Dear Sir, I am appalled...

Her battle against indecency attracted endless japes – and countless followers. But as the media is back in the spotlight, Ben Thompson revisits Mary Whitehouse’s unforgettably colourful letters

Anyone who lived in the UK through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s will have clear memories of Mrs Mary Whitehouse. At once reassuring and slightly scary, she was both the butt of jokes and someone adults had good cause to take seriously: a stringent, moralising voice at a time when, perhaps, too many were silent.

The launch of her Clean Up TV Campaign made Mrs Whitehouse a media star overnight and, over the next three decades, her name became a byword for a„ ronted decency. But she will always be best known for her colourful, testy letters of protest – many of which still exist, in 300 large box ˆ les, in a remote corner of the University of Essex.

At a time when letter writing is a dying art, it is time to celebrate some of the most memorable moments of her written campaign against ‘indecency’.

The BBC was one of Mrs Whitehouse’s favoured targets – and her letters regularly resulted in heated, and often quite unforgettable, exchanges with those in charge.

On 20 May 1975, for example, she wrote to the chairman of the BBC, Sir Michael Swann:

‘Dear Sir Michael, On 4 May BBC1 transmitted a programme about a pop artist called Claes Oldenburg. One scene which lasted several minutes featured an over-developed female in nothing save an oilskin covering one leg, leaving the pubic hair exposed.

‘There was much talk about phallic symbols and at one point the artist was heard to say: “That’s almost as big as my balls”.



‘There really seems no limit to the o„ ence which the BBC is prepared to give. Yours sincerely.’

Regular sparring partner, Sir Michael, however, was more than capable of giving as good as he got. His rather spirited reply – in which he sought to correct her on a number of matters – read:

‘Dear Mrs Whitehouse, We must refute the view that there was any talk about phallic symbols. The artist did not say “that’s almost as big as my balls”. He did say “that’s almost as big as my ball”.

‘Oldenburg at the time was referring to a marble ball on top of a column; [it was] a comment on its size in relation to the ball in his sculpture – a baseball mitt – which features throughout the programme. The idea that a baseball mitt holding a ball should serve as the theme for a piece of sculpture may be unexpected, but is a fact. The other scene to which you refer may have caused o„ ence to a very few people. The fact that artists do paint, or in this case sketch, the nude female body is accepted and shown on television. Whether this particular model was “over developed” is, I should have thought, hardly relevant. Yours sincerely.’

Not long afterwards, she felt compelled to write to Sir Michael again – this time about Doctor Who’s ‘noble-savage’ assistant, Leela, who was pictured in the Radio Times carrying a knife.

Sir Michael’s typically ˆfirm, but good-humoured, reply came on 28 June 1977:

‘Dear Mrs Whitehouse, Thank you for your letter… Yes, it does look a rather lethal knife. The point about “Leela”, however, as the children know very much better than mere adults like ourselves, is that she is a primitive who is gradually being civilised by the gallant Doctor and persuaded that violence is not the way to achieve one’s ends. A moral tale – even if the illustration does show “Leela” in her unredeemed state. Yours sincerely.’

But Doctor Who, which she once described as ‘teatime brutality for tots’, continued to attract her criticism, especially an episode called The Seeds Of Doom: ‘Strangulation – by hand, by claw, by obscene vegetable matter – is the latest gimmick,’ complained Mrs Whitehouse. ‘It contains some of the sickest, most horrible material.’

One problem that came up repeatedly in Mary Whitehouse’s correspondence was the impact of ‘art’ films on the perceptions of a non-specialist TV audience. On 24 January 1979, Mrs Whitehouse wrote again to the BBC, o€ffering a long list of complaints about a screening of the  lm Walkabout:

‘Dear Sir, With ref. to Monday Film BBC1 at 9.25pm Jan. 22nd. The general scenery was superbly photographed, but WHY must you spoil a good film by crudeness and vulgarity. You seem to delight in close-up pictures of…

(i) A young girl putting on her panties.

(ii) A native boy’s buttocks.

(iii) A close-up of breasts belonging to a native whilst climbing a tree.

(iv) And please don’t tell me it was not done intently: the branches of a tree, photographed in such a way as to resemble the lower part of a woman’s body.

(v) The scientist scene, was there a necessity to show a close-up [of] the legs of the woman sitting there?

‘And you have the cheek to increase our licences! WHAT FOR? To receive rubbish like this in our homes? Yours sincerely.’

As Britain moved towards greater European integration, even Germany, whose lax obscenity laws might allow obscene publications to come into the UK, came under fire in an August 1971 letter she wrote to the prime minister, Edward Heath. As always, she was an admirably fearless campaigner.

‘While it is quite clear that no foreign country has a right to interfere with the internal policies of another state,’ she warned the PM, ‘it is equally true that we in Britain have every right to protect our society against moral pollution from whatever source it comes.’

And Mary Whitehouse could, of course, always be relied on to spring to the defence of religion. On 25 March 1975, she wrote to the producer of Irish comedian Dave Allen’s television show, which she felt to be ‘blasphemous’:

‘In this particular programme Dave Allen was portrayed as a priest and there were dancing  gures, presumably representing evil spirits,’ she wrote. ‘You are no doubt aware of the episode in which Dave Allen snatched the cross from the wall and sprayed these  gures with water from the font.



‘Mr Allen is a very accomplished artist, and it is greatly to be regretted that he has to sink to blasphemy to “entertain” the viewers.’

For his part, BBC chief secretary, Colin Shaw, replied: ‘Dear Mrs Whitehouse, Mr Allen, as you say, is an accomplished artist, but he is also a believing and practising Catholic with an awareness of what does and does not constitute blasphemy…

‘It is a well-known tradition that the best jokes about religion are told in monasteries and convents.’

Pop stars, too, attracted her criticism, including American band The Doors and Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger. As she wrote to the chairman of the Independent Television Authority on 13 December 1968:

‘Dear Lord Aylestone, A number of people have spoken to me about the behaviour of Mick Jagger on Frost On Saturday… They were a€ffronted, not only by the obscenity of his actions – I am told that he used his microphone as a phallic symbol – but also by the references to Jesus Christ in a song in such a setting…

‘Since the – perhaps too simple – explanation for Mick Jagger’s behaviour is that he is an exhibitionist, could not the matter best be settled by him not being invited to appear again…’

Awarded a CBE by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, Mrs Mary Whitehouse died in 2001, aged 91. She had divided the nation, many mocking her, others rushing to line up behind her campaign for a more moral media. In the light of recent revelations, however, some of her views have never seemed more relevant.

Ban This Filth! Letters From The Mary Whitehouse Archive, edited by Ben Thompson (Faber and Faber, £16.99) is out now.

MARY’S MANIFESTO

On 27 January 1964, Mrs Whitehouse – and Norah Buckland, a Staffordshire vicar’s wife – released a four-page brochure launching their Clean Up TV Campaign. Their manifesto (below, slightly edited) ran thus:

1 We WOMEN OF BRITAIN believe in a Christian way of life.

2 We want it for the children we bear and the country we love.

3 We deplore present-day attempts to belittle or destroy it, and in particular we object to the propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt that the BBC pours into millions of homes.

4 Crime, violence, illegitimacy and venereal disease are steadily increasing, yet the BBC employs people whose ideas and advice pander to the lowest in human nature and accompany this with a stream of plays which present promiscuity, infidelity and drinking as normal and inevitable.

5 We call upon the BBC for a radical change of policy and demand programmes which build character instead of destroying it.