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.

Publications

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Collins M. (2023) What Have Historians Been Thinking about Youth Culture? in Teaching History

 
Title Auntie 
Description Play based on BBC archival materials created in collaboration with Mandy Redvers-Rowe, Tessa Buddle, Women in Action and Collective Encounters 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Well-received premiere and plans for development into full production 
 
Title Life in a Goldfish Bowl 
Description Audiovisual installation based on BBC archival materials created in collaboration with JC Niala, Sam Skinner and Tamasha 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact Installation premiered at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre and plans for future events 
URL https://tamasha.org.uk/projects/life-in-a-goldfish-bowl/
 
Title The BBC's First Homosexual 
Description Play based on BBC archival materials created in collaboration with Stephen M. Hornby and Inkbrew Productions 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Well-received premiere and plans for development into full production including application for Arts Council funding 
 
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

 
Title Classification of existing online BBC archival collections for educational use 
Description I classified 1800 audiovisual items currently available in BBC Archives Collections, BBC Rewind, BBC iPlayer and archive.org (which stores clips from the BBC Archive social media accounts). Supplementing the dozen top-level section classifications used in BBC Rewind are 200 additional sub-categories to allow users to research on a more detailed level across the BBC's online collections. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact In discussions with BBC about publishing database for educational use. 
 
Title Proposal for expansion of online BBC audiovisual archives for educational use 
Description I identified and classified 800 television and radio programmes covering the period up to 1985 which, if made available to schools and universities, would transform the use of broadcasting materials in education and research on twentieth-century Britain. The proposed expansion would provide access to factual material on some of the most researched topics on postwar British history, drawing upon the single most important archive of primary sources: the BBC. It would double the number of programmes would double the number of recordings currently available on BBC Archive Collections and fill important gaps in its collection on subjects such as empire, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The proposed expansion would roughly double the number of recordings and pages on BBC Archive Collections. They are grouped into seventy-five categories 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact In discussions with the BBC about expanding educational access to its collections, possibly through publishing on a platform with an ERA licence. 
 
Description Collaboration on study of broadcasting and decolonisation in Africa 
Organisation Texas State University–San Marcos
Country United States 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution I have established a research collaboration between myself, two colleagues at my own university and Prof Caroline Ritter at Texas State to produce a multi-authored book on representations of Africa in British broadcasting from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Collaborator Contribution Professor Ritter participated in a workshop with me and my colleagues in her capacity as Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Loughborough University.
Impact Workshop on broadcasting and decolonisation in Africa, Institute of Advanced Studies, Loughborough University, January 2024.
Start Year 2024
 
Description Participation in Mixed Relationships - Racialised Boundaries Network 
Organisation University of Bergen
Country Norway 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution I have been contributing to the AHRC-funded Research Network on Mixed Relationships - Racialised Boundaries (AH/Y001699/1). My work as BBC Centenary Fellow on a play on mixed-heritage relationships produced by Tamasha and on the creation of educational resources on 'race' relations in 1950s Birmingham have informed the project and its plans for future grant applications.
Collaborator Contribution The project leaders, Dr Iris Wigger and Prof David Herbert, secured funding for the research network and organised the workshop to which I was invited.
Impact 'Examining Mixed-heritage relationships and racialised boundaries in Europe', Workshop at University of Bergen, 20-22 November 2023.
Start Year 2024
 
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 Full production 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 developed the preview of their play about women's identities and rights into a full-production funded by the Arts Council.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/auntie-tickets-778236254587?aff=oddtdtcreator
 
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 1980s Queer 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 and film presentation entitled 'Staying Alive: Pride, Prejudice and LGBTQ+ Television in the 1980s'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/lgbt-history-month/events/#
 
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...