes (Vince Parker); David Sherwood (Danny Conroy); Jon Kelley (Frank Adam); Toni Sinclair (Eve Baker); Joy Andrews (Mrs Hope); Ann George (Amy Turtle); David Lawton (Mr Booth); Deidre Costello (Rita Mayne); Peter Boyes (Nick Van Doren).

When Atticus wrote the Sunday Times piece published on 8 March, David Whitaker had stopped working for Crossroads only very recently. We don't know the circumstances under which he left the programme but around this time other people who employed David received poison-pen letters about him. Did such letters reach ATV and hasten his departure? If so, is there something knowing, even crowing, about the Sunday Times saying that he “used to write for Crossroads”? 

Whatever the case, David Whitaker left just before the arrival of a new writer on Crossroads. Philip Hinchcliffe's first episode aired on ATV on 21 April 1970.

Holiday Sketches exhibition at Senate House

Exciting news! The clever Dr has curated an exhibition which opens this Saturday, 1 February, and runs until 14 March, at Senate House in London.

Holiday Sketches: Two Female Artists and an Archaeologist Husband go on Holiday, 1863, is about the trip made to Rhodes (as well as Athens, Ephesos and Istanbul) by artist Ann Mary Severn Newton and the teenaged Gertrude Jekyll, in the company of Mary's husband Charles. He was an archaeologist, the trip related to his work for the British Museum. 

You can find the exhibition on the 3rd floor of Senate House, University of London - just as you come out of the lifts, by the library of the Institute of Classical Studies. If you can't make it (and even if you can), the Dr has also produced an accompanying fanzine. 

For more of this sort of thing, she previously wrote the book, From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus - British Archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire 1840-1880 (Bloomsbury, 2008) and continues to dig into all this, especially the life of Mary. You can keep up with her researches on her blog.

Someone from the Past, by Margot Bennett

Nancy Graham, 26 year-old magazine writer and the narrator of this novel, is out for dinner with her fiancee Donald when they bump into Susan Lampson. Nancy used to share a flat and work with Susan but they’ve not seen each other in a while. To complicate matters, Donald used to go out with Susan and when she left him tried to shoot himself.

Now Susan is marrying someone else — but, she tells Nancy, she’s received a threatening note from an ex. Susan wants Nancy, who kept notes in shorthand on Susan’s love-life when they lived together, to seek out her exes and find out who is making trouble. It might be the convicted thief Peter or the poet Laurence or the vain actor Mike… Nancy is sure it can’t be Donald.

When Susan is murdered, Nancy’s first thought is to ensure that the police don’t suspect her fiancee. But in tidying up the crime scene to protect Donald, she incriminates herself…

This is a fantastic return to form by Margot Bennett after the disappointment of Farewell Crown and Good-bye King. It’s at least as good as The Widow of Bath and probably better, my favourite of her books that I have read so far. I can see why it won the Crime Writers’ Association ‘Crossed Red Herrings’ award — since renamed the Gold Dagger (and presented to Bennett by JB Priestley) — and why Bennett was, in 1959, elected to the Detection Club. Fast-moving, twisty and suspenseful, this keeps us guessing to the end. Even the very last paragraph takes an unexpected turn.

In his introduction, Martin Edwards quotes Bennett herself on what made this and The Man Who Didn’t Fly “my best books”. The latter,

“had an unusual plot and a set of people I believed in. In the same way, Someone from the Past had five characters I might have met anywhere. The best of all my people was the girl Nancy. She was kind and cruel, and loyal and bitchy. She was a ready liar, with a sharp tongue, but she was brave and real. All through my books, the best I have done is to make the people real.” (pp. 9-10, citing John M Reilly (ed.), Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers)

Nancy is a compelling protagonist. We never know what she might do next. She is observant and reckless, intelligent and yet capable of extraordinary folly. Sometimes she tries to fix things in ways we can see (and want to shout) will only make things worse. But we are with her all the way as she faces multiple dangers.

