Radio Girls(46)

“I see. Thank you, Mr. Emmet. That’s enormously helpful.”

Back in the office, correspondence typed, calls put through, scripts marked, and rehearsal schedules fixed, Maisie found herself with a moment to think. Her eyes wandered over her notes and she remembered Hilda’s word “connection.” She had meant it differently, but . . .

“Miss Matheson?”

Hilda was reading through the listings for the Radio Times.

“Mm?”

“If we were to do a Talk on Germany’s economy, could we perhaps draw a parallel to the American South after the Civil War?”

Hilda looked up at her, pencil between her teeth.

“It’s not perfect,” Maisie said quickly, “but the South’s economy was a mess after the war and the North didn’t do a whole lot to help, and then the South made some . . . well, not political changes, exactly, I guess, but policies that weren’t very good. I’m not wording this well . . .”

The pencil dropped into Hilda’s lap as she smiled broadly.

“You’re very clear. It’s a good thought. Everyone thinks the marginal parties in Germany, and here, for that matter, are just that, marginal. Worse, actually, a joke. But that’s the sort of thinking that a party can use to advantage as it gains adherents.” She picked up the pencil and brushed her skirt. “Probably want to be mindful of politics, keep it more historical, a Talk on the South and the years since the war ended. That would sound innocuously educational, but of course there’s a bit more to it than that, for those really listening. I suppose there would be no way to mention that America does a fair bit to prop up the German economy—”

“Does it?” Maisie was surprised. “I haven’t read that.”

“Hmm. Really must get Mr. Keynes in here. A series would be ideal.”

Maisie saw Hilda start spinning into the future and attempted to keep her in the present.

“Also, Miss Matheson, I know what an equity drop is.”

“Yes, I thought you might,” said Hilda. “Anything else?”

“Well, not really. Have you gotten any further—any more propaganda or anything?”

“Done!” Hilda ticked the top of the listings page and handed it to Maisie. “Off to the Radio Times they go.”

It wasn’t the answer to Maisie’s question, and they both knew it. Hilda was not only good at ferreting secrets from others, but she was a wizard at keeping her own.




“It’s quite simple, Bert, really. You just need to make a bit more space in the layout for the article,” Maisie explained, imitating Hilda’s patient tone.

She didn’t like Bert, but she liked the office of the Radio Times. As with most rooms in Savoy Hill, it was an awkward sliver of a space, cut at an angle like a layer cake. The higgledy-piggledy tables sported revolving exhibits of layouts in various stages and the tangy-sweet smell of the glue that pasted each article and photo into place hung in the air—a permanent, intoxicating perfume.

The magazine prompted a host of Savoy Hill snickers, not least because of its subhead: “The Official Organ of the BBC,” which the boys all found hilarious. Maisie thought it was carrying a joke too far till Phyllida told her: “Well, you know it was founded by the DG and it’s all his idea, so they call it ‘Reith’s organ.’ Horrifying thought, hey?” Maisie was duly horrified.

It was an organ born of defiance. At the BBC’s birth, the newspapers showed their pique by refusing to print program listings. So Reith had tapped his hat and ordered a magazine out of thin air. The first issue, brave and brazen in its scrolling font, appeared in 1923. It sold for tuppence and could take advertising, thus earning both keep and profit, so the magazine was one of Reith’s darlings. But despite the prepared text from each department, the editorial staff, secure in their darlingness, continued to put what they dubbed “little flourishes” in entries, explaining with an amused patience to complainants that they were being paid to tend to the needs of the readers, not listeners, and were deaf to arguments that these were, in fact, one and the same.

An occasional cough from Reith restored order for a few weeks, until the determination of the “real” writers took sway again. The magazine was expanding, adding longer articles as accompaniment to the listening fare, and profiles of broadcasters. These were supposedly democratic, but the stage and film performers always held prominence, especially the prettiest women with the sultriest photos. Broadcasters like Vernon Bartlett shrugged this off—“I’d rather ogle Betty Balfour than my poor mug any day”—but Hilda was outraged. Maisie, convinced this was a lost cause, threw her passion into a defense of the prepared listings.

“It’s dashed ugly for a girl to lecture a fellow, you know,” Bert lectured her. “In medieval times, you’d be put in the stocks,” he added, delighted with his wisdom.

“I don’t mean to be impolite. It’s only that we need you to print the listings as we write them,” Maisie told him. “We shouldn’t have to keep asking.”

Or indeed, ask at all, but Bert required temperance. He was a young man trying to be old, thinking his journalist’s requisition bow tie, tortoiseshell glasses, and pencil in permanent residence behind his right ear gave him gravitas.

“I keep telling you, we know what we’re about; the magazine sells well and it’s helping pull in more listeners. And we print those letters, too,” he added with a gusty sigh. He’d have preferred real writing there, but letters from listeners were more of Reith’s darlings, their effusion from the masses proof of his greatness. At Hilda’s insistence, the Radio Times also printed some criticism. (“So long as they aren’t the ones that sound like they came from Broadmoor, and via Mars at that,” Hilda directed. “But thoughtful criticism is good for balance and makes everything more interesting.”)