Cultural Revolution? Reassessing the BBC and social change in sixties Britain (BBC History 100 Fellowship)
Lead Research Organisation:
Loughborough University
Department Name: Int Relations, Politics and History
Abstract
Did Britain and the BBC undergo a 'cultural revolution' in the 1960s? Did the BBC in the sixties fulfil its declared ambition 'to be ahead of public opinion' in its coverage of social change, laying the foundations for its current initiatives on diversity and inclusion? How does the BBC's treatment of women and BAME and LGBTQ+ communities in the 1960s appear to members of the same groups in 2022? The BBC's centenary year provides an opportunity to explore the intertwined histories of the BBC and modern Britain by focusing on the decade popularly thought to have marked a turning point for both broadcaster and nation.
This project will create a people's history of the BBC in the 1960s to complement the institutional history undertaken by the major AHRC-funded project on Connected Histories of the BBC. Schoolchildren will analyse how the BBC reported on race relations, the emergence of gay rights and women's liberation and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Marginalised communities will review how they were represented in 1960s broadcasts and will stage theatrical adaptations of lost documentaries about their communities for which only transcripts survive. A series of talks during LGBTQ+ History Month will explore the BBC's awkward attempts to tackle gay and lesbian live before and after the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. A podcast series drawing upon one of the world's largest oral history collections, the BBC-created Millennium Memory Bank, will trace how ordinary people experienced BBC programmes and other aspects of popular culture in the 1960s. Academic and non-academic researchers will come together at a conference on 'The BBC at 100: Past, Present and Future' to share their findings, discover more about the BBC's rich archives and discuss with media professionals how past experiences can inform the future development of broadcasting.
These activities will be delivered in partnership with leading organisations in education, heritage and drama: the Historical Association, the OCR examination board, the National Science and Media Museum, the Cinema Museum, the community theatre groups Tamasha, Collective Encounters and Homo Promos and a dramaturg with a distinguished track-record in participatory drama. The activities will be coordinated by a historian of sixties Britain who is experienced in public engagement and who has written widely on popular culture, migration, generation, sexuality, permissiveness, second-wave feminism, national identity and New Social Movements and who is currently writing a history of BBC documentaries about LGBTQ+ issues from the 1950s to the 1980s. The programme will ask participants to decide for themselves whether BBC programmes confirm or contradict my characterisation of sixties Britain as an 'anti-permissive permissive society' in which broadcasts alerted the general public to a liberalisation and diversification of society and culture that most of them opposed.
This project will create a people's history of the BBC in the 1960s to complement the institutional history undertaken by the major AHRC-funded project on Connected Histories of the BBC. Schoolchildren will analyse how the BBC reported on race relations, the emergence of gay rights and women's liberation and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Marginalised communities will review how they were represented in 1960s broadcasts and will stage theatrical adaptations of lost documentaries about their communities for which only transcripts survive. A series of talks during LGBTQ+ History Month will explore the BBC's awkward attempts to tackle gay and lesbian live before and after the 1967 Sexual Offences Act. A podcast series drawing upon one of the world's largest oral history collections, the BBC-created Millennium Memory Bank, will trace how ordinary people experienced BBC programmes and other aspects of popular culture in the 1960s. Academic and non-academic researchers will come together at a conference on 'The BBC at 100: Past, Present and Future' to share their findings, discover more about the BBC's rich archives and discuss with media professionals how past experiences can inform the future development of broadcasting.
These activities will be delivered in partnership with leading organisations in education, heritage and drama: the Historical Association, the OCR examination board, the National Science and Media Museum, the Cinema Museum, the community theatre groups Tamasha, Collective Encounters and Homo Promos and a dramaturg with a distinguished track-record in participatory drama. The activities will be coordinated by a historian of sixties Britain who is experienced in public engagement and who has written widely on popular culture, migration, generation, sexuality, permissiveness, second-wave feminism, national identity and New Social Movements and who is currently writing a history of BBC documentaries about LGBTQ+ issues from the 1950s to the 1980s. The programme will ask participants to decide for themselves whether BBC programmes confirm or contradict my characterisation of sixties Britain as an 'anti-permissive permissive society' in which broadcasts alerted the general public to a liberalisation and diversification of society and culture that most of them opposed.
