´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 Daily Service at 80
Everything stops – for the Daily Service
By Andrew Barr, former Head of Education and Religious Broadcasting, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland
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Eighty years ago, another contest between David and Goliath once again ended with victory for David. This time David was a gentle spinster, and Goliath was John Reith, the alarmingly-tall and war-scarred first Director-General of the ´óÏó´«Ã½. Their battlefield was the new invention, wireless broadcasting, and David's campaign was for a Daily Service. Thousands quietly supported the request, but never before had listeners told the Director-General, that intimidating giant at Savoy Hill, what to do.
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Reith gave in. The Daily Service began, and has survived war-time bombing and the exponential growth of sound broadcasting to thrive on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 of the digital age. An appreciative audience all over the world still tunes in every morning. Listeners sing along in their car, or even while relaxing in a hot bath – an experience which the early audience were advised by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to avoid as an extremely dangerous and improper practice. (They were probably expected to gather with their maids in the servants' halls of the English Shires). Today, it is the longest-surviving programme of its kind in the world.
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May 1926.
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In just three and a half years, starting with a handful of staff, the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s first General Manager, John Reith, had built up a country-wide radio network. And with the calling of the General Strike the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one Winston Churchill, realised that the accessible and now influential ´óÏó´«Ã½ would be the ideal propaganda machine. But they had under-estimated the stern Presbyterian who, describing his managerial style as "benevolent dictatorship", insisted that there would be no question of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ taking instruction from anyone. Churchill lost, and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ retained its unique impartiality.
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It was the manner in which news of the end of the Strike was broadcast that inspired one female listener, Miss Kathleen Cordeux of Croxley Green, Hertfordshire, to pursue her gentle, and ultimately successful request, to influence Reith's ´óÏó´«Ã½ to initiate what has now become its longest-running daily radio programme of its kind, The Daily Service. Reith himself, announcing the return to work with due impartiality, had then, with dramatic overtones, recited Blake's hymn Jerusalem, concluding dramatically with a live studio orchestra accompanying the climax; "in England's Green and Pleasant land". Unlike Winston Churchill, Miss Cordeux was to win her campaign, as she persuaded John Reith, against all his natural instincts, to take instruction from a listener.
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It was not until 18 months later, on the first weekday of 1928, that Miss Cordeux had her wish granted when, for 15 minutes, the very first Short Religious Service was broadcast live from Savoy Hill. The Rev Hugh Johnston, sitting by an open fire, introduced a hymn and a psalm and a prayer. It was designed to be an intimate experience for listeners. As one producer later instructed the presenter: "you are to be the vicar for those who won't, and those who can't come to church".
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Eighty years on, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 still broadcasts the Daily Service, still with the same simple direct format and still with each listener in mind. Even Test Match commentaries across the world pause for these 15 minutes.
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After the First World War Watford, where John Reith's conqueror lived, was fast growing into one of London's dormitory towns. The women workers of the huge munitions factory had returned to homely duties. One of England's first by-pass roads was being built around Watford, but the town's huge new Peace Hospital said more about a society trying to recover from the carnage of the trenches. Mentally scarred, many survivors were still in hospital. And the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s weekly journal Radio Times described how programmes were relayed to the sick in hospital wards; there was even a long competitive correspondence arguing over who had first had the idea. As early as 1923, the Bournemouth station briefly provided a programme offering spiritual comfort for the sick and since its invention at the end of the 19th Century, subscribers had regularly listened in to church services on their telephone.
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Enter Miss Cordeux. Her first request was printed in Radio Times in May 1926, but never seen. The General Strike had begun. Even though the strike stopped that week's edition being distributed, a voluminous correspondence began between Savoy Hill and The Cottage, Croxley Green, Watford, as Kathleen Cordeux began to marshal her forces. Even without ´óÏó´«Ã½ publicity, she quickly gathered more than 5,000 signatures for her petition. Eventually, in November 1927, after she had corresponded with almost every senior official in the ´óÏó´«Ã½, her request was reprinted in the Radio Times suggesting that other listeners write in if they were interested in the idea. They did, and all but four listeners who wrote wanted the Service.
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Miss Cordeux was both persistent and persuasive, but her first plan for an Anglican Evensong of the air stood little chance of success. Reith had once broadcast Evensong from Westminster Abbey, but most Deans of the Church of England were not to be beguiled into such vulgarity. Only when an appeal was launched to stop St Paul's Cathedral from collapsing, an appeal quickly carried by the vulgar medium of radio, were such broadcasts even entertained by that Cathedral Chapter. In the end, Miss Cordeux's "Dear little Morning Service" was agreed and, led by Hugh Johnston, one of the curates from St Martin-in-the-Fields, the church where the innovative "radio padre" Dick Sheppard had first broadcast, in the face of much Church criticism. As The Daily Service went on air, Reith, still sternly insisting on impartiality, instructed ´óÏó´«Ã½ staff that they must not "preach". Religion, meaning Christianity, was to be "manly, upright, and entirely free of controversy".
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What did the first Service sound like? As the Psalms were chanted (incidentally, from the controversial Prayer Book, the 1928 edition, which was later to be thrown out by Parliament), it would have sounded very Anglican and, despite the cosy fireside chat, perhaps rather austere. The speaker remained anonymous, and offered no opinion, and the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Wireless Singers sang, seated behind the presenter at a dining-table.
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After four years, the broadcast had grown so popular that it was given a special studio in the brand new Broadcasting House. The presenter now faced a lit alcove, designed to be "an infinite space", although the outline of a plain cross could also be projected. Reith, by now a fan of the broadcast, demanded that this new studio 3E be consecrated as a Holy place. Once again, church authorities were less than helpful and objected because "the profane", ie, a variety studio, lay directly underneath!
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On 15 October 1940, in the dark days of the blitz, a time bomb put Studio 3E out of commission, although miraculously the full 500lbs of explosives did not detonate. But the Daily Service team had long been evacuated, first to Bristol Cathedral and then to the Trinity Chapel of St Paul's Church in Bedford. The departure from Bristol was hastened by terrible air-raids, with one broadcast conducted from underneath The Daily Service dining table. Whilst the then Director of Religious Broadcasting, James Welch, prayed, the announcer read the Bible and a member of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra played a Bach Sonata.
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After the war, the Daily Service returned to London, but not to its erstwhile studio. The experience of being in church had made its mark, and so an ecclesiastical venue was sought. What better place than All Souls Langham Place, right on the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s front doorstep? All Souls itself had suffered bomb damage but, from the 1950s, the Daily Service was regularly coming from there – until 1993 when the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Religion and Ethics department moved to Manchester.
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In the third millennium, The Daily Service has outlived almost everything from Lord Reith's day. But while remaining true to itself, and still including Christian music sung live, Bible readings and prayers, it now has a much friendlier face. Today's presenters, men and women, lay and ordained, (including a Bishop from both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic Church) are known by name. The Daily Service, expanded 30 years ago to include Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has travelled the world, as listeners became choristers to make a pilgrimage first to the Holy Land and then to follow the steps of St Paul. The Daily Service's home is now Emmanuel Church in a quiet street in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury. Today's choristers would not dream of singing sitting down as they are conducted and accompanied by some of Britain's top church and cathedral musicians. A song from the Caribbean or Africa is as likely to be included just as much as the nation's traditional favourite hymns.
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Every year on Ascension Day, listeners travel from all over the country to London for a special service. As they rehearse for a one-hour special broadcast on Radio 4, it is clear that people of all ages still value the daily broadcast as an important part of their favourite radio channel.
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