All right, if you think the end justifies the means. Though IÕm not sure what the end is, unless you and all the other affected parties are going to rush out to dig foundations. Or vote Communist.

A Moral Play for New Times

These remarks have a subtext: can a television drama, however ÔeffectiveÕ in terms of real-time response, produce socially significant affects through its effects? Does the informative power of documentary enhance or throw into doubt the affective drama? The scepticism of WigginÕs ÔWorse SellÕ has dogged the history not only of one of British televisionÕs most famous plays but also of the mixed form in general.

ÔBetter SelfÕ pleads (in direct quotation of one of the filmÕs closing captions): ÔYou canÕt deny it was based on facts. All the terrible things that happened to Cathy and Reg in the play actually happened in Britain in the last eighteen months.Õ ÔW. S.Õ agrees Ñ ÔYet and that is ghastly Ñ but then points to an apparent Achilles heel:

But, in fact, they happened to several couples. In the play, as you call it, they were all hung on to Cathy and Reg, with a cumulative relentlessness not even life could match, in order to produce an effect and secure a response.

This sense that the factual (documentary) lily was being impossibly gilded in the (dramatic) work, and that this somehow devalues the film as a social statement, is part of a cloud of doubt which to this day hangs over mixed-form television drama.

Jeremy Sandford turned to documentary drama having failed to get the subject of homelessness onto the screen by documentary means:

I tried to quintessentialize [the subject) dramatically. Cathy is Everywoman, Everymother, a woman who just thinks that children are GodÕs gift coming up against state machinery, which result in the decimation of her family. Her natural instincts and desires are destroyed by the institutionalized violence of a state.

Today, he defends his creation from the ÔWorse SelfÕ view, claiming that CathyÕs was a Ôfar from untypical worst case scenarioÕ and that her story was reinforced by the facts as he found them.⁵

His playÕs dramatic structure mirrors the inexorability of Everyman, and this, as he observes, is not the conventional structure of modern television drama: ÔThere is no narrative graph of highs and lows in Cathy Come Home Ñ the kind of thing script editors always look for these days Ñ it is downward all the way.Õ The film actually divides quite symmetrically into three ÔactsÕ which en-act CathyÕs decline, fall, and descent into social hell.⁶

Just as it was the rhetorical purpose of Everyman to be a memento mori, convincing its audience of the rightness of Christian faith in the face of death, so it was the left-inclining rhetorical purpose of Cathy Conic Home to remind a society of its moral responsibility to less fortunate citizens. Sandford believes that punitive categorization of the poor in British society has its roots in the Victorian and earlier capitalist distinctions between those who were ÔdeservingÕ and ÔundeservingÕ:

Labelling people as feckless nÕer-do-wells -MayhewÕs ÔThose Who Will Not WorkÕ Ñ is a very easy way for any society to shrug off responsibility for its poorer members.⁷

For Loach and Garnett, too, the purpose of the film was to oppose such reductive bourgeois categorizations. In 1966, Garnett thus told an interviewer:

There are those who, for various reasons, want to preserve the social, cultural, and political status quo. But there are always people Ñ and they exist in the arts as much as elsewhere Ñ who want to question, who want change, who want things to be discussed. I know which group I am in.

For Ken Loach, meanwhile, the film is Ômore like a report on homelessness in which various things which happened to homeless families were condensed into a narrativeÕ. He had Ôthe intention of saying to people who were watching on television that this is actually happening in your name, and we really have to stop and deal with it.Õ

Cathy Come Home must be seen first and foremost as a social utterance at a pivotal time of change, which (to paraphrase Plantinga) asserts the analogous circumstances of its fictional couple to real social conditions Ñ in order to change those conditions. This oppositional voice demanding change, appealing and accusing, is recognizably the voice of WigginÕs socially concerned ÔBetter SelfÕ writ large. As the radical 1960s offered challenges to the previous certainties of a society reconfiguring in the post-war period, this voice of social conscience had a strong left-wing inflection.

