The BBC at 100 Symposium

Posted by & filed under Lectures, Seminars & Events.

Helen has been invited to attend The BBC at 100 Symposium, to be held from 13 to 15 September 2022 in Bradford at the National Science and Media Museum and online. As a member of the session on Politics and Current Affairs, she will be speaking about the contributions of Honor Balfour (1912-2001) and Stephen Bonarjee (1912- 2003) - a wonderful opportunity to draw their careers to the attention of a wide audience.

Broadcasting House: detail from 2018 image

Helen’s latest projects include preparing to attend The BBC at 100 Symposium as a member of the session on Politics and Current Affairs where she will be speaking about the contributions of Honor Balfour (1912-2001) and Stephen Bonarjee (1912- 2003).

The Symposium is being held from 13 to 15 September 2022 in Bradford at the National Science and Media Museum and online.

The invitation to speak brings a wonderful opportunity to draw the careers of Honor Balfour and Stephen Bonarjeeto the attention of a wide audience and hopefully encourage researchers to explore further the careers of these two innovatory figures.

A visit to Royal Crescent – the London home of Honor Balfour

Posted by & filed under Honor Balfour.

Years ago Honor Balfour described to me the décor of her London home in Royal Crescent, Kensington, acquired in the early post-war years long before the area became fashionable. So it was great when the London Gardens Trust Open Squares weekend in June brought the chance to visit Royal Crescent’s square.

Years ago Honor Balfour described to me the décor of her London home in Royal Crescent, Kensington, acquired in the early post-war years long before the area became fashionable. Sometimes I have visualized Honor at the peak of her broadcasting career, in the 1950s and 1960s, setting out to appear on one of her radio or television programmes, so it was great when, in June, the London Gardens Trust Open Squares weekend brought the chance to visit Royal Crescent’s square. It’s now somewhat changed since Honor’s day, but in the years before she rented a weekend cottage in the Cotswolds it must have been a welcome green space.

Reginald (Reggie) Cooper (1865-1965): Closing stages of research reveal new insights

Posted by & filed under Projects, Reggie Cooper.

The search of archival resources for information about Reggie Cooper is coming to a close. Several sources consulted since last year have provided some fascinating insights into his personality, and his design of the orangery for Sir Philip Sassoon (1885-1939).

The search of archival resources for information about Reggie Cooper is coming to a close. Several sources consulted since last year have provided some fascinating insights into his personality, and his design of the orangery for Sir Philip Sassoon (1885-1939).

Chief among these are the papers of the architect Oliver Hill (1887-1968) in the RIBA’s collection at the V&A Museum. Hill had been commissioned by Reggie’s mother, Lady Cooper, to remodel 1 Upper Terrace, Hampstead. Reggie’s letters and postcards (some adorned with drawings) to his old friend, Christopher Hussey (1889-1970), Country Life’s architectural editor, who lived at Scotney Castle in Kent (archive held by the National Trust; copies very kindly provided by the House and Collections Manager) and, the most recently consulted, the archive of Sir Philip Sassoon relating to Trent Park. This small but wonderful archive, held at Houghton Hall, Norfolk and very kindly made available by Lord Cholmondeley, Sassoon’s great nephew, provided crucial details about how Reggie came to design the orangery and enabled me to understand more fully how this delightful building sat within the gardens and wider landscape.

In other cases it was a case of ruling out some archives as sources. Fostered by reading Allyson Hayward’s biography of Norah Lindsay (1873-1948), an old friend of Cooper’s, hopes were high that the Whitbread archive at Southill Park might be useful (Lindsay was Madeline Whitbread’s sister) but the archivist couldn’t find anything.

At the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)’s Lindley Library, the absence of Reggie’s name in the society’s list of members and list of library users confirmed my view that he was more of an architect and designer manqué, content to follow the tastes of Johnston and Lindsay in his garden schemes. But I may be proved wrong. Access has yet to be granted to the archive of Lawrence Johnston (1871-1958) at Hidcote, held by the National Trust.

