Steve Gaunt Pontificates

Aunty Beeb (Part One).

Aunty BBC, well not my aunty anyway.
This organisation has held my contempt for many years. Now it seems that they have upset the government, and no wonder.
Don’t get me wrong I am not a staunch supporter of Tony and crew.
Neither do I think that the program quality is generally bad; can you remember the last decent comedy on the ITV?
I will explain, lets get the silly stuff out of the way first.

1964 - The BBC sends the regional program crew of 'Look North' down to Denby Dale to cover the local event. It seems that they are making a big pie, and a good 'do' it was too. I was there.
Now, bearing in mind that this is the regional news program they sent to ‘The Dale’, you might expect some sort of reality in the proceedings - nothing of it.
Denby Dale as those of use who live in that area know well is a small country village, not unlike Holmfirth (now known as Summer Wine land). Woods, hills, fields, pleasant sort of a place in fact, is now was then, try buying a house there and see what it set you back.
But the BBC has a myth to perpetuate it seems, so what do we see on Look North a close up of the only mill chimney in the village belching smoke out over the rows (well row) of mill tenements. There are very few of these in Denby Dale the camera man did an excellent job.
Did anyone else notice and complain, well not if you watch the BBC they didn’t but I wonder?

Late 60’s, don’t remember exactly when, but the Beeb put on this learned idiot to explain to the nation (in some sort of documentary) just how working class, built over and well awful, the North of England is, I forget who this was.
What he said was this, "If you draw a line on a map from the centre of Leeds to the Centre of Sheffield it will pass entirely through an industrialised landscape".

Upper Denby about ½ mile from Denby Dale
and almost on a line between Leeds and Sheffield.

This is complete tosh!
In fact most of area between Leeds and Sheffield is open countryside, but, oh no, the Beeb has a myth to perpetuate, and did anyone else notice and complain - well not if you watch the BBC they didn’t, but I wonder?

Aunty Beeb (Part Two).

Our story continues: -

1971. The BBC’s number one radio station takes it’s Roadshow to Barnsley at a time when yours truly is a student in the town. So I go down with some friends to take a look, never been known as a small chap, and in my dad’s RAF greatcoat I suppose I cut a large figure (in fact I was quite thin at the time) so the bouncers take great please in throwing me out because I was creating a disturbance, this consisted of standing a couple of inches out of line with the others in the queue.

Apology, from the BBC? Forget it. To be quite honest I don’t know why I wanted to see Dave Lee Travis anyway. This is a man who thinks that if you go 200 miles up the M1 from London then you will be in Manchester. I would be in Leeds, so would anyone else!
This was part of DLT’s catch phrase. I can’t believe no one else noticed this inaccuracy, maybe some people pointed it out, No mention on the BBC though, wonder why?

There is no room to mention several other misdemeanours, so lets move on to: -

'Points of View' is a laugh. Have you ever heard them admit that they were wrong when people write in; they always have an excuse. And the questions they allow, well they are not so difficult as mine are they?

And now we have had a war to watch. I don’t condone wars, but what was important here was that (hopefully) we have rid the world of another tyrant (but that is a different story)

It seems we were losing all the way through, even now after it has ended. Although most of media were guilty of this misrepresentation, the BBC was the worst by far. I have never heard such a load of pessimistic, moaning, 'contrived to make us think the worst', claptrap.
The so called expert they wheeled out almost daily who continually pointed out what was, in his view about to go wrong and result in our humiliation and the death of thousands of our troops.

American tanks fire at the hotel with journalists inside and a cameraman is shot, but it is quite plain to see on the film that there are empty shell cases flying about from the Iraqi gunner just out of shot. Strangely no one in the studio seems to notice this!

Cameras, in Baghdad carefully placed to avoid showing the large number of cars and lorries back on the streets, which would spoil the BBC’s interpretation of the situation as being one of a city paralysed by the aftermath of war.

Yes the government does deserve an apology from the BBC, so do I, so does almost everyone they have conned over the years will we ever get one.
Don’t hold your breath.

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Introduction	Local Transport
Old Mill Buildings	Old Mill Buildings 2
Jobs For Over 40's	The University Page
Kirklees Roads - Part 2	The Euro Debate
The UK Drugs Debate	Music Snobs
Aunty Beeb	Desert Island Disks
Fashion	The Internet
Response From Steve