Assessing the Resonance

Cathy Come HomeÕs effects, or lack of them, are easy to assert, difficult to prove (as is always the case with the arts). No one can doubt the continued presence of the poor and the homeless, however much one claims our society is Ôpost-industriallyÕ or Ôpostmodern-lyÕ eclectic, various, and diverse. All concerned in the making of Cathy Come Home would probably agree with Brecht that the breeder of povertyÑcapitalism itselfÑ is still an animal energetically reproducing itself.⁹ All, in their very different ways, are still pushing against the seemingly gravitational pull of New Model (multinational, third-phase) Capitalism. All look back in sadness at the thought that, famous as it is, their workÕs social effects were limited. In 1993, Loach thus called Cathy Ôan "Oh dear" programmeÕ; in 1994, he talked of Ôhaving our heads pattedÕ over it. He has bemoaned the fact that it had become acceptable to the political Right.Õ

But this television play did resonate in wider contemporary social debates: indeed, it fired them. In Birmingham on Monday 28 November 1966, to take a local example, a public discussion took place as a direct consequence of Cathy Come HomeÕs transmission just twelve days before. Sandford and Loach discussed homelessness with Birmingham City councillors, who were incensed that their city had appeared in such an unfavourable light in the film." Policy in respect of the conditions in the cityÕs hostels for the homeless changed almost immediately; the in-human separation of man and wife Ñ which so ironically flew in the face of post-war societyÕs alleged commitment to what have become known as Ôfamily valuesÕ Ñ ceased in Birmingham.

The film also had its effects on the Labour Government of 1966. Earlier on the same day, 28 November, a special screening of the film was arranged for the Minister of Housing and Local Government, Anthony Greenwood, his Parliamentary Private Secretary, Wayland Young, and three permanent officials at the Ministry of Housing. Afterwards, Tony Garnett wrote a memo to his bosses at the BBC (1 December 1966) noting: ÔWe were not challenged at any point either on our intentions in making the film or our facts.Õ ¹²

The politicians were unhappy about the tone of the final statistical captions, and said so; but they made no direct attempt to challenge or remove them. Subsequently, Greenwood praised the play in speeches outside the House of Commons, and discussed it on Late Night Line-Lip after its third transmission in 1968. Attempts were made by GreenwoodÕs ministry to address some of the issues raised by the film during the following two years. The Labour Government embarked on an ambitious building programme, and produced a White Paper urging councils to end separation of parents and children of the kind seen at the end of Cathy. Finally, of course, there was the foundation of the housing charity organization Shelter Ñ an event Sandford today calls Ôa wonderful case of synchronicityÕ.¹³

But, as Martin Banham pointed out in 1980, the social power of SandfordÕs work went beyond its television transmissions. Sandford exploited the cultural space created by his television dramas in two ways Ñthrough other, associated, writings; and through activism. As Banham remarks: ÔThe novel of Cathy Come Home, with its appendixes, is a necessary companion to the play.Õ This was also true of Edna, the Inebriate Woman, and of other work, notably his writing about gypsies." ¹⁴

Secondly, Sandford promoted causes he believed in through print and television journalism, lecture tours, media discussions, and various campaigns (often in collaboration with charitable groups like Shelter and the Cyrenians, and through the gypsy organizations with whom he still works). He tried consistently to open up the factual base of his work to an extended audience and to provoke informed public discussion. In this regard, Cathy Come Home the drama is the visible part of a research iceberg, and the factual mass below the surface (which gave the drama its weight) was often explored outside the realm of television.

The degree of social turbulence around and beyond the transmission of a television play cannot and should not be discounted. Continuing ripples lie behind the re-tellings of CathyÕs story which occurs not simply in repeat transmissions (though the frequency of these is remarkable enough) and in film/television courses in the academy, but also in the presence in the culture of Ôwhat might be termed ÔCathy as Reference PointÕ. ¹⁵

Newspaper leader-writers long beyond the initial furore have thus invoked the figure of Cathy to draw attention to the ongoing shame of homelessness. Shelter itself has not only used the film for promotional purposes throughout its history but has also frequently used it in advertisements (especially stills of Carol WhiteÕs troubled face in role as Cathy). Those who were (and are still) affected by it find SandfordÕs play Ôtrue in the way of beliefÕ, as philosophers would say are prepared, in engaging with the drama, to trust the facts (and to have the one reinforce the other) because they believe social justice continues to be less than perfect.

So the analogies asserted in Cathy Come Home enable a Ôbearing witnessÕ to occur in reception. This is by far the majority experience of watching the film, as was borne out in the BBCÕs own audience research at first and second transmission.¹⁶ But assertions also provoke denial. This is an inevitable byproduct of the rhetorical strategy, which successfully combines the force of the document with the feeling of the drama. Belief and doubt go together in a philosophical binary stretching back to Everyman and beyond.