Organisations
- Loughborough University (Fellow, Lead Research Organisation)
- Science Museum (Project Partner)
- Homo Promos (Project Partner)
- Tamasha Theatre Company (Project Partner)
- Historical Association (Project Partner)
- Aldaterra Projects (Project Partner)
- The Cinema Museum (Project Partner)
- Oxford Cambridge and RSA (Project Partner)
- Collective Encounters (Project Partner)
People |
ORCID iD |
| Marcus Collins (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
| Description | This Fellowship fulfilled all of its five original objectives as follows: 1. To engage secondary school students with the history of equality and diversity through BBC news reports and interviews on social issues in sixties Britain. This was accomplished through three initiatives. For the Historical Association Teacher Fellowship, I worked with ten teachers and two educationalists to create teaching materials about broadcasting and social change in 1960s Britain. The teachers have all taught the materials to their students and eight of them will publish them on the Historical Association website so that other teachers can incorporate them into their classes. I created my own teaching resources in collaboration with Holly Hiscox for sixth-form students taking OCR History A-Level courses. These use the first television British documentary about 'race' relations to teach primary source analysis skills. I also trialled teaching materials on the BBC and decolonisation with two Lincolnshire sixth-forms as part of a future project entitled Faces of Imperialism. 2. To discover how marginalised communities who were the subjects of sixties BBC documentaries compare their representation in past broadcasts to media representations today. This was accomplished through interactive screenings at the National Science and Media Museum and the Cinema Museum. In Bradford, members of the public discussed BBC coverage of Muslims in the 1970s, while in London a short LGBTBBC season invited programme-makers and others involved in the original programmes to discuss representations of trans women and gay men in the 1970s and 1980s. 3. To stage theatrical adaptations of lost sixties BBC documentaries about women and BAME and LGBTQ+ communities for which transcripts exist but no recordings have survived. Three adaptations were commissioned and received gratifyingly positive feedback at their premieres. In every case, the theatre companies plan to develop the adaptations. 4. To stimulate research on the history of the BBC by running an interdisciplinary conference open to the general public on 'The BBC at 100'. A hybrid symposium held at the National Science and Media Museum and online brought together 150 speakers from six continents to take stock of scholarship about the BBC and to plot future avenues of enquiry. The symposium has created new research networks and collaborations, including a multi-author study of BBC coverage of decolonisation involving myself. 5. To provide value for money to UKRI and the public. This grant, which was awarded to one person for one year, generated a wide array of public engagement activities. These involved collaborations with twelve schools, three theatre companies, two museums, a library, a subject association, an examination board and the BBC, which collectively provided £50000 in actual and in-kind contributions to the project. |
| Exploitation Route | This - the first public engagement Fellowship to be awarded by the AHRC - first of all demonstrates the value of funding future initiatives of its kind. It facilitated a creative and varied approach to engagement that would have been harder to achieve using follow-on funding from a UKRI-funded research grant. The partnership with the BBC also paid dividends in that it allowed a public institution and an academic to learn the different approaches each of them used on the common task of commemorating the centenary of British broadcasting. The most beneficial way in which this project could be developed would be for historians and broadcasters to reconceive their relationship to one another. The BBC is the single most important repository of Britain's collective memory over the past 100 years, yet its archival resources are under-researched for conceptual and practical reasons. Conceptually, there remains a misconception that the BBC archive is primarily of interest to media historians. It is not, for the BBC has broadcast to virtually everyone about virtually everything. Practically speaking, most of the BBC's audiovisual archives remain off-limits to academics. Though there are formidable legal, financial and ethical obstacles to making these materials accessible, overcoming them would revolutionise research on twentieth-century Britain. The ways in which these resources have been used in theatres, classrooms, cinemas, web exhibitions in this Fellowship indicate just how fruitful such an 'audiovisual turn' could be for historians and scholars in related fields. