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‘BEAMED DIRECTLY TO THE CHILDREN’: SCHOOL BROADCASTING AND SEX EDUCATION IN BRITAIN IN THE 1960s AND 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2015

Mara Gregory
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Abstract

This paper presents findings from a larger research project that addresses the production, content and reception of sex education broadcasts produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Television in the 1960s and 1970s. More than educational aids, these programmes were vehicles of communication with explicit and implicit messages regarding sexual morality and the nature of childhood. With a focus on the broadcast media and their modes of address to children, this paper connects sex education content with classroom practice and broadly questions how broadcasts portrayed and authorised certain images, types of knowledge and methods for teaching children about sex.

Type
The Rees Davies Prize Essay
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 25 , December 2015 , pp. 187 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2015 

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References

1 School Broadcasting Council for the United Kingdom (SBC), School Broadcasting and Sex Education in the Primary School (1971), 3.

2 Wellcome Collection, London, Family Planning Association Archives and Manuscripts (FPA), SA/FPA/A17/123, ‘Sex Education on Television at Last’, FPA News (Nov. 1969); Sandra Bisp, ‘Sex Lessons from Auntie BBC? – Oh Please, NO’, South Wales Echo, 30 Oct. 1969.

3 John A. Murphy, ‘Sex Education Broadcasts: The Duty of Parents’, Times, 7 Nov. 1969, 11.

4 Mara Gregory, ‘Beamed Directly to the Children: School Broadcasting and Sex Education in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s’ (M.A. dissertation, University of Warwick, 2013).

5 Bashford, Alison and Strange, Carolyn, ‘Public Pedagogy: Sex Education and Mass Communication in the Mid-Twentieth Century’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 13.1 (2004), 71–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Eberwein, Robert, Sex Ed: Film, Video, and the Framework of Desire (New Brunswick, 1999), 117Google Scholar.

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8 Hendrick, Harry, ‘The Child as a Social Actor in Historical Sources: Problems of Identification and Interpretation’, in Research with Children: Perspectives and Practices, ed. Christensen, Pia and James, Allison (2nd edn, London and New York, 2008), 40–1Google Scholar.

9 Recent edited volumes on the history of sex education, with chapters on Britain, include Shaping Sexual Knowledge: A Cultural History of Sex Education in Twentieth Century Europe, ed. Sauerteig, Lutz D. H. and Davidson, Roger (London and New York, 2009)Google Scholar; Sexual Pedagogies: Sex Education in Britain, Australia, and America, 1879–2000, ed. Nelson, Claudia and Martin, Michelle H. (New York and Basingstoke, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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11 For Foucault's influence, see Lutz D. H. Sauerteig and Roger Davidson, ‘Shaping the Sexual Knowledge of the Young: Introduction’, in Shaping Sexual Knowledge, ed. Sauerteig and Davidson, 1; Porter, Roy and Hall, Lesley, The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650–1950 (New Haven and London, 1995), 8–9Google Scholar. For feminist critiques of sex education see, e.g., Wolpe, AnnMarie, ‘Sex in Schools: Back to the Future’, Feminist Review, 27 (1987), 37–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thorogood, Nicky, ‘Sex Education as Social Control’, Critical Public Health, 3.2 (1992), 43–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Sauerteig and Davidson, ‘Introduction’, 5. See, e.g., Roger Davidson, ‘Purity and Pedagogy: The Alliance-Scottish Council and School Sex Education in Scotland, 1955–67’, in Shaping Sexual Knowledge, ed. Sauerteig and Davidson, 91–107; Pilcher, Jane, ‘School Sex Education: Policy and Practice in England 1870 to 2000’, Sex Education, 5:2 (2005), 153–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pilcher, Jane, ‘Sex in Health Education: Official Guidance for Schools in England, 1928–1977’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 17.2/3 (2004), 185–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hampshire, James, ‘The Politics of School Sex Education Policy in England and Wales from the 1940s to the 1960s’, Social History of Medicine, 18.1 (2005), 87–105CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Hampshire, James, ‘Sex Education: Politics and Policy in England and Wales’, Education and Health, 21.2 (2003), 29–34Google Scholar.

13 Hall, Lesley A., ‘Birds, Bees and General Embarrassment: Sex Education in Britain, from Social Purity to Section 28’, in Public or Private Education? Lessons from History, ed. Aldrich, Richard (London and Portland, OR, 2004), 93–112Google ScholarPubMed. For an analysis of early twentieth-century sex education and its links with ‘medico-moral discourse’, see Mort, Frank, Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830 (2nd edn, London and New York, 2000), 123–69Google Scholar.