In Denial

Doubts about the play in its own time were generated from three main sources, the first and most obvious being political and cultural conservatism. Opposed to the ideas of Loach, Garnett, and Sandford; the Right thus developed the arguments of WigginÕs ÔWorse SelfÕ.¹⁷ They found Cathy Come Home Ônot true in the way of beliefÕ, and made counter-assertions: if the things which ÔhappenedÕ in the play really happened at all, then they did not happen to one couple as depicted; if ÔlicenceÕ was taken with plot construction, licence may be presumed to have been taken elsewhere. In a drama of such evident darkness and light, this group questioned the absence of shades of grey in the figures of authority depicted.

Such sceptical, sometimes angry voices could be heard in 1966 in the meeting at Birmingham:
The opening speaker, Alderman Dr. Louis Glass, Conservative Housing Management Committee chairman, attacked Mr. Jeremy Sandford, the playÕs author, and Mr. Kenneth Loach, the director, both later speakers, for Ôsneaking into a Birmingham hostel to get information for their play.Õ ... [He] said the play had smacked in the face every agency dealing with the homeless. ¹⁸

Glass used two classic rhetorical tactics: firstly (as above), he cast doubt on the programme-makersÕ integrity at the level of the facts, claiming that they used underhand methods (denied by Sandford). This argument asks, ÔHow can you possibly trust these people when you know what they get up to?Õ Secondly, he claimed that improvements were in hand anyway (to demonstrate the essential redundancy of any mere drama lying to produce social change). This argument says, ÔLeave these things to the experts - trust us, not the entertainers.Õ The separation of husbands and wives would, Glass stated, end Ôwithin two yearsÕ. (This could stand, perhaps, as a working definition of Ôa politicianÕs promiseÕ.)

Such a provocative and challenging account of a social problem could hardly expect to win widespread support from those who were, like Alderman Glass, involved at a local, operational level. Charged with policies, agencies, and their organization, these people naturally made a counter-challenge to the filmÕs case. Many reviewers of the time commented on the unfavourable light in which social workers are seen in Cathy Come Home; those speaking for institutions responsible for such individuals could, perhaps, only refute the filmÕs strong assertions: Tony Garnett acknowledges:

We were blatantly propagandist in Cathy Come Home, of course we were! There was a big attack on everything in the show, but we were used to that. What the hostile press will always do is try to find you out on one or two small factual errors, then say the whole thingÕs rubbish. This happened on Days of Hope. I think we got one of the First World War uniforms wrong! ¹⁹

So there was a second level of doubt cast on the film from organizations in society responsible for dealing with the problems raised in Cathy Come Home, organizations not inherently right-wing but committed to the status quo by the very nature of their vested interests. These organizations included the Local Government Information Office and the Institute of Housing Managers, both of which became vocal opponents of the play, as I discuss below.²⁰

Next, as Julian Petley has argued, opposition as well as support came from within the broadcasting institution itself: so the beleaguered social authorities and the right-wing press which constituted the filmÕs natural antagonists were supported within the BBC itself by, for example, Grace Wyndham Goldie, one of the BBC mandarin class and former Head of BBC Television Talks and Current Affairs. In two newspaper articles in early 1967, she attacked the documentary drama form, worried that what was received as factual in current affairs was ambiguous in drama. Cathy Come Home was, in her view, Ôan early example of a new and dangerous trend in television dramaÕ.²¹

Institutional Opposition

Sandford remarks: ÔWhen brave ideas hit an institution, its first instinct is survivalÕ²² To illustrate this, Petley refers to an unsigned piece included in the ÔLetters to the EditorÕ section of the Radio Times (16 January 1969). The articleÕs phrase, Ôkeeping faith with the viewerÕ, and its suggestion that some drama writers and producers were mixing fact with fiction to dangerous levels, replicate the Wyndham Goldie line, and appear to be from her kind of stratum of management. Like her, the writers worried away at the possibility of the Ôconfused viewerÕ, and noted that uncertainty about its facts was Ôa criticism which was made of Cathy Come Home... in a recent edition of TalkbackÕ.