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | The impact of the Fellowship activities cannot be fully evaluated just weeks after the end of the award period. In particular, the BBC is still considering my proposals to expand public access to archival audiovisual material: the most significant and most difficult change to effect. At this stage, I would like to highlight the demonstrably positive impact of the Fellowship in the fields of teaching and drama. The secondary schoolteachers who participated in the Historical Association Teacher Fellowship scheme have described the 'huge impact' it made on their teaching. One participant wrote of how it 'deeply enhanced my knowledge and understanding of the 1960s' by making her 'question dominant historical narratives rather than teaching them as fact.' Another teacher related how the programme 'opened my eyes to the potential of using audio-visual sources' and a third teacher found that 'students became more adept at making insightful inferences from such sources about the complexity, and competing ideas, values and beliefs inherent in 1960s Britain.' The effect on these teachers and their schools could be transformative: The space to forensically reflect on resources has influenced my practice immeasurably. I've been able to use my professional learning in order to support other colleagues to do the same. This has been an exciting process and one that has boosted my confidence as a teacher, leader and historian. The three theatrical adaptations served as a proof-of-concept of repurposing 'lost' broadcasts as a means of comparing and contrasting past and present attitudes towards marginalised groups. For audiences, this meant that equally high numbers of those who attended the premiere of The BBC's First Homosexual said they learnt about LGBT+ history (86%) as gave the performance the highest possible rating (83%). For the drama companies, this means that they have discovered new source material, whether developing the current pieces into full productions or devising new adaptations of broadcast materials. An update on further impacts will be provided in the next reporting round. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | BBC 100 web exhibition on Pandora' Box? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A web exhibition using oral history recordings from the Millennium Memory Bank/Century Speaks project to explore public ambivalence towards the impact of television on twentieth-century Britain. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://canvas-story.bbcrewind.co.uk/pandorasbox/ |
| Description | BBC at 100 Symposium |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An international symposium about the past, present and future study of the BBC. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20220802204548/https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/crcc/events/eventslist/2... |
| Description | Blogs about BBC centenary activities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Blogs for UKRI and BBC websites about fellowship activities |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ukri.org/blog/broadcasting-britain-the-bbc-at-100/ |
| Description | Bradford on the BBC in the 1970s: Screening and Q&A |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A screening of rare archival footage of first-generation Muslim residents of Bradford was accompanied by a short talk on 'race' relations in West Yorkshire in the early seventies and an open discussion comparing Bradford then and now. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20221208055104/https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/cinema/bradford-... |
| Description | Cambridge History Day Talk on the BBC and Decolonisation in the 1950s |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk for the Cambridge Historical Association about the origins, production and reception of The Inheritors, a 1958 BBC series which celebrated the British empire during the process of its disintegration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.history.org.uk/branches/categories/864/resource/1411/cambridge-branch-programme?fbclid=I... |
| Description | Historical Association Talk on Homosexuality and the BBC before 1967 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | An online talk to the Historical Association's national branch related the strange tale of how the BBC did and did not broadcast about homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s and what it tells us about sexuality, broadcasting and the origins of permissiveness in mid-twentieth century Britain. It was followed by a Q&A. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://history.org.uk/primary/resource/10385/film-the-talk-should-not-be-broadcast-homosexu |
| Description | Historical Association Teacher Fellowship |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Ten secondary school teachers created resources for other teachers on broadcasting and social change in sixties Britain after undertaking a three-day residential, an online course and a one-day workshop. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.history.org.uk/secondary/module/8781/teacher-fellowship-programme-broadcasting-and-soc |
| Description | Hull Historical Association Talk on the BBC and Decolonisation in the 1950s |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk to the Hull and East Riding branch of the Historical Association about the origins, production and reception of The Inheritors, a 1958 BBC series which celebrated the British empire during the process of its disintegration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://herha.org.uk/disinherited-the-bbc-and-decolonisation-in-1950s-britain/ |
| Description | LGBT History Month Talk on Post-1967 Broadcasting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk about how lesbian and gay filmmakers sought to become the subjects rather than the objects of factual programming about LGBTQ+ issues in the period from the decriminalisation of male homosexuality to the onset of HIV/AIDS. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/lgbt-history-month/events/ |