As so often with Margot Bennett, characters attracted to one another bicker and fight, but here the stakes are raised because any one of these men Nancy is winding up could be the murderer. Whether or not they did for Susan, they can be violent with Nancy, or treat her appallingly in other ways. In fact, she is not the only woman here who puts up with variously crap men.

This British Library Crime Classic edition, first published in 2023, is subtitled “a London mystery” and it boasts a few good descriptions of places such as Soho. More than that, it offers an extraordinary snapshot of the mores of 1958, the year the novel was originally published. As well as a lot of smoking and drinking, there’s a surprising nonchalance about drugs. Tired and wound-up after a row with Donald, Nancy tells us:

“I knew I should take a couple of strong sleeping-pills. They would give me four hours’ sleep, and a heavily-doped morning that would make work impossible, unless I took a stimulant. After that, a couple of tranquilizing tablets would level me up for the day.” (p. 37)

She has all of these to hand as, a few pages later, she offers them and “a confidence drug” to her fiancee, who tells her he’s already taken “knockout pills” (p. 45). These, we learn, are “blue things, sodium amytal” (p. 47). Elsewhere, Nancy seems familiar with benzedrine. The drug-taking is part of the plot (one suspect was apparently doped and unconscious at the time of the murder) but also part of everyday life. 

I’m intrigued by elements of the novel that Bennett may have drawn from her own (fascinating) life, such as her years as a writer for the magazine Lilliput (while her husband Richard Bennett was editor).

“From the moment that I got the job on the Diagonal Press and scrawled out my first paid illiteracies I saw myself as a great writer, one who kept notebooks and would soon be guest of honour at literary luncheons.” (p. 27)

Again, the notebooks are part of the plot but I wonder how much this attitude — to her earlier work and to her career — matched Bennett’s own. When the murder case bears down on Nancy, the publisher she works for offers her a chance to get away with a job in Spain (p. 248). Is that a nod to Bennett’s own history, as she served as a nurse (and publicist) in Spain during the civil war?

Then there is what the novel says about Television, which in those days still had a capital T. Bennett had already made her debut as a TV writer: her one-off drama The Sun Divorce (dir. Philip Savile) was shown as part of London Playhouse on the ITV network Associated-Redifussion on Thursday 26 January 1956, just four months after the launch of ITV. Writing of Someone from the Past must have overlapped with the agreement of rights for a TV adaptation one of her earlier novels: The Man Who Didn’t Fly, starring William Shatner and Jonathan Harris, was adapted by Jerome Coopersmith and broadcast by NBC in Canada on 16 July 1958.

Since it was made and broadcast in Canada, Bennett probably had little involvement in this and she may never have seen it. But, excitingly, we can watch that production of The Man Who Didn’t Fly on YouTube. It even enjoys a bit of a following because it stars both William Shatner and Jonathan Harris, later stars of Star Trek and Lost in Space respectively. 

Margot Bennett was soon writing for TV herself, with work on ATV soap opera Emergency-Ward 10, perhaps making use of her own nursing experience. IMDB credits her on 15 episodes of the soap, broadcast between Tuesday 23 September 1958 and Friday 22 May 1959. The implication is that she moved into soap opera soon after completing work on this novel.

By the time she finished on Emergency-ward 10, Bennett had made the switch to BBC — and more prestigious drama — with her six-part adaption of her novel The Widow of Bath, which began transmission on 1 June 1959. But Someone from the Past suggests she was already familiar with the mechanics of BBC television more than a year before that.

In the novel, actor Mike Fenby, presumably used to late nights on stage followed by late mornings (as described in Exit Through the Fireplace), complains of the “brutal creatures” of “Terrivision” who have him up at “ten o’clock” in the morning for rehearsals in Shepherds Bush — which is where the BBC was based. 

