Background
A Christmas Tree sticker on someone’s BBC personal file was supposed to indicate that that person was a pinko, leftie, commie, and query Soviet spy …
John Howell, Alex Thomas, Geoff Fletcher, Albert Barber, Roger Bunce, Tony Scott …
Major Oldman had the flat on the end of ‘A’ Block at Wood Norton Hall when John Howell (2) was there. Basil Oldman was the resident MI5 representative, keeping an eye out for any communist tendencies among the trainees.
John Howell, Alex Thomas, Geoff Fletcher, Albert Barber, Roger Bunce, Tony Scott,
Apropos the good Major, this is a verse from a drinking song “wot I wrote” (says Geoff Fletcher) while on TO19 shortly after our arrival by train from the great metropolis:
We got off at Evesham and boarded a bus
And then Major Oldman had a few words with us
“Keep your linen clean lads and you’ll be alright,
And don’t have no women in your rooms at night!”
This was an only slightly bowdlerised version (and then only as regards grammar) of his actual opening address to the troops!
Re the double negative in the last line of the Major’s ode: sadly, Roger Bunce disobeyed orders, by regularly having no women in his room at night.
Patrick Heigham
The ‘no women in rooms’ bit – Dave Silk had a brilliant spoof, setting up his room to resemble a night of unreserved passion!
Mike Jordan
This is unlike Harry Crossley’s room in D Block on our TA course which was one night home to a couple of sheep from the field given a nice warm place to sleep whilst Harry was probably in the BBC Club!
And different from the similar “laugh” when someone (him again?) came back, walked into the room and found the bed missing. It was actually on top of the two wardrobes inside the room door – so panic over!
It was Major Oldman’s boat that we “borrowed” from its mooring (presumably down by the river somewhere) and put it into the Bear pit – sorry Swimming Pool – one day.
Patrick Heigham
There was a lot of creative talent amongst TOs and TAs (maybe better than some of today’s programmes!)
My STO course finished near a Christmas, so we put on a pantomime in the Club’s dance hall. An updated version of Dick Whittington, with Dick being portrayed as being a bit clueless in a big city, and helped by his remarkably sophisticated cat. Eric Wallis played the cat, in evening dress, had a top hat with cat ears affixed, make-up whiskers, and my mum made a black velvet tail, which the ‘cat’ carried nonchalantly over his arm! Ian Leiper was a Caliph, sitting on cushions in blue baggy pantaloons, I remember.
John Howell, Alex Thomas, Geoff Fletcher, Albert Barber, Roger Bunce, Tony Scott …
Back to Basil …
Major Oldman may have had something to do with the Christmas trees on personal files. A Christmas Tree sticker on someone’s personal file was supposed to indicate that that person was a pinko, leftie, commie, and query Soviet spy – friend of Burgess, Philby and MacLean – possibly even a query! (Reason? If you sing the carol ‘Christmas tree O Christmas tree’… you get the Internationale.)
See:
http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/mi5.bbc.page9_obs_18aug1985.html
Bernie Newnham
A mention of Michael Rosen in that piece reminds me that he told us the story during a cab ride. He said he was half way down to Oxford Circus tube before he realised he’d been fired. Though I’m not sure how a prominent Marxist activist got on the graduate trainee scheme in the first place. Leftie BBC presumably, even then.When you joined Pres you got vetted – I was told that I had the attachment provisionally until they’d checked me out. So I am definitely OK – or was in the 1970s.
Patrick Heigham
Well I never! I had no idea this ‘vetting’ went on! Mind you, the BBC was always considered to be politically left wing, but that was probably more to do with the programme makers than us poor erks who pushed cameras around or waggled microphones.
Later, when I left the Corporation to work freelance, I was on a job involving some Royals, and I was positively cleared by Special Branch. I don’t know how long this OK stays on file though.
Mike Giles
As others will recall, when we were selected to go to Moscow for the Olympics in 1980, we had to be nominated well in advance of the usual to allow time for security vetting, but I never knew who was more concerned with our allegiances, London or Moscow. It would be interesting now to learn what they turned up about each of us.
Chris Booth
During the ‘vetting’ period I had a guy turn up at my house while I was at work purporting to be a BT engineer, with instructions to “check the phone”.
My wife wouldn’t let him in (!) and he went away.
When I got home I rang BT who claimed that they didn’t send anyone……
Mike Giles
I was the first through passport control at the brand new and very empty Sheremetyevo airport and the guard in the darkened booth examined my documents for absolutely ages, picking up the phone several times to make enquiries and looking up at me intently every now and then. I was getting bored, but I think he was scared stiff of making a mistake. After me, the process speeded up for the rest of our party, but it certainly gave a flavour of the intimidation that the Russian people felt, of which we were to discover more during our coverage of the games.
