THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1986. n
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He
tells
the
L'
world
ET us consider Mr.
Stuart Hibberd appreciatively, critic-
ally, reminiscently.
Because Ilibberd, for 11 years chief announcer of the BBC, is a mun in à million.
Not necessarily through force of personality, but by nature of
Hongkong Hotel his job.
Garage
Phone 27778-9.
The
Stubbs Rd.
He is the man who, more than any one else, tells the world. He is at the top of his profession, n vital, familiar figuro in every British home throughout, the Empire. And, as such, worthy of dissection.
QUIET man
A ly over forty
slight-
-
Portrait of
BBC chief
announcer
with suggestions for other
announcers
by JONAH BARRINGTON
Fair hair, brushed straight down corridors, to the right Hibberd standard to receive an
tops a broad, intelligent one.
Hongkong Telegraph. brow, rather narrow eyes, a fair
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1938.
"BLACK SPOT" IN
INDUSTRY
military moustache, a good humoured mouth.
The figure is still alert and vigorous-result of strenuous week-end tennis..
Several familiar mannerisms - shrugging of the shoulders, an upward gesticulation of the hands.
an
A number of fixed habits- orange eaten at definite hours, a gargle and a mouth wash before bulletins, a little singing before speaking.
During the recent House of Commons debate on the distress. ed areas and the location of in- dustry, strong pleas were made for extending special measures for the reduction of unemploy-
Endless little kindnesses and ment to districts which do not attentions to others in Broad. come within the Special Areas casting House-the invariable Act, but which have, none the phone call to the home of any less, suffered severely from the member of the staff who hap industrial depression. In parti-pens to be ill-the baskets of cular, stress was laid on the home-grown vegetables for col-
leagues. claims of South-West Lanca shire, one of the worst industrial
S. MOUTRIE & CO., LTD. "black spots" of the country.
(Makers of fine pianos for
over half a century).
York Building
Chater Road
LEADERSHIP IN
IN THE
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無盡 BLUE
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WHETHER
а
man.
buys his overcoat for business or sports -or both -with
wear
the Lane, Crawford's range.he is' assured
of authentic styles and
absolute. dependability
MEN'S WEAR DEPT.
And a whole heap of quite genuine modesty.
Witness the time when I met him after a conference.
He had been talking to 50 journalists and was a little worried.
He asked me how it went. I reassured him. I'm hanged, if I can think of anything to say comment: That-from a man on these occasions," was his who, did he but know it, en- counters a front-page story for almost every week he puts in on duty.
irate message from authority.
A word of slang, and the en- lire Board of Governors rings
The general atrike of 1926- with lists of trains and buses lasting over an hour to be read. up. ...
With the result that (Freddie The frantic inquiries to Savoy Grisewood excepted) the BBC Hill thousands of phone calls has for its announcers a group' when Father Knox broadcast of lesser Hibberds-men lacking a play depicting London in a his charm, but possessing state of revolution and the qualities which are not allowed House of Parliament on fire,... to, become apparent.
Hibberd, voice surcharged
UCH of the trouble lies Broadcasting House that tele-
with genuine pleasure, announc- Min the rule that every vision announcements must be
Ternity, this daring TURN from, this
ing royal weddings...
Hibberd, with genuine emo- thing must be read. A man typed-and memorised. tion, announcing the serious may only have to introduce
Shaw. illness of King George...the Bernard
But, aure abdication of King Edward VIII. enough, an hour or so before
Thus he has grown and de- the broadcast, down comes the and criticism-back to Stuart veloped.
typed book of words from the Hibberd. executives.
Soon he'll be back from his "This is the National pro- Canadian and American tour. set a gramme. To-night we have in Soon he'll be making his daily
the studio that distinguished journey-back and forth-from dramatist Mr. Bernard Shaw," Bickley to Broadcasting House. etc.
Soon-as familiar as the
THAT lies ahead?'
standard of announcing which is second to none.
WHibberd has
They should take promising men, note their characteristics, develop them.
But it is not enough. Hibberd, or the B.B.C. au- No chance for the wretched Nelson Column and as reliable thorities over him, should train mun to think this out for him- as the Bank of England-he'l} men in a dozen different stan- self-or even to improve on it. be at the microphone, dards.
He must READ-and usually The honey-tinted voice, with he sounds like it.
its flavour of the Eton and Over in Alexandra Palace, Harrow match, Ascot, the Boat- where television lives, they do race-everything that is tradi- If a man has a leaning to things differently.
tionally British-will penetrate
in certain programmes. wards slang, let him be slangy Leslie Mitchell, for example, once more into a milllon British
is making his announcements homes.
welcome him back- If he can be funny and in- impromptu. Obviously he can't We timate, encourage him-again be seen fluttering a sheet of Radio's No. 1 personality, in certain programmes.
paper, so he gags.
But up on his throne there is If he has a slight lisp-that's he's hesitant, sometimes he's room for, at least half a dozen grand.
funny, but all the time he's other personalities-men who can offer contrast to his solid Alas for informality. It will worth. There is even room, if At present a man has only to only be a matter of weeks be- they bunch up a bit, for a wo- deviate a few inches from the fore orders come through from man,
HINK back: There is a Tvery nervous, difficult in The pubicer occasionally.
would love a lisp human.
Four days later, without warning, he is at the micro- phone, saying, "This is London is away. ... calling," and reading: His chief
Sometimes
I MARRIED FOR MONEY-
fifteen years after I
The first S.0 SS-requests AND now,
made what the popular novelist from owners of lost dogs, might call the choice between canaries, parrots, to broadcast romance and riches," I can sit back. appeals-with Hibber handing dispassionately and judge whether there is anything in this superson out a polite succession of re- that one should not marry for money. fusals. ...