Garnett, Loach, and others replied furiously on 13 February in their own letter to the editor, noting that attacks on dramatic form are almost always covert attacks on political content. This was as true for documentary drama then as it is today. Senior Granada executive Ian McBride remarked to me recently talking of the 1980Ñ90 Granada drama-documentaries: ÔNobody criticized the form when it dealt with shipyards in Gdansk!Õ²⁴ In 1969 Loach et al. warned of a creeping censorship within the apparently liberal BBC of the 1960s:

For many people who work in television [the article] is also very disturbing. Because beneath its bland, sweet reasonableness, which is the house style of BBC bureaucracy there is a warning you refuse to take our gentlemanly hints, we shall censor or ban any of your programmes which deal in social and political attitudes not acceptable to us.²⁵

Tony Garnett pays tribute today to Sydney NewmanÕs ability to make creative space for his programme-makers despite the pressure from higher up the executive chain. Newman was Ôan astute political animalÕ, he says, bridge between [programme makers] and the hierarchyÕ.²⁶ In the contemporary period it is dear that the BBC encouraged innovative creative workers on board on the on hand, but policed their activities carefully or the other.

BBC mandarins were keen to win hearts and minds at this difficult time of liberalization, but held the line when necessary The test case was not the documentary drama Cathy Come Home, but the quasi-documentary The War Game, which was banned in 1965 and remained untransmitted until 1985. The institutionÕs layers of self-protection may be gauged from director Peter WatkinsÕs claim that the BBC showed his film clandestinely to its work-force to try to ensure a common public front following the decision to ban. Because the BBC hierarchy needed its staff to agree that the film was dangerous, he alleges, they arranged closed-doors screenings. The film was sent to BBC establishments around the country (with the ludicrous coven-name of ÔThe Bicycle FilmÕ) so that the employees could understand their bossesÕ decision. ²⁷

This story resonates interestingly with SandfordÕs and GarnettÕs claims about selling Cathy Come Home within the BBC as Ôa knockabout family comedyÕ. Sandford has said that he and Garnett agreed initially Ôto keep the subject of the play a secret and for the moment to give it a different titleÕ.²⁸ This is borne out by BBC memos. A month before transmission, Garnett was describing Cathy to Gerald Savory Head of Plays and Drama, as Ôa love storyÕ (BBC memo, 26 October 1966). Garnett says today: ÔI only let them [the executives] see it after the Radio Times deadline.

If it was going to be banned, I wanted it to be a public banning.Õ In his memo of 22 August 1966 he had thus temporized with Michael Peacock, Controller of BBC 1: ÔIf the Controller insists, he may see a rough-cut version of Cathy Come Home, but I would prefer to go on working at it with my Director until it is finished.Õ Loach/GarnettÕs passion for film rather than tape aided and abetted this strategic prevarication.²⁹

In the BBC, there were supporters and opponents, friends and enemies of groundbreaking work and of those making it. John McGrath calls the informal meetings held in the BBC canteen and bar Ôthe real training groundÕ of the period. Every large organization has this Ôcanteen cultureÕ, and there was also opposition to the radical BBC group there. Not everyone felt the same about revolutionizing society; the 1960s was, in McGrathÕs view, Ôan Age of Backwardness rather than a Golden AgeÕ. Cathy Come Home was made in such a climate Ñ Ôdespite the powers that be rather than because of themÕ, according to Sandford. ³⁰

Academic Doubts

In academic writing, the politics of Cathy Come Home politics have been challenged more for insufficient radicalism than the reverse, but some of the debate about form has transferred from the wider culture. Between 1970 and 1985 questions about the progressivenessÕ of television drama, rooted mainly in Marxist cultural theory, emanated from the periodical Screen, and were part of the paradigm-defining debates of academic Media Studies. In the early 1970s, Theatre Quarterly ran a series of articles on television drama, exploring its capacity for provoking political debate and social change. Central here was an exchange between Paul Able-man and Sandford himself.³¹

Ableman, it is sometimes forgotten, compared two contemporary programmes and characterized them as ÔTwo Kinds of TruthÕ (his articleÕs sub-title). Here, Edna, the inebriate Woman, SandfordÕs second major documentary drama, was compared with Geoffrey SchwartzÕs long-forgotten Sheila, the Transvestite, which Ableman labelled Ôan authentic documentaryÕ. He argued that the documentary drama form as practised by Sandford and his collaborators was deeply suspicious in respect of facts and information, deeply low-brow in respect of art. His most telling jibe was that its values were those of Ôa huge commercialÕ, and were (therefore) ÔinartisticÕ.

