Allies, thought Maggie. I need friends I can count on. Rhiannon, maybe. She seems like someone I can trust. I’ll call her tomorrow, see if she wants to meet for lunch.
Chapter Seven
At the last minute Maggie’s contract was extended by another twelve weeks. She and I lunched a lot over the next few months; we called it our Powder Plot. We always had a laugh and felt better for sharing our frustrations. You need to relieve the pressure now and then when you work in an intense environment. We often bounced ideas off one another, always searching for that great new project that could be our route to the all-conquering BAFTA. One day Maggie arrived with a Welsh idea.
“I saw this news item about Welsh hill farmers. They can’t survive, it’s terrible.”
“I know,” I said.
“Did you know the suicide rate’s rising faster there than anywhere else in the UK?”
“It doesn’t surprise me.”
“Someone should make a drama serial about it. Don’t you think so?”
I grimaced; it didn’t sound much fun to me. “How Grim Was My Valley?”
“Very good. I thought, what if you’ve got a family farm that goes back generations, and they have a poetic tradition too – bards. Isn’t that a big thing? Eisteddfods and all that?” I tried not to look bored as she carried on: “We don’t have that in England, I wish we did. It could make very powerful viewing, don’t you think?”
“If you say so.”
Maggie wasn’t going to be put off that easily. “Supposing the eldest son’s a poet, and he’s really not into the farm, the father’s desperate for him to help keep it going but the son knows it’s hopeless. They both feel suicidal. So the main storyline’s about the farm, and the subplot’s all in poetry – it could be a narrative voice-over.”
I could see Maggie was really into this idea, and although it wasn’t ringing my bell, I thought it had potential. I said she should go ahead, and suggested a Welsh writer I knew of who would be ideal for it.
Whilst we devoted ourselves to the creative rat race, others were similarly occupied at management level, where a volcanic upheaval was imminent. Chris Briggs had made a good fist of his work on the License Renewal Committee, and he was rewarded with a magnificent promotion. It was easily the most challenging post he’d had, and the most public. It was essential to make a success of it, or his career would certainly peak and dive. He prepared himself with great care.
Late one Sunday evening, Chris and his wife Catherine lay cosily in bed after a pleasant session of lovemaking. After twelve years together youthful passion had gradually been replaced by technical expertise and in many ways this was more satisfactory for both of them. It was certainly a good deal less messy and time-consuming, quieter and more efficient. Catherine snuggled into his shoulder, eyes closed, dozing contentedly, her short bobbed hair falling across her face, her mouth pressed against his firm pectorals.
Chris propped his head up with one arm behind it and allowed his gaze to wander round the bedroom. It was a large airy room in a fine Georgian house with all the original fireplaces still in situ. Damask curtains from Heals were swagged casually at the huge sash windows, and lovely Indian carpets covered most of the varnished floorboards. Tomorrow he would begin his new job as Controller of BBC2, and he was looking forward to it. At thirty-eight he was not the youngest man ever to take the job, and he didn’t think he was the most brilliant, but he was quietly confident and totally determined to make a great success of it. He had proved to be a notable General Trainee, especially since taking the lead by bravely championing the digital future, and he was now being groomed – along with others – for the top job of Director General. He would occupy that role, and then retire to pursue whatever lucrative interests presented themselves, possibly in the House of Lords. He was well on course and had every reason to feel satisfied.
Downstairs the front door opened and closed heavily. Glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece Chris saw that it was twenty to eleven; that would be the nanny returning from her evening at the cinema. Catherine stirred and roused herself, “Oh God I nearly went to sleep.” She sat up, fluffing the pillows, and tried to straighten out the bedclothes on the graceful antique brass bed. Giving up on them she leaned down and picked up her briefcase from the floor, dumping it beside her with a sigh. Her eyes automatically sought out a photo collage on her bedside table featuring happy family shots of their baby Natasha, now four-years-old. She wondered whether this time she would conceive again. She willed it to happen, and began to form a mental picture of a baby boy. Or another girl. Or one of each… then she pulled herself together, opened her briefcase and removed a sheaf of files, and put on the spectacles which were waiting in a professional manner in their place between the photos and the radio alarm.
“Are you in court tomorrow?” Chris asked.
Catherine tutted. “How many times?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, you’ve got an important week too. Haven’t you any work to do tonight?”
Chris picked up his own spectacles and a heavy book, opened it halfway and began reading. Catherine nosily peered at it and smiled to herself. Management and the Technological Revolution. It looked incredibly boring. She gave her full attention to The Crown versus Sanderstead Holdings plc.
*
Selina greeted him with a warm smile and a fresh cup of coffee. The papers were ready on his desk, and a vase of flowers he couldn’t identify adorned the coffee table. Chris sighed with pleasure: how marvellous this girl was, she seemed to anticipate his every need before it even crossed his mind.