The constant vigilance neces If you are an incurable romantic, sary to see that speakers didn't or very, very young, read no farther.
For what I have to say is the truth,
And Have Never
Regretted It
She's Now a Shrew
Now, fteen years afterwards, in- spired to put this on paper by the fatuous comment by an important person that "love is everything," I say that I am unreservedly glad that I acted as I did.
At the same time, the Lanca ahire Industrial Development Council is making a further ap- pen to the Minister of Health for consideration of Lancashire's claims to special assistance in view of the decline of her basic industry. Previous appeals have failed. Sir Thomas Barlow, Chairman of the Council, main- tains that incentives should be provided for the establishment of factories in Lancashire. He points out that the derating of Stuart Hibberd, fresh from industry was an example of dis-service in the North-West Indian Police, applying for a job in crimination by the State as be- November 1924 as second an tween different sections of the nouncer. community and that if that principle were accepted in the one case, there is no reason why it should not be applied to the better distribution of industrial Tonterprise over Great Britain in the interests of the community as a whole. As was pointed-out in the debate in the House of Commons, three-quarters of all the unemployed are concentrat-
And then gradually and deliberate- led in four out of the nine insert gratuitous advertisements and the truth, perhaps, is fatal to the ly I set out to marry her-partly be- "married for money;" none of them
cause I felt the time had come when Ministry of Labour industrial into their MSS (to-day there is popularly
I ought to marry and settle down, but mainly because she was my em- divisions and yet the Speciala censorship, but then it was romance.
The girl of my tennis club days Areas Act deals with only some
the announcer's responsibility).
Briefly, I was faced fifteen years ployer's daughter and would
soon found another young man and ago by a very simple choice. I was sently inherit the business.
married him. She has never been 300,000 of the 1,200,000 un- The terrifying (and thank- 27, poor, but with somewhat expen
particularly well off, and ns I look at employed. There is 1 great less) task of turning over for sive tastes inherited from a family Romantic Illusions
which had seen better times, and
marry her, for life has turned her mass of long-term unemployed pianists.....
employed with a small manufacturing
Eventually. I asked her to marry not mow I thank my lucky stars I did outside the scheduled areas who Reading the news by match-concern in a provincial town was me, and she accepted, as I knew she into a shrew. I have missed nothing a certain ecstasy the export sales manager, and used would. But this was only after a except, perhaps, have had no consideration of any light when the lights failed..
to London, great deal of heart-searching on my which in the very nature of thing
would have quickly died. Taking Mr. A. P. Herbert to make frequent trips kind. The Government's ori- (then umwell) to the wrong tastes still further.
which only whetted my expensive part.
And I have gained, everything. I had to rid myself of a number of ginal claim was that by narrow-studio-rushing him, coatless, ing the front in this way, it
illusions which had been instilled into Welcomed My Company
me by every story I had ever seen.
Even if I had married for love I would be able to deal more ex-
"Don't do it," cautioned the romantic For some time I had been in love side of my nature, "you can't buy could not be better off than I am now. peditiously with the problem. the trade cycle is still in opera- with a girl at the tennis club I be happiness. Remember that in mar-A great affection, loyalty, camera- derie-enil it what you will-existe That claim has not been upheld. tion. In a capitalist society, longed to, but so far had not cald lage love is all important.
there are only short periods anything to her. I was naturally
between my wife and me. It is n "Fiddlestickat" countered the prac fabric of affection which we our- As the Commissioner pointed during which industrial re- cauilous, and although privately 1 out in his Report, under the habilitation can be effected. suffered a little through repressing tical aide of my nature. "Look at selves have woven, and the point is
my real feelings, I had an emphatle this thing squarely, and dispas-
that wo should still have had to Special Areas Act, "It has to be Unless the area of depression is disbelief in anything like "love in a clonately, as you would at a business weave it even two had followed the
problem. Being in love is not so
usual romantle path of marrying for admitted that no appreciable re- to be extended and intensified cottage."
portant a constituent of marriage, loves every couple has to when during the coming years, it must.
dies-and About this time my employer fell anyway. "Love" duction of the number of those be eliminated during the present ill, and I used to have to go to his then? You create your own happi- Actually, it has been easier for us,
what love wanes unemployed has been effected."
period of comparative industrial house to report on my business trips. ness after that. And if money can- for the fever of love has never hidden It is clear that the problem of activity. Meanwhile, the Labour There I met his daughter, and I not buy happiness the absence of
our re
real selves from each other. Long-term unemployment arising Party is gending a. Commission for some reason which was not ap- for a man like you."
could sense from the beginning that money can destroy it, particularly
From the beginning we lave seen and seen each from the decline, of basic indus-into the worst areas of depres-parent to me she welcomed my com-
The practical side of my nature ther tries must be considered, as a slon to catablish the facts and pany more warmly than ordinary
to draw up constructive pro- social courtesy necessitated. whole, and must be attacked posals which it will immediate Although she did not evoke in me
But even on my wedding day I had qualms. I looked at my wife-to-be and made a mental resolve list would make more than moral efforts to assure her happiness.-
accepted notions
of
LANE, CRAWFORD, LTD. immediately. If anything is to ly place before the Government any emotion comparable to my feala
be done it must be done at once with a view to immediate andings for the girl in the tennis club,
liced her as I liked any other pre- willst the.upward movement of intensified action.
sentable
woman. Dung
won.
pre-
I look around at the couples who made love matches at the lime that I 18. am convinced, happier than my wife and I and our two children. But many of them are far less happy.
A Fabric of Affection
each other clearly, ilusiole. There has been no dis- ̈
because there Was never any illusion. That is why an unashamed ∙at confessing that I married for money..
It has worked. And that is why sign mysel
An Unrepentant Himband.