14 Hampshire, James and Lewis, Jane, ‘“The Ravages of Permissiveness”: Sex Education and the Permissive Society’, Twentieth Century British History, 15.3 (2004), 290–312CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also the work of David Limond on controversial sex education materials from this period: Limond, David, ‘The UK Edition of The Little Red Schoolbook: A Paper Tiger Reflects’, Sex Education, 12.5 (2012), 523–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Limond, David, ‘“I Hope Someone Castrates You, You Perverted Bastard”: Martin Cole's Sex Education Film, Growing Up’, Sex Education, 9.4 (2009), 409–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Limond, David, ‘“I Never Imagined that the Time Would Come”: Martin Cole, the Growing Up Controversy and the Limits of School Sex Education in 1970s England’, History of Education, 37.3 (2008), 409–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 The controversies surrounding BBC sex education broadcasts in the early 1970s are mentioned briefly in Hall, ‘Sex Education in Britain’, 104; and Hampshire and Lewis, ‘Ravages of Permissiveness’, 303–4. Neither provides a description or analysis of content.

16 Indeed, within the historiography of broadcasting in Britain, school broadcasting in general has received scant attention. David Crook provides a brief but informative ‘exploratory history’ of school broadcasting in Britain; see Crook, David, ‘School Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: An Exploratory History’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 39.3 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most comprehensive histories have been written by broadcasters themselves. See, e.g., Kenneth Fawdry, Everything but Alf Garnett: A Personal View of BBC School Broadcasting (1974); Teaching and Television: ETV Explained, ed. Guthrie Moir (Oxford, 1967).

17 Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies (2001), 9–15.

18 These studies incorporate Foucauldian conceptions of power as inseparable from and productive of knowledge. See Foucault, Michel, ‘Body/Power’, in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, ed. Gordon, Colin, trans. Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham and Kate Soper (New York, 1980), 59Google Scholar. For further discussion of Foucault's influence on the visual turn in the history of science and medicine, see Cooter, Roger and Stein, Claudia, ‘Coming into Focus: Posters, Power, and Visual Culture in the History of Medicine’, Medizinhistorisches Journal, 42 (2007), 180–209Google ScholarPubMed; Cartwright, Lisa, Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine's Visual Culture (Minneapolis and London, 1995), xi–xvGoogle Scholar; Jordanova, Ludmilla, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York, 1989), 5–6Google Scholar.

19 Boon, Timothy, Films of Fact: A History of Science in Documentary Films and Television (London and New York, 2008), 5–6, 107Google Scholar.

20 Boon, Timothy, ‘Health Education Films in Britain, 1919–1939: Production, Genres and Audiences’, in Signs of Life: Cinema and Medicine, ed. Harper, Graeme and Moor, Andrew (London and New York, 2005), 54Google Scholar. See also Boon, Films of Fact, 142–5.

21 Lutz D. H. Sauerteig, ‘Representations of Pregnancy and Childbirth in (West) German Sex Education Books, 1900s–1970s’, in Shaping Sexual Knowledge, ed. Sauerteig and Davidson, 129–60. For a similar assessment of medicine's power to define and represent reproductive and sexual bodies through sex education, see Uta Schwarz, ‘Helga (1967): West German Sex Education and the Cinema in the 1960s’, in Shaping Sexual Knowledge, ed. Sauerteig and Davidson, 197–213.

22 Eberwein, Sex Ed, 2–6.

23 Ibid., 4–5.

24 Loughlin, Kelly, ‘The History of Health and Medicine in Contemporary Britain: Reflections on the Role of Audio-Visual Sources’, Social History of Medicine, 13.1 (2000), 142–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Unfortunately, many sex education broadcasts from the 1960s and 1970s are not publicly accessible or do not survive in full.

25 BBC production files were accessed at the BBC Written Archives Centre in Reading. ITV archives are much more difficult to access due to individual company policies. Therefore, this paper draws from published reports on ITV programmes. Due to copyright restrictions, I am not able to reproduce here any still images from BBC or ITV broadcasts.

26 Lawn, Martin and Grosvenor, Ian, ‘“When in Doubt, Preserve”: Exploring the Traces of Teaching and Material Culture in English Schools’, History of Education, 30.2 (2001), 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 British Medical Association, Report of Venereal Disease and Young People (1964), quoted in Michael Schofield, The Sexual Behaviour of Young People (1965; repr. 1967), 6.

