“I only thought you might consider it,” she amended, softening her tone. “Of course I didn’t expect you’d necessarily take my first submission.”
“I am awash in relief,” Bert drawled. “Now, then, I suppose if you were capable of writing to our standards, a small interview, something nice and light, with one of the lady broadcasters, might be something I could consider. One of the prettier actresses, so we can do more photos. Oh, and mind the suffragette-y tone. Readers don’t like it.”
“But there are some women voting now. Why—”
“This is why I don’t allow girl writers. Never take direction, always these questions, awfully tiresome. Are these the listings?” he asked, pointing to the sheets in her hand, his finger under the heading “LISTINGS.”
“They are indeed, Bert,” she told him. “And thank you,” she added, because it was expected. In fact, she wanted to cry, but though they were tears of anger, not misery, he wouldn’t know the difference and he was another man who wasn’t getting her tears.
I’ll just have to try again.
Her words, that was what she wanted. An interview didn’t seem the same at all. But why should I get anything, even in the Radio Times? I’m not a writer. Except maybe . . .
She put aside the vacillations and took out her pencil for Hilda and Reith’s weekly meeting. Writing shorthand wasn’t what she meant at all, but at least she was stellar at it.
“I suppose you’ll be pleased to know the governors have reviewed your proposal and decided to lift the ban on controversial broadcasting,” Reith informed her, with a sigh sharp enough to peel paint from the ceiling.
“Glorious news!” Hilda bellowed, thumping Reith’s desk so hard, his decorative mallard swam the length of the ink blotter.
“Yes, well, let’s remember our decorum,” Reith advised, sliding the duck back into position.
“It’s a great triumph, Mr. Reith,” she crowed. “Onwards and upwards.”
“Some might say you have been thwarting the ban all along,” he pointed out.
“Oh, not thwarting,” Hilda assured him. “More like nudging the bounds.”
Reith’s scowl smiled, but Maisie could see it was perfunctory. In fact, it sometimes seemed to her that he was starting to dislike Hilda. But Maisie was sure she was wrong. More than two million households had found ten shillings for the BBC license fee to bring radio into their homes, with any number of listener letters expressing their pleasure in the Talks, and the newspapers regularly extolled Hilda’s taste and original thinking.
Hilda, along with Arthur Burrows, the premier presenter, was becoming synonymous with the BBC. It was possible, Maisie conceded, that Reith’s absence from the parade of praise was the problem, but he could hardly fault Hilda for that. Besides, he wasn’t without recognition—he had been awarded the Knight Bachelor and was now “Sir John Reith.” With the grace he decided came of being ennobled, he insisted the staff continue to address him as “Mr. Reith.”
“Yes, well, you no longer have to nudge,” Reith acceded. “But not every broadcast has to be challenging.”
Maisie wasn’t sure what Reith meant by “challenging,” but her own opinion, born of Hilda’s, was that a Talk should always have something new to say, in some new way.
Onwards and upwards, and all that.
It was a miserable cold spring in 1928, and the Talks Department was huddled on the floor again, everyone vying for a place nearest the fire. In the six months Maisie had been the proper Talks secretary, she felt her greatest skill was securing a prime spot with the most frequency.
“At this rate, we’ll all have chilblains in June,” Fielden muttered. He never cared that no one responded.
“We’re going to expand the poetry and book discussions,” Hilda announced, reading from her green diary. “Virginia Woolf is coming in for a few readings, and Rebecca West, but it looks as though Vita Sackville-West will be our permanent fiction reviewer.”
“With so many bluestockings, we could compete with Selfridges’ hosiery department,” Collins hissed. Only Fielden heard him, and gave him a withering glare. He allowed no one to impugn Our Lady.
“We’re fixed very nicely with political and household Talks, and Talks on the arts and sciences. But I think we could do with more in the way of general interest. And perhaps the occasional foray into light absurdity. Any thoughts?”