| Description | Lincoln Historical Association Talk on the BBC and Decolonisation in the 1950s |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk to the City of Lincoln branch of the Historical Association about the origins, production and reception of The Inheritors, a 1958 BBC series which celebrated the British empire during the process of its disintegration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://cityoflincolnbranchha.wordpress.com/2022/09/14/marcus-collins-disinherited-the-bbc-and-decol... |
| Description | Mary Whitehouse vs. Gay News: Screening and Q&A |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A screening of Blasphemy at the Old Bailey (1977) and rare BBC news footage was accompanied by a discussion by some of those involved in defending Gay News and supporting gay and lesbian Christians against Mary Whitehouse's private prosecution for blaspemous libel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20220924113012/http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2022/bbc-centenary-lgbtq-s... |
| Description | Premiere of Auntie |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Collective Encounters' Women in Action staged a production at the Everyman Bistro in Liverpool which adapted and reacted to 1960s BBC programmes about women's identities and rights. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/auntie-working-title-tickets-439094221637 |
| Description | Premiere of Life in a Goldfish Bowl |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Tamasha created an installation for Liverpool's Everyman Theatre combining audio and video responses to the BBC's treatment of mixed-heritage relationships in the 1950s and 1960s. The launch event included an open discussion of the experiences of mixed-heritage families, and the attitudes towards them. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://tamasha.org.uk/projects/life-in-a-goldfish-bowl/#:~:text=As%20part%20of%20the%20BBC,the%20co... |
| Description | Premiere of The BBC's First Homosexual |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Inkbrew Productions staged a script-in-hand play which combined extracts from the first BBC documentary about male homosexuality with archival materials about the programme's creation and a fictional account of a young man coming out in the 1950s. It was followed by a discussion with the audience comparing past and present attitudes towards gay men. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-63782879 |
| Description | Press interviews about BBC centenary |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Interviews with Italian and Spanish newspaper journalists about the past, present and future of the BBC on the centenary of its founding |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Radio interviews about homosexuality and the BBC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Interviews with BBC Radio Leicester about the premiere of The BBC's First Homosexual and LGBT History Month |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| Description | Talk at BBC Radio 100 Conference on Homosexuality and Broadcasting in 1950s Britain |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk about the first British discussion programme about male homosexuality at the MeCCSA Radio Studies Network conference commemorating the BBC centenary. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://stayhappening.com/e/bbc-radio-1922-2022-navigating-the-waves-of-change-E2ISUXUREH9 |
| Description | Talk at BFI Conference on Channel 4: Then and Now |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A talk about One in Five (1983) for a BFI conference commemorating the fortieth anniversary of Channel 4. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/2EfRumRSKV0?t=18732 |
| Description | Teaching pack for Has Britain a Colour Bar? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Teaching materials for OCR A-Level History students, using the first British television documentary about 'race' relations to develop skills in primary source analysis |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dxjsgq |
| Description | Television interviews about BBC |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Interviews with BBC East Midlands Today and GB News about fellowship activities and the public responsibilities of the BBC |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| Description | Trans Lives in the 1970s: Screening and Q&A |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A screening of BBC archival footage explored how two pioneering trans women, Jan Morris and Julia Grant, understood themselves and were understood by others. It was followed by a Q&A featuring programme-makers and historians. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20220927224216/http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2022/bbc-centenary-lgbtq-s... |
| Description | Two of Us: Screening and Q&A |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This screening of the groundbreaking BBC drama Two of Us (1988) was followed by its creators discussing how a film about love between two teenage boys led to a Thatcherite backlash against the 'promotion of homosexuality' by local authorities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20220816080347/http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2022/bbc-centenary-lgbtq-s... |