AblemanÕs use of words like ÔforgeryÕ and ÔcounterfeitÕ suggest a suspicion of the filmÕs authenticity amounting to doubt. Taking the line that provocation is better than art in a time of crisis, Sandford countered: ÔDramatized documentary can be a more powerful social medium than the play or the documentary Ñ or, at any rate, thatÕs my experience of it.Õ

What emerged ultimately from the Theatre Quarterly debate was qualified assent for the documentary drama as a form, because it was capable of Ôexposing social evils and indicating paths of rectificationÕ (Ableman), of ÔcrusadingÕ (Sandford).³² Within the later Screen debate, qualification was defined around John CaughieÕs appreciation of the radical possibilities of form offered by John McGrathÕs 1974 ÔPlay for TodayÕ treatment of his stage play, The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil. But behind any qualified assent lurked potentially disabling doubts about the status of the fad in the ad, the kinds of act by which facts came alive, and the ethical legitimacy of the documentary drama.

Irene Shubik on ÔCathyÕ

Doubts were reinforced by a book written by a former BBC producer, Irene Shubik, who could have had little idea of the effects it would have on the academic community as the arguments about documentary drama developed over a period of twenty years. What Shubik says about Cathy Come Home in her 1975 book runs like a thread through academic acccounts, my own included.

The book became important because it represented an early insight into the professional, industrial world of television prodution. It remains an invaluable resource, with its comprehensive list of ÔWednesday PlaysÕ and ÔPlays for TodayÕ (p. 60Ñ74) and its authoritative account of the work of a producer in a formative period of British television history. Written by a producer with an impressive record, the book is not about Cathy Come Home at all, nor is it an academic book; it is a memoir of a career at its mid-point. ³³

In 1971 Shubik had produced SandfordÕs second documentary drama, Edna, the Inebriate Woman. The making of this film left a legacy of disagreement between its writer and producer which was exacerbated by her published remarks about SandfordÕs earlier play. She refers to Cathy Come Home and its makers on several occasions in her book. She is aware of the playÕs relatively untroubled historical provenance in the work of radio ÔFeaturesÕ and the BBC Television Ôdramatized documentaryÕ of the 1950s:

The technique of productionÉ. Was innovatory in that actors were sometimes rehearsed and then set down in outside locations and filmed in true-life backgrounds against ordinary people.³⁵

She acknowledges Cathy Come Home as a ÔfamousÕ play (p. 124) Ñ one which had been Ôfilmed with enormous success by Ken Loach and Tony GamettÕ (p. 129) - and she mentions approvingly its large audience figures (p. 180). But she also remarks (p. 79) that the social focus of plays like Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home led to a Ôschizoid positionÕ:

On the one hand, as originally intended by Sydney [Newman, ÔThe Wednesday PlayÕ] was to have a mass audience appeal. At the same time the critics were evaluating it on criteria more suitable to Sunday nights at the Royal Court Theatre... . On the other hand, the audience, if they did get such a play, howled that they wanted a good old-fashioned story with a beginning, middle, and end in which people didnÕt live in permanent squalor, swearing at each other and fornicating.

And she links this double-bind specifically to Cathy:

In the aftermath of Cathy Come Home, almost every play that was not centred on a social problem was greeted with the question ÔWhere have the great days of social conscience gone?Õ and every play which was in that genre was compared unfavourably with it.

The difficulty of being a very active producer on a series which was distorted (as one can infer from this remark) by one-off hits like Cathy is worth noting. While Shubik produced 25 ÔWednesday PlaysÕ between 1967 and 1970, Tony Garnett produced 11 in a comparable period (1966Ñ1969). ÔGarnettÕ, she remarks (p. 76), Ôhad managed to get himself into that most enviable position of any producer; that of doing only a very few productions a year.Õ Not only that, he had managed to work more or less exclusively on film, an expensive option not universally available to other BBC producers and one which caused her problems on Edna. ³⁶

Doubts about the Form

Shubik is equivocal, too, about the documentary drama form. While acknowledging that her own biggest successes had been with Ôthe straightforward documentary-type subjectÕ (p. 179), she notes aesthetic limitations in the form: ÔThe bulk of television writing is inevitably dramatized journalismÕ (p. 89). The majority of television writers are described as Ôhalf observers, half creatorsÕ (p.105). Singling out David Mercer, Clive Exton, and David Rudkin as writers with Ôspecial visionÕ, she proceeds to argue:

Had any of these three authors written Cathy, Come Home, or Edna, the Inebriate Woman, for instance, their portrayal of the inner mental torture of Cathy and Edna might well have made audiences so uncomfortable as to have forced them to turn off.

