±«Óãtv

Last week saw the last radio broadcast from Bush House - the ±«Óãtv World Service headquarters for the last 72 years.

Now the studios, offices and corridors of that historic building are emptied and Bush House is going to cease as a broadcasting centre.

You may remember that to maintain the best of Bush House last year I appealed to all those who worked or were working in Bush House to send me their stories, tales, anecdotes.

Monarchs, presidents and many, many journalists have passed through the entrance to Bush House

As a result of that appeal I received hundreds of memorable, nostalgic, funny stories and with the help of Open University (Prof Marie Gillespie and Anna Aslanyan) we turned them into a book called Tales from Bush House.

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This book is out now and on the 18 July we had a launch party for it.

Many generations of 'Bushmen' were present there and the party was a great fun. Just to give a taster of it here are some tales from the book which were shared there.

Who Is the Rabbit?

When I joined the ±«Óãtv there was a Pashto Service programme called The World of Youth. For it we were supposed to either translate some material about new discoveries or interview Afghans inside Afghanistan or outside. And I proposed to my editor that I could write for children - that was something I thought was lacking, something for five or six-year-olds.

And then a colleague suggested that I use a special machine which would allow me to change my voice to create a character. My character was a rabbit. I would talk to her and read a story, and then she would interrupt me, asking all sorts of silly questions, the kind of questions children usually ask. My daughter was five at that time, so I used to read my stories to her and then put her questions into the rabbit's mouth. I wrote a story about a little girl who lost her mother and she stopped washing her face and brushing her hair. Then she sees her mother in her dream and the mother says, well, I'm still there, I'm still watching you. When she wakes up and starts brushing her hair, it's a step in the right direction.

My colleague went to Kabul. He came back and he said, "Najiba, this big Taliban commander came to me and whispered in my ear, 'Who is this rabbit? Is that a little girl? How old is she?'" I had to change my accent then - that was one way to convince people that it was not me.

Just a Bloody Minute
Controllers of Radio 4 tremble when they have the impudence to change anything in their schedules. Radio audiences like to own the output they like. The World Service listeners are, of course, much more numerous and far more possessive.

So it was with nervousness that we launched a new English Service schedule for the Indian subcontinent. We had re-jigged the news timings, especially of our flagship Newshour, and moved From Our Own Correspondent and other news-related heavyweights. In a large hall in Chennai we watched as the place filled for our 'Meet the ±«Óãtv' question and answer session.

After a short introduction we said that we would now like to hear from the audience. No one stirred. A very old gentleman was helped to stand up. He leant on a stick. His acolyte also stood up and announced that this gentleman was the chairman of the ±«Óãtv Listeners' Club, as well as a professor of English. He would ask the first four questions. We wondered whether this was fair or not, but then decided we could not intercede.

"My first question," said the old man, "is this. Where is Mr Mark Tully? And if he is not among those here present, why is he not present? Does he not understand that here in this city is the very centre and hub of English literature appreciation in the country of which he is supposed to be an expert?"

We mumbled, but the professor was off and running. He was, among many other things, the originator and chairman of the Chennai George Bernard Shaw Society, yet he had never heard anything by Shaw on the ±«Óãtv. He was also the chairman of the Chennai Tamil Association. Did the ±«Óãtv not realise the importance of Tamil, one of the five most widely spoken languages in the world, such a beautiful tongue that it was known, internationally, as the Latin of India? Did we not realise that to broadcast less than two hours a day in this pure and chaste language was derisory and insulting?

In vain we tried to ask him to get to the point. In vain we asked how on earth Tamil was one of the... It was useless. The professor would not stop. He used English words with delicious delight, and he used many of them.

At last, as he paused to cough, our chairman stood up and said that we were all delighted to meet and hear from such a distinguished figure, but now a full quarter of our time had been taken up and we would like to move on. Had Professor any views on, say, our handling of Kashmir, or the Middle East, or even the moving of Newshour?

The professor just about managed to master his cough and we caught the words "Just a minute". We waited. "Anyone can cover these wretched unending current affairs and news nonsenses," said the professor, managing to jab with his stick. "But none - none has ever broadcast a programme so amusing, so enlightening, so efficacious in the teaching of the language of Shakespeare as this. And now we find we cannot hear it. It is a disgrace!"

Nicholas Parsons - big in India

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A susurration of agreement went round the hall. We said we were sorry, but we did not understand. To exactly which ±«Óãtv programme was Professor referring? Now he jabbed hard: "Just a Minute! Just a Minute, the panel show in which contestants are invited to talk about a subject without hesitation, deviation or repetition!" We sat there dumbfounded. Just a bloody Minute! Had it even been on the original schedule? There was no answer.

The professor turned to show himself to the audience, then addressed us again. "If the wonderful ±«Óãtv, in all its wisdom, and with all its resources, does not care to bring Mr Mark Tully down to meet us, perhaps next time the ±«Óãtv could bring here one of the greatest ever broadcasters in the English language. Mr Nicholas Parsons!"

He sat down to huge applause, and we pretended to take notes, and our media persons and our strategy persons nodded at each other, and seemed extremely hot.

"I Used to Be an Insomniac Until..."
My favourite listener's letter was from a Norwegian lady who wrote: "Dear Mr House. Thank you so much for those intellectually challenging plays you produce for us on Play of the Week. I used to be an insomniac until I started listening to your dramas. Keep up the good work!"