Reginald (Reggie) Cooper: Continuing the Quest

Posted by & filed under Projects, Reggie Cooper.

With archives presently closed because of the pandemic, resuming research into the career of the restorer of ancient houses and maker of gardens rose to the top of my list of projects because much of it could be conducted from my desk. Reggie Cooper first caught my attention in 2006; in between other projects I continued my ‘quest for Reggie’, returning to it full time in the summer of 2020 after completing the article on Honor Balfour.

Cold Ashton Manor, near Chippenham, Reggie Cooper’s second renovation project. Photographed October 2020.

With archives presently closed because of the pandemic, resuming research into the career of the restorer of ancient houses and maker of gardens rose to the top of my list of projects because much of it could be conducted from my desk. Reggie Cooper first caught my attention in 2006 as the amateur architect of the delightful neo-classical orangery for the politician Sir Philip Sassoon (1888-1939) at Trent Park. In between other projects I continued my ‘quest for Reggie’, returning to it full time in the summer of 2020 after completing the article on Honor Balfour.

Using internet and printed sources and boosted by access to family material, correspondence with those with stories to share or working on related topics, and information generously shared by June Davey, historian at West Horsley Place, in Surrey (which Reggie’s mother, Lady (Marion) Cooper owned between 1921 to 1931) I’ve revised my lists of the houses in which Reggie lived and those he knew through his friendships with other enthusiastic restorers of dilapidated old houses. There’s still more research to do, once the archives at the Royal Institute of Architecture (RIBA) and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) reopen to researchers but a more comprehensive narrative of his life is emerging.

Dame Irene Ward: Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum Exhibition Contribution

Posted by & filed under Irene Ward, Projects.

Women MPs elected in the 1959 General Election. Image reproduced with the permission of Parliamentary Archives, PUD/8/32. http://www.parliament.uk/archives

A (very minor) contributor to an exhibition at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Scheduled for Spring 2020 the opening was postponed by the pandemic until October 2020 but shortly afterwards new national lockdown restrictions were introduced.

The invitation to contribute information arose from my past work on Dame Irene Ward. The campaign by Dame Irene (later Baroness Ward of North Tyneside, 1895-1980) for the release of Special Operations Executive (SOE) files and the commissioning of an official history of the organisation began in the mid1950s when she was Conservative MP for Tynemouth. It was partly inspired by the refusal to allow access to SOE files while researching her history of the First Aid  Nursing Yeomanry, F.A.N.Y Invicta (1955) which includes a chapter on members who became agents in ‘The Org’: SOE.

As a lifelong campaigner against injustice (most recently for equal pay for women, culminating in the 1954 Act), she was driven to champion those whose exploits remained buried in closed files; overshadowed by films about famous agents; memoirs by the former head of SOE’s French section, Colonel Maurice Buckmaster (1902-1992) among others, and speculative histories. A study by the historian M R D Foot was eventually published in 1966. Her contribution to the commissioning may not have been as great as she believed but it was not inconsiderable.

Honour Balfour’s Broadcasting Career

Posted by & filed under Honor Balfour, Projects.

With the publication of the article 'What Honor did next, the pioneering broadcasting career of Honor Balfour (1912-2001)', in the Journal of Liberal Democrat History, a very enjoyable period spent researching her remarkable life comes to a close.

Honor regularly appeared on Town Forum but Denmark was a rare overseas location. More usual were towns in the area covered by the BBC’s Midlands Home Service division. ©Radio Times/Immediate Media.

With the publication of the article on Honor’s broadcasting career, a very enjoyable period spent researching her remarkable life comes to a close.

Back in 2018 I only knew she’d been involved in one or two radio programmes. The first of what became many visits to the BBC Written Archives Centre pointed to her far greater involvement, especially in the early years of current affairs broadcasting.

