The acting profession have long felt that it can be used to get them out of trouble when they fluff their lines or do something unbelievably naff on television. If my memory isn’t having its customary walkabout I think it was Lady Chatterley’s Lover, written by D.H Lawrence in 1928 and aired in court during 1960 under the Obscene Publications Act (1959), which brought words into into vogue that had been seen as obscenities reserved exclusively for the male gender. Once their lordships had given the go ahead the use of ‘fuck’ and its variants trip lightly of the tongue of men and women with equal facility. It soon became fried up and shrivelled where once it had been strong, seductive and glorious. Mary had an enormous influence on entertainment which still exists. Mary was born in 1910. She went on to teach Sex Education at Madeley Modern in Shropshire and is reported to have been so upset that pupils seemed to know more about sex than she did that she decided to wage war on the source of the children’s knowledge – television. She formed The National Viewers and Listeners Association in 1965. Her mandate as Porn-Finder General was endorsed by half a million viewers who thought that television should be cleaned up or closed down. Her targets were wide ranging and at times seemed faintly ludicrous. One of them was the popular Til Death Us Do Part comedy series. Alf Garnett’s use of ‘bloody’ in every sentence sent her temperature soaring and she never really understood that Alf’s character was sending up the bigoted bully he played. Even Doctor Who and the Who felt the lash of her corset strings and Tom and Jerry were filed under the same category as the increasingly violent films that were invading the big screen at the time. Soon all the comedy shows were having a go at her. It became a badge of merit if Mrs Whitehouse complained about them. One top show, The Goodies, was congratulated by her for producing ‘wholesome entertainment’ and instantly tried to introduce more risqué material into the show. It didn’t work at first but finally Tim Brooke-Taylor dancing in Y fronts with a carrot on the front did the trick. Mary wasn’t afraid to back her judgement by going to law if she thought the occasion called for legal intervention. She brought a prosecution against Gay News for printing a poem by James Kirkup called The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name and after the court case the editor, Denis Lemon, was handed down a sentence of nine months in prison – suspended. Mary made no secret of the fact that she felt he should have done the time. I met Mary Whitehouse just once. I was an innocent thrown to the lioness. I was invited by the Cambridge Union Society to defend the motion that “The Sixties Were A Good Thing’ – or something like it. And I accepted. Who could pass up the opportunity to perform on the stage of the world’s oldest debating society? I really didn’t know much about Mary Whitehouse although her name did seem vaguely familiar. It was a wonderful experience – at first. The big, oak lined walls that had witnessed centuries of orators, crammed with smartly dress, vibrant young men and a few women, the high leaded windows, the sense of history and the ignorance of who I was taking on, filled me with joy. I was wearing a black, tight-fitting velvet suit, a white high collared shirt with as many buttons as possible undone, and had been to the best crimpers in the West End I could find. I thought I had written myself a pretty nifty speech extolling the wonders of the sixties and the benefits the culture had passed on to mankind generally. Not sure if I believed all that but, as lawyers defending a villain are prone to claim, I was only doing my job. The applause was loud and encouraging. I sat down and awaited my triumph. Mary started well. “How am I supposed to follow that?” she began. And then proceeded to demolish my proposition point by point. The decision of the audience was overwhelming. Mary Whitehouse was the winner. Afterward I was invited to dinner by the President with Mary and her husband, Ernie. They were a lovely couple and we had a great evening chatting about all sorts of things. She was even gracious enough to congratulate me on my speech. I hate it when someone does that. Ingrid Pitt will be back with another column next week; read her last one here.
