Radio: Swing and Mr. Nasty

For relief from British broadcasting, especially on Sundays, pre-war Britishers had simply to twirl their radio dials to Radio Normandie, Luxembourg, Juan-les-Pins or any of the other gay, Continental “outlaw” stations. Outlaws they were because, unlike BBC, they carried advertising. Favorites they were for variety, swing, snap—courtesy of Lux, Pepsodent, Alka-Seltzer, etc. But war put the commercial “outlaws” out of business—precariously situated Luxembourg for reasons of neutrality, Normandie and other French stations for la belle propaganda. This left blacked-out Britishers wholly at the mercy of BBC, which furnished news in the passive mood, gramophone recordings, funereal discourses like What Happens When I Die. In the House of Commons, Laborite Arthur Greenwood groused loudly against Britain’s radio “Weeping Willies”; the press clamored for Weeping Willie to be given the sack.

Last week there were glimmers of light in the gloom. Luxembourg was still silent, but Normandie was back (identified now as International Broadcasting Co.), from 7 a. m. to 8 p. m., with all its old zip and a set of sponsors recommending such soldier-boy comforts as Reudel’s Rest-Your-Feet Salts, Freezone Corn Cure, Horlick’s Night Starvation Dried Milk. After business hours, Normandie continued to do its bit till 1 a. m., broadcasting propaganda to Austrians and Czechs.

At home, Weeping Willie had not been sacked, but he had a back seat while BBC took off its kid gloves, permitted anti-German cracks, digs at British home policy. Comic Tommy Handley twitted censorship with references to the Office of Twerps, the Ministry of Irritation, was a scream lampooning Hitler, whose mustache he once compared to a splash from a passing taxi. Most telling BBC Hitler-baiter : Band Waggon’s little Arthur Askey, cooking up ingenious schemes for pestering a certain Mr. Nasty. Sample: Plotting to train 5,000 parrots to fly over old Nasty’s House at Birdsgarden, singing “We’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you!”