John Howell
Oh yes, he had speeded up, and at the end of my examination his grim emotion-less face suddenly broke into a broad (well rehearsed?) smile with the words “Velome to Moscow”
Hugh Sheppard
Ah, Sheremetyevo passport control for the Moscow Olympics. The most extraordinary aspect I recall was the angled mirror behind and above you that let the security man see down your back. In my case he stared at that for much longer than he looked at my face. In my luggage was a kilo or so of fresh oranges. They were swiftly removed and went hand to hand down the customs hall and out of sight. I also had a new boxed Ampex head assembly to take in for the Beeb VT operation. The paperwork went on and on, and it took an age to clear at Heathrow. Management had real concern that this would not be allowed through in Moscow and in effect would be stolen. I needn’t have worried, no one there paid any attention to it at all!
Mike Cotton
I am reminded that Martin Dilly was contacted by two “Men from the Ministry” with a view to enlisting him as his model airplane flying hobby sometimes took him behind the Iron Curtain.
As he says, he got a good meal out of it.
My Christmas Tree involvement is that John Vassal, the Russian spy, was at the same school as I was although another contemporary was a British Spook in later life.
I breached the Official Secrets act by trying to find out more about the Flying Saucer that our radar-controlled fighters by RAF Bawdsey intercepted twice before making off at high speed vertically. (No, there weren’t any meteorological Balloons released that night). Our Chief controller tried to contact the air crew on their return to base but was told “They have gone on leave”. The story has been corroborated by some of the people present that night.
I was once ” arrested” by Gordon Rolls dressed up as a Special Constable in a busy High Street saying very loudly that I was a well known wanted criminal.
I remember, too, the guards at an East German Checkpoint when I was going by coach to Berlin along the corridor. Very intimidating. We nearly came unstuck having illegally changed some currency for EG Deutschmarks and not being able to spend it all even drinking the best Brandy and not being able to take currency out of East Germany above the amount we had legally changed on entry.
And as for trying to take photographs in a restricted area at RAF Lakenheath…
My son was CS gassed in Paris for asking a policeman “v OU s est un Pissoir ?”
Ian Hillson
So it WAS true!
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/08/12/secret-bbc-unit-shredded-mi5-files-journalists-1992
“… A secret BBC unit, operating in conjunction with MI5 to vet journalists during the Cold War, existed until 1992, before it was disbanded and all its documents shredded, claims a former employee…”
Bernie Newnham
It isn’t true that no-one was ever blacklisted. As noted earlier, Michael Rosen once told me all about how he’d been banned.
Roger Bunce
Typical journalist – talking as though Journalists were the only people affected, and the only people who mattered – huh – What about us Techies?
Bill Jenkin
I think they were actually interested in the techies, in fact more so than the hacks, anyone involved in the ‘reserve facilities’ had to be vetted. I often wondered if this didn’t rankle more than the vetting – thatengineers may have been considered more important than journalists.
Bob Auger
When I told my reactionary father that I had been offered a job at the BBC (TO22) he replied that “everyone there is either a lefty or a homosexual” – actually using the less politically correct language of the time. So I made my choice and have stuck with it for the past 50 years or so…It hasn’t stopped me working for HMG on a couple of occasions, although they would have to kill me if I said where.My most vigorous check was for the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in Caernarfon – one of the best gigs of the 1960s. They don’t do them like that any more.
Keith Mayes
I have had to fill in one of the forms on a few occasions in the 1980s, 1990s and since. One of the questions was: “Have you now or ever, been a member of a terrorist organisation?”
Many of us were tempted to say yes or maybe – It was/is such a stupid question – but then we thought that ‘Those who wrote and check’ probably haven’t got much of a sense of humour and we may have lost the job so we didn’t!! It would have been interesting to see what the response would have been, though.
Jeff Booth
During the Iraq crisis in the 1990s all BBC staff were required to wear their ID cards. I was astonished how many replaced their photo with Mr Hussain’s!
David Brunt
If the Beeb banned all lefties they’d never have employed Marius Goring and Glenda Jackson, or a lot of the staff, writers and directors.They’d have just been left with Jim Davidson.
Peter Cook
Many years ago admission to Ascot Racecourse was allowed to TV staff on presentation of a card (postcard size) which had the appropriate number of boxes along the bottom to be clipped by the bowler hatted gents controlling admission, much as bus tickets were clipped. These cards required a signature. It was guaranteed that at each race meeting, someone would forget. Bill Eldridge, a veteran cameraman, when challenged about a missing signature retorted “when I joined the BBC I had to be able to either read or write; I can read” he said. Other wags would ask to borrow a pen or pencil. Signatures included ‘A Hitler’, ‘H Wilson’ and ‘J Christ’ The gents with the hats were not all user friendly, and were dubbed ‘the flour graders’ or ‘Homepride men’. I don’t believe they ever read the signatures. Passes could be handed through the iron gate by the scanner to anyone on the pavement, very handy for anyone who forgot their pass.It is rumoured that Peter Dimmock was challenged when trying to enter the Royal enclosure. He demanded to be let in saying “I have an entry pass here signed by the Duke of Norfolk”, to which the challenger replied, “You still can’t come in here – I am the Duke of Norfolk”. This was I believe because Dimmock had recently had a rather public divorce. Divorcees were at the time barred from the enclosure.
