The world of British television off and on the screen, as it was sixty years ago.

Rich and Paw

The Times today records the appointment of Mr. B. C. (Bernard) Sendall, as deputy Director-General of the Independent Television Authority.+60

He will be in charge of the broad administrative work and policy questions arising from the Television Act. The previously-appointed Director-General, to whom Mr Sendall will report, is, of course, Sir Robert Fraser.

Providing a small amount of biography, The Times reveals that Mr Sendall is 42, was Principal Private Secretary to the Minster of Information from 1941 to 1945 and Home Controller of the Central Office of Information from 1946 to 1949. From 1949 to 1951 he was controller of the Festival of Britain Office and deputy to the Director-General of the Festival. Since 1951 he has been an assistant secretary at the Admiralty.

This afternoon’s About the Home comes from both the studio and the Royal Welsh Show and it promises to include an variety of practical items including the making of imitation flowers (with Suzanne Potter), making cheese (with John Bidwell) and, under the title Growing Your Own Fur Coat, breeding rabbits for their pelts (with R. J. Williams).

But, given that it’s a Thursday, it’s not the afternoon schedule you want to hear about, is it? No, you want to know, how bad is tonight’s schedule?

Well… early on, some transmitters will pay another visit to the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show but if that’s not in your area then you’ll have to wait until 7.45pm when Roy Rich chairs Down You Go! in which Elizabeth Gray, Helen Bailey, Paul Jennings and Eric Sykes try to find the answers. This panel show was devised by Polly S. and Louis G. Cowan. After that, in celebration of the opening of the new Divis Transmitter, there’s the “personal film record” of His Excellency the Governor of Northern Ireland, Lord Wakehurst in A Governor’s Notebook and that’s followed by an excerpt from The Bournemouth Aquashow commentated upon by Cliff Michelmore. The evening is rounded off by a ten-minute French cartoon film, The Magic Flute and a repeat of a play from May, The Sun and I, starring David Markham and Pauline Jameson.

In truth, the programmes themselves look no worse that yesterday’s, aside from the point that an hour-and-three-quarters of prime time viewing is taken over with a repeat.

I’ve realised that I’ve still not quite reached the end of The Stage‘s TV Page so, with a new edition out tomorrow, I need to get a lick on. So, here are some short news items from the page’s Telebriefs column:

  • Tommy Trinder might be putting on some weight. He’s been making some commercials for the Mars company and in one sequence, with retakes, he had to eat eight Mars bars.
  • Elizabeth Allan will be appearing in 13 weekly shopping programmes to be shown on Sunday afternoons.
  • Associated-Rediffusion will be featuring 38 days of racing each year, from London tracks.
  • Richard ‘Mr Pastry’ Hearne, will soon be starting work on 39 films for commercial television, and Buster Keaton has come over from America to work with him. Whether this is a purely independent venture, or whether they have been commissioned by one of the ITV companies is not mentioned.
  • It looks as though the leading (possibly only) contenders for the main Scottish television contract are a group headed by the Daily Mirror, a group headed by Canadian Roy Thomson and The Scotsman newspaper, and a group formed from the Beaverbrook newspapers (the Daily and Sunday ExpressEvening Standard and the [Glasgow] Evening Citizen).

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