28 ‘Venereal Disease and Young People’, British Medical Journal, 1.5383 (1964), 576.

29 Schofield, Sexual Behaviour, 253.

30 Ibid., 247–9, 253–4.

31 Hampshire, ‘Politics’, 99.

32 This ‘official guidance’ is well covered by the historiography. See, e.g., Pilcher, ‘Sex in Health Education’, 185–208; Pilcher, ‘School Sex Education’, 153–70; Hampshire, ‘Sex Education’, 31; Hampshire and Lewis, ‘Ravages of Permissiveness’, 290–312.

33 See Cook, Hera, ‘Getting “Foolishly Hot and Bothered”? Parents and Teachers and Sex Education in the 1940s’, Sex Education, 12.5 (2012), 557–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, ‘Sex Education in Britain’, 107–8. For an oral history recounting reticence, embarrassment and lack of knowledge about sex during this period, see Davis, Angela, ‘“Oh No, Nothing, We Didn't Learn Anything”: Sex Education and the Preparation of Girls for Motherhood, c. 1930–1970’, History of Education, 37.5 (2008), 661–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Harry Hendrick describes child-centred doctrine as ‘emphasis on creative effort, self-regulated learning and a variety of informal techniques’. Hendrick, Harry, Children, Childhood and English Society, 1880–1990 (Cambridge, 1997), 77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Central Advisory Council for Education (England), The Plowden Report: Children and their Primary Schools (2 vols., 1967), i, 259, available online at Education in England, www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/plowden/ (11 Jan. 2015).

36 The production of school sex education broadcasts is discussed in detail in Gregory, ‘School Broadcasting’, 21–48.

37 The National Archives, Kew, Records of the Department of Education and Science and of Related Bodies (TNA, ED), 147/559, ‘Committee on Broadcasting: Memorandum of Evidence by the School Broadcasting Council for the United Kingdom’ (1960), 3.

38 TNA, ED 147/557, Ministry of Education Minute Sheet, ‘I.T.V. Programmes for Schools’ (24 Jan. 1957). Initially, the Children's Advisory Committee, made up of experts in education and child development, provided advice to the Independent Television Authority. Following the Television Act of 1963, this structure was replaced with the Educational Advisory Council and a subsidiary Schools Committee. Programme proposals from the school broadcasting departments of ITV companies needed approval from company educational advisory bodies as well as the overarching ITA Schools Committee. Sendall, Bernard, Independent Television in Britain, ii: Expansion and Change, 1958–68 (London and Basingstoke, 1983), 274, 285–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Committee on the Future of Broadcasting, The Annan Report (1977), 304.

40 FPA, CB/13/4, Kenneth Fawdry, ‘Sex Education: An Approach through Broadcasting’, in Sex Education of Schoolchildren, ed. James Hemming, Maud P. Menzies, Marjorie Proops and Kenneth Fawdry (1971), 32.

41 Granada Television, ‘A Report on “Understanding”’, in Sex Education, ed. Rogers, 197–216.

42 BBC Written Archives Centre, Reading (WAC), T69/58/1, ‘Consultants Views on Nudity in Relation to Merry-Go-Round’ (undated), 2. The idea of the ‘latency period’ comes from Freud's theory of psychosexual development. See Janssen, Diederik F., ‘Picturing Sex Education: Notes on the Politics of Visual Stratification’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 27.4 (2006), 497Google Scholar.

43 Lambert, T. J., ‘The Contribution of BBC School Broadcasts to Sex Education for Primary Schools’, in Sex Education in Schools, ed. Nazer, Isam R. (Carthage, 1976), 74, 82Google Scholar.

44 For a detailed discussion of the public reception of sex education broadcasts, see Gregory, ‘School Broadcasting’, 88–97.