At the British Library where BBC audio visual material is viewed, I was captivated by the sight of Honor in her prime, appearing on Press Conference in April 1959, a member of the panel interviewing Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962).

Honor’s pioneering time at Picture Post and at the BBC have undeservedly slipped into history’s byways. It’s time she was restored to her rightful place.

Honor Balfour’s contribution to British broadcasting

Posted by & filed under Honor Balfour, Projects.

Research into Honor Balfour’s career as a journalist continues to yield rewards. It was against the backdrop of the early rivalry between the BBC Talks and News Departments that Honor forged her contribution to broadcasting which would span over the next three decades. The research continues but with the emphasis now firmly on Honor Balfour’s role as arguably the first significant woman current affairs commentator in broadcasting.

Enlarged detail from a Radio Times photograph of Honor Balfour as a panellist on the new television programme, It’s My Opinion. The programme, recorded early evening on Wednesday 21 May 1957 with an audience in Bridgewater, Somerset, was broadcast at 10.15pm. The other two panellists were the Liberal politician Frank (later Lord) Byers (1915-1984) and the journalist and writer Denzil Batchelor (1906-1969). The discussion was chaired by the historian Alan (later Lord) Bullock (1914-2004). Image reproduced by kind permission of Immediate Media Company Ltd., London.

Research into Honor Balfour’s career as a journalist continues to yield rewards. Originally the main focus was to have been on her work as the British staff member in the London office of the American magazine Time, with her freelance work for the BBC, the Guardian, the Observer, etc. as subsidiary areas. Honor’s private papers in Oxford made a good starting point. Hints that her broadcasting career was by far more significant began to emerge from searches of the BBC Genome, and the more extensive coverage in the volumes of the Radio Times, handily available on shelves in the British Library’s Humanities 2 reading room.

But it’s in the files in the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham that the real discoveries are to be made, and not only those on Honor (relatively few in number but key to the emerging narrative) but also in the files on Stephen Bonarjee (1912- 2003), the producer with whom Honor worked over many years on topical issues radio programmes, and Doreen Stephens (1912-2001) another post war broadcasting pioneer (who under her married name, Gorsky, had been a leading women’s rights campaigner).

Reading Bonarjee’s newly-released 1980 oral history interview and his staff file, and those for Topic for Tonight, the programme he created and to which Honor regularly contributed, from 1949 until it was discontinued in 1959, has been revelatory. The research continues but with the emphasis now firmly on Honor Balfour’s role as arguably the first significant woman current affairs commentator in broadcasting.

It was against the backdrop of the early rivalry between the Talks and News Departments (which nearly killed off Topic for Tonight at the outset), the pitching of programmes to appeal to audiences including those whose schooling had ended at fourteen, and women, especially housewives, that Honor forged her contribution to broadcasting which would span over the next three decades. Her final broadcast was on 4 May 1979 and as prescient as ever.

A Work in Progress talk: ‘A narrative from the archives: the life of the journalist and broadcaster Honor Balfour (1912-2001)’

Posted by & filed under Honor Balfour, Lectures, Seminars & Events.

A talk given to Friends of the Women’s Library, LSE, 20 November 2019

The files of the Women’s Publicity Planning Association (WPPA) include material on the Women for Westminster campaign. Initiated in January 1942 by the Association on the suggestion of Dr Edith (later Baroness) Summerskill (1901-1980), W4W encouraged women’s involvement in politics at both national and local level; offering practical guidance as well as information. In 1944 Honor, then still pursuing a political career, was invited in May to speak in support of the Equal Citizenship bill and, in December, to appear on a W4W Brains Trust surveying the three main parties’ programmes.

I came across the references in 2016 while researching Irene Ward’s contribution to the Equal Pay Campaign. Briefly marvelling again at the interconnectivity between the lives of people in my various research areas I couldn’t know just how serendipitous the discovery would prove two years later.