“And you should see, I really wish you could see, the producer. Temperament! He thinks out the sets with a kind of telescope, and when he wants to concentrate, he blows bubbles. … He has a tin. He shakes the bubbles off with a bit of wire. They help him to relax. When they burst, they cover the floor with slime, like invisible banana skins. There’s practically no one in the cast who hasn’t a sprained ankle or a broken neck. You ought to see us, skidding about the place.” (pp. 39-40). 

That “telescope” was a director’s viewfinder, enabling the director to see how much of the actors and set would be visible through different diameter lenses, and to plan and block their shots ahead of studio recording. Viewfinders had been in use since at least 1938: the Tech Ops site boasts a clipping from Radio Times that year, a photo of one in use and some other details. But this is not the sort of thing people outside the world of TV were likely to know about,.

Actor Mike can escape from rehearsals for lunch with Nancy at one o’clock, suggesting “a pub called the Blue Unicorn”, which is surely a play on the real-life White Horse at 31 Uxbridge Road, where I’ve also sometimes met up with actors. (For those with an interest in the drinking habits of old TV people, the late Alvin Rakoff says in his memoir of working for the BBC in the 1950s that after recording at Lime Grove he’d take the crew for a pint at the end of the road, in the British Prince at 77 Goldhawk Road.)

Later, Mike can’t believe Nancy didn’t see his TV performance go out.

“‘I thought you might have been interested enough to watch me on the new medium.’

‘It’s a fairly old medium by now, isn’t it?’

‘But Nancy, this was terrific. I’m a brain surgeon, you see, who takes to drink, and just when I’m having a terrible fit of the stagers, my former loved one is wheeled in with her brains dashed out. I’m supposed to shake so much, the forceps clash together like a steel band as I approach the operating table. The trouble was that I really was shaking so much I dropped the whole kit of instruments on her face. It was Sylvia, you know, she’s got a shocking temper, I cracked the porcelain jacket on one of her front teeth, she’s going to sue me. If I hadn’t got between her and the cameras and ad-libbed, the viewers would have heard every word she said. You certainly missed something. It will be in all the papers tomorrow.” (p. 95)

There’s a lot of interest here (to me): Television no longer a novelty, favouring melodramatic productions in which the viewer might enjoy the emotional crisis of characters in close-up, all within the lively, stressy chaos of live broadcast. The depiction is a bit pointed, even satirical — as is Mike buying up all the papers to bask in the contradictory reviews — but the details are all right, and so surely based on direct observation.

Did Margot Bennett have first-hand experience of BBC drama production when she wrote Someone from the Past, more than a year before her first writing credits at the BBC? Her husband had worked in BBC radio since the war and also sometimes wrote for listings magazine Radio Times, such as his interview with Jimmy Wheeler ahead of a TV comedy show in May 1956. Yet it seems unlikely that Margot tours of TV rehearsals through that connection. 

More probable, I think, is this came through her own efforts. Was she meeting with BBC people about writing for TV, and getting tours of production, long before her first screen credit there? Or perhaps, like Nancy, Margot Bennett simply met an actor friend for lunch while they were in rehearsals…

Whatever the case, and for all Bennett might have mocked TV drama, something extraordinary happened after the publication of Someone from the Past. Despite the accolades it won, she never published another crime novel. According to her family (and detailed in the introduction to the British Library edition of The Man Who Didn’t Fly), she didn’t earn enough from novels to continue; crime didn’t pay. Instead, she spent the next decade writing prolifically for TV.

More investigation to follow...

Novels by Margot Bennett:

• Time to Change Hats (1945); Away Went the Little Fish (1946); The Golden Pebble (1948); The Widow of Bath (1952); Farewell Crown and Good-bye King (1953); The Long Way Back (1954); The Man Who Didn’t Fly (1955); Someone from the Past (1958); That Summer’s Earthquake (1964); The Furious Masters (1968)

Non-fiction by Margot Bennett:

• The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Atomic Radiation (1964)