45 Hampshire and Lewis, ‘Ravages of Permissiveness’, 163–7, 292, 298–9. ‘Permissiveness’, a term employed predominantly by moral conservatives, characterised perceived changes in society related to issues such as rising rates of illegitimacy and venereal disease, sexual content in the media, the growing pornographic industry and legislation that increased availability of the contraceptive pill and abortion. See Weeks, Jeffrey, Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 (3rd edn, Harlow, 2012), 322–5Google Scholar; Hall, Lesley A., Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (2nd edn, Basingstoke, 2013), 148–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Bashford and Strange, ‘Public Pedagogy’, 73–5. Trends in the 1960s towards decensorship were accompanied by growing numbers of complaints about explicitness in the media. In 1964, notably, Mary Whitehouse founded the Clean Up TV Campaign (later the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association), which became a prominent lobby for morality in the media. See Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, 368; Hendy, David, ‘Bad Language and BBC Radio Four in the 1960s and 1970s’, Twentieth Century British History, 17.1 (2006), 74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Limond, ‘Martin Cole's Sex Education Film’, 415. David Hendy pursues a similar argument in his discussion of controversies surrounding bad language on BBC Radio Four; he notes that ‘different standards existed for different audiences in different places’. Hendy, ‘BBC Radio Four’, 76.

48 Longford Committee Investigating Pornography, Pornography: The Longford Report (1972), 345, 352–3.

49 Loughlin, ‘Audio-Visual Sources’, 134–5.

50 Hall, ‘Sex Education in Britain’, 102–5.

51 TNA, ED 50/862, Sir Lionel Russell, Sex Education in Schools (1967), 43–9.

52 It is worth noting that British educationists were often wary of American films. Minutes from a meeting between the DES and the Ministry of Health, for example, note that officials felt American films on venereal disease were ‘not entirely suitable for British teenagers’. TNA, ED 50/862, ‘Notes of a Meeting Held in the Ministry of Health on V.D. Health Education’ (23 May 1966).

53 Barbara Crowther, ‘The Partial Picture: Framing the Discourse of Sex in British Educative Films of the Early 1930s’, in Shaping Sexual Knowledge, ed. Sauerteig and Davidson, 176–96.

54 Hall, ‘Sex Education in Britain’, 94–5.

55 Crowther, ‘Partial Picture’, 188–92. The Mystery of Marriage is also available in a British Film Institute compilation of sex education films, covering the period between 1917 and 1973. The Mystery of Marriage, dir. Mary Field (British Instructional Films Ltd, 1932), in The Joy of Sex Education, prod. Katy McGahan (British Film Institute, 2009) (on DVD). It is important to note that The Mystery of Marriage was likely intended to be humorous as well as informational.

56 Eberwein, Sex Ed, 106–13.

57 Learning to Live was produced by Eothen Films for London Rubber Industries. Learning to Live, dir. Guy Fergusson and Phillip Sattin (Eothen Films, 1964), in Joy of Sex Education. Despite its conventional content, this film stirred controversy because it was produced by a condom manufacturing company, London Rubber Industries. The controversy is described in TNA, ED 50/862, DES Internal Memorandum (5 Aug. 1968).

58 Growing Up was produced by Global Films in association with the Institute for Sex Education and Research. Growing Up, dir. Dr Martin Cole (Global Films, 1971), in Joy of Sex Education.

59 Dominic Sandbrook, State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970–1974 (Kindle E-book) (2010 [2011]), ch. 11; Limond, ‘Martin Cole's Sex Education Film’, 409–19; Limond, ‘Growing Up Controversy’, 409–29; Hampshire and Lewis, ‘Ravages of Permissiveness’, 303.

60 Boon describes the use of ‘moral tales’ in interwar health education films. He defines these as ‘fictional stories. . .using moral narratives. . .intended to convey a health implication’. Boon, ‘Health Education Films’, 47.

61 Eberwein, Sex Ed, 134.

62 Boon, ‘Health Education Films’, 48–9. The common depiction of doctors seated authoritatively behind a desk and providing advice is also discussed in Crowther, ‘Partial Picture’, 183; and Eberwein, Sex Ed, 138.

63 See examples in Eberwein, Sex Ed, 134–47; Stevenson, Jack, ‘When the Lights Go Down (in the Classroom)’, in Fleshpot: Cinema's Sexual Myth Makers and Taboo Breakers, ed. Stevenson, Jack (2nd edn, Manchester, 2002), 49–62Google Scholar.

64 Don't Be Like Brenda, dir. Hugh Baddeley (Hugh Baddeley Productions, 1973) in Joy of Sex Education.

65 Eberwein, Sex Ed, 113–33.

66 Ibid., 117.

67 Boon, Films of Fact, 231.

68 TNA, Records of the Home Office, 256/406, ‘Report of an Enquiry into the Special Contribution which Television Might be Expected to Make’ (1954), 4.

69 For the recording of broadcasts, see Fawdry, Alf Garnett, 189–93.

70 Sauerteig, ‘Pregnancy and Childbirth’, 129 (emphasis added).

71 The SBC contended that these programmes would assist teachers ‘to give responsible answers to those questions about sex which the 8 year old naturally asks’. SBC, School Broadcasting, 1.