She had proved to be an effective secretary when they worked together on the Licence Renewal Committee, examining the BBC from every angle and drawing up a strategy which would appease the government’s enthusiasm for privatisation, which was well known and widely feared within the industry; it was thought that commercial pressures on the public service broadcaster would reduce it to a carbon copy of ITV. Because of this the Director General had been keen to anticipate the government’s every objection and spike their guns. Ruthless efficiency measures and cuts were to be put in place across the board, every department would be instructed to become cost-effective or risk closure, and producers of all programmes were to be told they need no longer use internal resource departments but could go to outside firms for any service they needed, if it saved them money. This was expected to make the BBC such extraordinarily good value to the viewing public that they would consider the license fee a bargain.
The strategy had been spectacularly successful and the government had not put up a fight at all, renewing the BBC’s charter for ten years. The Board of Governors were delighted with the DG and the committee. Cynics suggested that the government was equally delighted with them for implementing Tory policy with such dedication – without even having been asked to do so.
Chris had taken a leading role on the committee and had impressed everybody with his clarity of vision and conviction that they must embrace a digital future. He had been given this promotion to see whether he was as good at practical implementation as he was at theorising: the corporation staff were still blissfully ignorant of what was coming, and the changes would not be easy to handle. He, in his turn, had not hesitated to invite Selina Crompton to become his Personal Assistant. She had provided excellent clerical support to the committee and understood the framework within which he would approach the job of Controller. He had learned from the DG that you needed like-minded people around you if you were to succeed in making changes. Selina was totally reliable and showed a level of diplomacy, which promised an exciting future. She was also attractive, slim, blonde and well educated, although Chris, naturally, was not the kind of man to prioritise these factors.
As he had such a thorough knowledge of the organisation Chris lost no time in planning his approach to scheduling Channel Two. He would work closely with the new departments currently being set up alongside him on the seventh floor, devoted to strategy d
evelopment, policy planning, focus group research and ratings analysis. They would supply hard facts and figures, which would give him a scientific basis for choosing programmes and re-arranging the schedules. Based on American systems which had already proved their worth in the US, they would help to drag the BBC out of its civil service past and transform it, ready to compete in the world marketplace of the 21st century. This approach constituted something of a revolution from the top down, and sooner or later there would be trouble from the staff. However, the DG’s stroke of genius was to make every department, whether they supplied resources or made programmes, survive or collapse entirely on its own merit. There would be no announcements of closure or redundancies, which would only precipitate strikes. Targets would be set, and departments would know that they had the same prospects as any business in the outside world: either they would break even or they wouldn’t, in which case they would go bust. This meant that market forces would dictate which parts of the corporation were dead wood. Savings made by cutting them away would be put into new technology. It made perfect sense. It also meant that any internal opposition would be hard put to focus on any one aspect; when redundancies came along they would be scattered, and those involved would feel that they were personally at fault rather than the victims of cuts, and would go quietly.
For the moment Chris only had to worry about his own channel, which made a nice change and presented a fascinating challenge: how to improve the results without getting such high viewing figures that he would be criticised for putting on mainstream programmes which ought to be on BBC1. He intended to bring a new approach to a post which was traditionally led by one person’s taste and judgement – a system which was naturally flawed. Instead of inviting Heads of Department to propose ideas they wanted to make, choosing a handful, and ultimately arranging them such that an evening’s broadcast schedule resembled a kind of variety bill, he would do it the other way around. He would decide what the schedules were to look like, count up the various slots, and tell the Heads precisely what kind of shows he needed: how many, and how much he would pay for them. They would know exactly where they stood. He hated intrigue and this would minimise it.
Chris asked Selina to arrange a series of conferences with each programme department. He would address the producers and staff together in an open meeting so that they could get to know him and ask questions. He was keen to be seen as approachable and hoped to communicate his enthusiasm directly, sowing seeds which would return a nourishing harvest of prize-winning programmes. He had no doubt that every department would survive and prosper under the new system, flourishing like well-pruned trees.
Television Centre lacked a room large enough to comfortably accommodate more than a hundred people and so a new conference room had been designated on the seventh floor: to be more accurate, a boardroom had been extended by knocking two neighbouring offices into it. It was spacious and looked onto the centre of the doughnut, which had a courtyard with a non-functioning fountain in it, where staff would bring their bacon baguettes from the new deli-style tea bar to sit and eat on the little surrounding wall, under the towering statue of Ariel, a dated but inoffensive naked male figure symbolising aspiration of astral proportions.
Inside, the conference room was comfortable without being luxurious; cleaner and with a noticeably deeper pile carpet than was found on lower floors. On the longest wall hung an impressionistic mural depicting a busy television studio with huge lumbering cameras not seen in the studios for thirty years. The mural was unusual in that it had two doors, which met in the middle like a giant cabinet.
