BRAINS TRUST AT BBC
Giving Listeners Something To Think About
HE BBC's famous "Brains Trust" received a question to answer on a ‘recent evening about the glaring inequality between pay for the men in the forces and pay for the man in civil employment (says a writer in the Manchester Guardian Weekly). The "Trust," which that evening included Sir William Beveridge as a guest member, seemed to agree that the ideal arrangement in war-time was the same pay for both sections of workers, and one voice was heard to suggest as a practical affirmation of this helief that the members of the "Trust"
should forfeit their usual fee and take | instead 1/3-half a day’s pay for the private soldier. When the microphone had been turned off, Captain Evelyn Waugh proposed to his fellow-members that they should formally agree to this suggestion. The resolution was carriedwe are not told whether with enthusiasm or with the grimness of a move in war. The usual fee for attending the "Brains Trust" is 20 guineas, so that the gesture was not a weak one. Originally devised as an information programme for the Forces, under the title of "Any Questions?," this "Brains |
Trust" programme has become s0 popular that it brings in an average of 3,000 letters a week from British listeners alone. And whereas it was originally broadcast in the BBC’s Home Service only, it is now heard in the Pacific and Eastern Services as well. The answers are not really answers in the accepted sense of the word, for it was never intended that the BBC should deliver a radio encyclopedia by instalments, but rather that this programme should give listeners something to think about: introduce them to new subjects and a broader conception of living: to be a "trailer" of knowledge. The fascination of this programme is that the experts at the microphone are not told in advance of the questions, which are fired at them by the QuestionMaster, Donald McCullough. To avoid overlapping of voices, any member who thinks he can throw some light on the subject under discussion, puts up his hand-as in a schoolroomto catch McCullough’s eye. There are two resident members of the Trust, and in addition, the producer, Howard Thomas, invites three other prominent people as guests each week. It is the spontaneity and sparkle, the clash of wits on wumexpected topics, which have attracted a mass audience for what was planned as a minority RE a
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 160, 17 July 1942, Page 9
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410BRAINS TRUST AT BBC New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 160, 17 July 1942, Page 9
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