72 Information on the content of these programmes is drawn from the teachers’ notes, which contain images of the filmstrip frames and transcripts of the radio dialogue, available at the Institute of Education Library, University of London (IOE), BBC Broadcasts to Schools Collection, Vol. cxlvix, Leaflets, Notes 175–6 (Spring 1970). The radiovision programme ‘Growing Up’ is also available as part of the BBC's adult education series, Sex Education in Primary Schools. During this television programme, the filmstrip images and accompanying radio narration are presented as they would be in schools. A viewing copy of this programme is available at the British Film Institute (BFI), London, Ref. 333711, ‘Growing Up’, Sex Education in Primary Schools (BBC, 20 Jan. 1970) (on VHS).

73 SBC, School Broadcasting, 12.

74 Eberwein, Sex Ed, 103.

75 For children's interest in the visual, see TNA, ED 147/559, Allen, ‘BBC School Television’ (1960), 5, 7–8.

76 SBC, School Broadcasting, 12.

77 Eberwein argues that sex education materials utilised certain ‘authorised’ forms to both display and occlude sexual desire. Eberwein, Sex Ed, 2–3.

78 SBC, School Broadcasting, 28.

79 Descriptions of this programme are based on the images and script in IOE, BBC Broadcasts, Vol. cxlvix, Leaflets, Note 176 (Spring 1970).

80 SBC, School Broadcasting, 12–13. The first two programmes are available for viewing in full at the British Film Institute: BFI, Ref. 567975, ‘Beginning’, Merry-Go-Round (BBC, 1 June 1970) (on VHS); BFI, Ref. 568031, ‘Birth’, Merry-Go-Round (BBC, 8 June 1970) (on DVD). The last programme is not available to view in full, but a preview is included in the BBC's adult education series: BFI, Ref. 211028, ‘Full Circle’, Sex Education in Primary Schools (BBC, 10 Feb. 1970) (on VHS). Unless otherwise noted, descriptions of these programmes are based on personal viewings.

81 Merry-Go-Round was a popular miscellany series that addressed a wide variety of topics in addition to sex education. The presenter was Richard Carpenter. SBC, School Broadcasting, 12.

82 IOE, BBC Broadcasts, Vol. cxlxi, Leaflets, Note 4 (1970), 29, 34.

83 Cartwright, Screening the Body, 82.

84 IOE, BBC Broadcasts, Vol. cxlxi, Leaflets, Note 4 (1970), 25.

85 Ibid., 27.

86 TNA, Records of the Ministry of Health and Related Bodies, 156/490, Felicity Kinross, ‘Talk Given at the British Symposium on Population Education and Sex’ (2 July 1974), 3.

87 IOE, BBC Broadcasts, Vol. cxlxi, Leaflets, Note 4 (1970), 26.

88 Ibid., 31.

89 Ibid., 33.

90 Differences between provision in primary and secondary schools are discussed in the 1967 Birmingham study on sex education. The survey found that junior schools rarely covered sex education, but that the majority of secondary schools showed concern with addressing the physical and emotional aspects of sex. TNA, ED 50/862, Sir Lionel Russell, Sex Education in Schools (1967), 16–20.

91 Programmes from this series are described in a report produced by Grampian Television. Grampian Television, ‘A Report on “Living and Growing”’, in Sex Education, ed. Rogers, 227–38.

92 Ibid., 227.

93 Ibid., 227.

94 Ibid., 227–8.

95 Ibid., 228.

96 IOE, BBC Broadcasts, Vol. cxlx, Pamphlet 84 (Summer 1970).

97 Board of Education, Educational Pamphlet No. 119: Sex Education in Schools and Youth Organisations (1943), 9. Provision of sex education as part of the biology curriculum is also discussed by Pilcher, ‘School Sex Education’, 157–8; and Hall, ‘Sex Education in Britain’, 98–9.

98 WAC, R165/77/1, BBC Press Service, ‘BBC School Radio: Life Cycle’ (Summer 1972).

99 Ibid.

100 WAC, R165/77/1, ‘Into the Wide World’ Script and Outline (1971).

101 WAC, R165/77/1, Vialls, Arthur, ‘Life Cycle: The Saga of the Incredible Shrinking Man’, Health Education Journal (Autumn 1974), 111Google Scholar.