The real problem was the seating plan. The room was not only very long and thin, it was curved, constituting about a fifth of the doughnut ring. If Chris spoke from one end he would be unable to see the people sitting at the far end on the courtyard side without a mirror. If he spoke from the middle, with his back to the wall of windows, he would have only a few rows of people directly in front of him and the majority to the side and over his shoulders. If he stood in front of the mural it was marginally better but he would have not only the sun in his eyes, but the glassy golden gaze of Ariel’s giant face.
Chris sighed and looked at Selina with exasperation. She agreed.
“There really isn’t anywhere better?” he asked without hope.
“Not unless we book a studio, and that would mean paying for it. At least this is free.”
Chris walked from one position to another, weighing up the options. How to communicate successfully, maintaining authority whilst inspiring loyalty, in the face of structural disadvantage? He smiled to himself: that was BBC management in a nutshell. He would save that observation for his diary, which he kept so that he could write his memoirs one day.
“What do you think, Selina?”
“Well. If you’ve got your back to the window no-one will be able to see your face, and if you face the window you won’t see anyone else’s face, so it might be best to go with the end-on arrangement and try not to use the far corner. If you stand at the mural side of the short end, rather than in the middle of it, that will help.”
Chris could see that this was a sensible approach, but he disliked the formality of it. He would feel like a headmaster taking assembly.
“Okay but let’s try and break down the barriers a bit, I don’t want to sit behind a table, and I don’t want straight rows of chairs. They can be curved. I’ll just stand at the front.” Selina made a few notes on her pad, then checked her watch.
“Time we went back. The DG wants to see you at twelve.”
“Yep.” Chris smiled and looked into her shrewd eyes appreciatively. “Thanks Selina.”
His face was transformed in a way she found very appealing. He was a stocky man of medium height and ordinary regular features, with unremarkable short brown hair and a serious expression, but his smile was soft and shy.
“Can you fix up for me to meet the Drama Department first, and Documentaries last; it doesn’t matter how the rest fit in. And not more than three a week. Two would be better.”
“Sure. How soon do we start?”
“Next week. We’ll hold them in the mornings. Ten o’clock.”
Selina nodded, noted, and beamed. He was a really good person to work for: decisive, organised and respectful towards her. He treated her as an intelligent professional which was just what she wanted. She was determined not to be written off as a bimbo, and Chris would never do that. Giving him her full support would benefit both their careers.
At nine forty-five the following Tuesday, Chris sipped a weak cappuccino from a polystyrene cup as he stood at his office window trying to look through the venetian blind into the conference room behind the statue. He couldn’t see well enough to know if it was filling up. He wasn’t really nervous but he was very concerned that the meeting should go well; he knew the value of first impressions and had prepared his address with great care. He had chosen to start with the Drama Department because he didn’t know anyone in it. Over the years he had worked in Arts and Music, Sport, Features and Current Affairs, before being hand-picked for the Licence Renewal Committee. Consequently there were many people who had known him in all kinds of junior roles, who would have mixed feelings about his new seniority over them. Experience had taught him to step with care where they were concerned, as their respect had to be earned. Drama would take him as he was. By the time he had worked his way round to Documentaries he would be better armed to take them on. Certain characters would, he knew, give him a hard time.
At five past ten Selina popped in to say that the Drama Department had assembled and were ready for him. He picked up his notes and walked round briskly, with Selina in attendance. He entered at the farthest door so that he was already in his ‘stage’ area, noted the water Selina had placed on a small table for him, and smiled to her as she sat down at the side of the room and prepared to take minutes.
He cleared his throat and surveyed the room, which had been filled with rows of chairs on a slight
curve towards him, as he had requested. He hadn’t anticipated the effect of the contrasting curve of the room on the curve of the chairs, which made him feel slightly sea-sick. Never mind, he would re-consider the layout later on. An expectant hush had fallen as everyone soaked up their first proper look at the new controller, so he smiled tightly at the floating mass of faces and began.
“Good morning everyone. Thank you for sparing your time today, I won’t keep you any longer than necessary. I’ve brought you here to introduce myself and give you the low-down on my plans for BBC2, direct from the horse’s mouth; I know what the rumour machine’s like here. I think it must have something to do with the circular corridors – never-ending Chinese whispers!” This feeble joke produced a friendly murmur which indicated that the ice had been cracked, if not broken. He glanced at Selina who smiled back softly.
“I’m very keen to establish a good, clear communication between us: I intend to be absolutely straight with you on all matters.” He paused, hoping for another ripple of acknowledgement which didn’t happen. Once again he found himself looking at Selina: he reprimanded himself for seeking moral support from one so young, and addressed a light fitting half way down the room instead:
“Now, I expect you know a bit about my background. I’ve been here sixteen years, I’ve made many programmes in my time and I’m very well aware of the problems you have to deal with. I also believe very strongly that programme-makers are the vital core of the BBC, and while I’m in this job I shall give top priority to getting the best possible quality of programmes for the channel.
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