102 WAC, R165/77/1, Life Cycle Pupil's Pamphlet (Summer 1972), 11.

103 Ibid., 13.

104 Descriptions of this programme are based on a personal viewing at the British Film Institute Reuben Library: BFI, Ref. 16765, ‘Love Now Pay Later’, The Facts Are These (Granada Television, 22 Feb. 1973) (digitised).

105 This stylistic convention is described in Eberwein, Sex Ed, 138–40.

106 In a 1964 survey, the DES noted that health visitors, school medical officers, health education officers and general practitioners provided specialist lessons on venereal disease for many schools. TNA, ED 50/862, Minute Sheet, ‘Notes on Sex Education in Schools’ (25 Aug. 1964), 2.

107 Scene ran from 1968 to 2007, with repeats until 2009. Ben Clarke, ‘Scene’, Broadcast for Schools, www.broadcastforschools.co.uk/site/Scene (16 July 2013).

108 Scene Scripts, ed. Michael Marland (1972; repr. 1979), vii.

109 The script of this programme, including stage directions, is published in a compilation of Scene scripts. Kingston, Leonard, ‘Consequences’, in Scene Scripts Three, ed. Blatchford, Roy (Burnt Mill, Harlow, 1982), 69–101Google Scholar.

110 Leonard Kingston, ‘Writing “Consequences”’, in Scene Scripts Three, ed. Blatchford, ix–xvi.

111 Kingston, ‘Consequences’, 82.

112 The children in the series were five boys and five girls from a range of geographic locations and types of school (independent, grammar and secondary modern). Granada, ‘Understanding’, 197–216.

113 Ibid., 200.

114 Ibid., 198.

115 Lawn and Grosvenor, ‘Teaching and Material Culture’, 120.

116 TNA, ED 235/10, Report by H. M. Inspectors on a Survey of the Use of Broadcasts (1971), 6–7, 25.

117 Fawdry, Alf Garnett, 39–41.

118 IOE, BBC Broadcasts, Vol. cxlxii, Pamphlets, ‘School Radio and the Tape Recorder’ (1969), 7.

119 Ibid., 7.

120 Enid Love, ‘Television and the Teacher’, in Teaching and Television, ed. Moir, 54.

121 SBC, School Broadcasting, 27, 30, 35.

122 Lawn and Grosvenor, ‘Teaching and Material Culture’, 121–2.

123 SBC, School Broadcasting, 27.

124 Responses of teachers, parents and students are discussed in greater detail in Gregory, ‘School Broadcasting’, 97–106.

125 WAC, T69/58/1, letter from Claire Chovil to a Student (28 June 1979).

126 WAC, R43/4412/1, ‘Merry Go Round: Sex Education’, and T69/58/1, ‘Merry Go Round: Sex Education Parts 1–3’.

127 A number of these letters and producer responses related to the Nature series (though not the sex education programmes) survive in the BBC Written Archives Centre programme files. See, e.g., WAC, R16/1181/1 and R16/1175/1, Schools Programmes: Nature, Programme Correspondence (c. 1960s).

128 This limitation regarding sources dealing with children is discussed in Viner, Russell and Golden, Janet, ‘Children's Experiences of Illness’, in Medicine in the Twentieth Century, ed. Cooter, Roger and Pickstone, John (Amsterdam, 2000), 578Google Scholar.

129 WAC, R165/77/1, Education Officer's Notes, ‘Life Cycle: End of Term Summary: Summer 1972’ (Oct. 1972), 3–5.

130 Ibid., 3.

131 Hall, ‘Sex Education in Britain’, 107. Hall uses the term ‘programme’ in a general sense, denoting sex education curricula in schools rather than broadcast programmes.

132 Rex S. Rogers, ‘The Effects of Televised Sex Education at the Primary School Level’, in Sex Education, ed. Rogers, 256.

133 Ibid., 262–3.

134 SBC, School Broadcasting, 28–9, 33–5.

135 Ibid., 33.

136 Ibid., 29.

137 Ibid., 29.

138 WAC, T69/58/1, Leila Berg, ‘Birth with Violence’, Times Educational Supplement (10 Feb. 1978). Leila Berg was a children's author who wrote favourably of other sex education broadcasts, such as the BBC Merry-Go-Round series. See T69/58/1, Leila Berg, ‘Listening to Children’ (14 Apr. 1978).

139 David Buckingham, Hannah Davies, Ken Jones and Peter Kelley, Children's Television in Britain: History, Discourse and Policy (1999), 11.