As Martin Banham has pointed out, these comments Ômake assumptions about dramatic formÕ which probably tell us more about ShubikÕs preferences in drama than about anything else.³⁷

Her description of SandfordÕs research methods as ÔemotionalÕ and ÔimpressionisticÕ (p. 99, 125Ñ6) has rankled with him ever since he first became aware of it. Even his marvelously vivid picture of Dickensian low-life in modem timesÕ (p. 125) Ñ meant, Shubik says, as a compliment Ñ was received badly, especially when his research methods are compared directly with Tony ParkerÕs, which are variously characterized as ÔmeticulousÕ (p. 99), ÔimpartialÕ (p. 125), and ÔpainstakingÕ (p. 126). Her own preferences are for ÔstructureÕ and ÔnaturalnessÕ in drama, which she links to Tony ParkerÕs A Life is Forever of 1972 (p. 102Ñ3):

Parker had, to my mind, shown a great step forward as a playwright in his own right rather than a documentary journalist. The invented dialogue was far more natural than in any of the previous plays and the situations seemed to arise more naturally from character, as opposed to being contrived by the author for expository or didactic reasons.

Sandford, by contrast, is Ôstrong on dialogue and weak on structureÕ (p. 106). These views are, perhaps, inevitable if one takes the view that the best drama is character-driven and structured in terms of plot, but also ÔnaturalÕ (note the repetition of this word). Shubik denies that she intended this, but academic writers have seen her privileging ÔimpartialÕ and ÔobjectiveÕ research, ÔnaturalÕ dialogue, characterization and plot structure. ³⁸

But it is the more direct accusations about Cathy Come Home which have been the main focus of academic attention. The first, most important point is about factual accuracy. It is worth quoting at length, from page 126 of ShubikÕs book:

After Cathy Come Home was screened, there were many protests about the inaccuracy of its statistics about the homeless and its portrait of the authorities. On its second showing, two million council members and officials were asked to watch and see how many mistakes they could find in it. Mr. Laurence Evans of the Local Government Office said, ÔThis play is full of blunders and omissions.Õ Another official complained of factual inaccuracies and another of the deliberate misrepresentation of officers of a public authority as ÔgangstersÕ, especially in the scene where the children are wrenched from Cathy on a station platform. On its second showing, most of the background comments giving statistics were, in fact, omitted because of doubts about accuracy.

Today, she observes that what she wrote was partly a reflection of her anxiety about Edna:

My only interest in the inaccuracies was to make sure we did not lay ourselves open to the same accusation on Edna as had been made about Cathy. .I was not out to criticize the Cathy team.³⁹

In the same letter, she says: ÔAs to the previous history of Cathy, since I had nothing to do with it I go by what I was told by Kotcheff, Newman and LukeÕ (also p. 128-9). ÔThere is no doubtÕ she says (p. 126) Ôthat Cathy would have had much less impact had a more evenly balanced picture been painted.Õ

ShubikÕs second point concerns perceived disturbances to the balance of the argument following from the casting of Carol White as Cathy. She notes (p. 132) that Ôthere were criticisms that the heroine of the play was much more glamorous than her real-life counterpart would ever have beenÕ, and cites a Granta review which suggested that a Ôfoulmouthed working-class scrubberÕ might have been both more realistic and less sympathetic. SandfordÕs reaction today is to make the counter-accusation that this view reeks of Ôclassist stereotypingÕ. ⁴⁰

Points about inaccuracy and balance are used in discussions of Cathy Come Home by Swallow (1976); Banham (1980); Paget (1990); Corner (1996); and Petley (1997). ⁴¹To deal with the last point first: Banham establishes that contemporary reviewers (Give James, for example) did indeed question Cathy! Carol WhiteÕs good looks. In 1990, I alleged an element of Ôsixties sexism in casting and performance. ⁴² Puffing a blonde Ôdolly birdÕ at the centre of a drama without real thought about the wider sexual politics was, I suggested, par for the course in the 1960s.

A pre-transmission piece in the London Evening News of 8 November 1966 demonstrates that this was not so far wrong. A photograph of White at her most glamorous appears under the large-print legend: ÔIf you have the IN-look youÕre half-way homeÕ, and reviewers at the time noted WhiteÕs physical resemblance to Julie Christie. ⁴³ I used ideas about Cathy-the-factual-composite and Cathy-the-too-attractive to justify a revisionist view of the film, which claimed that its Ôcultural tourismÕ ultimately released cultural pressure and mitigated social tension.

Sandford acknowledged in a letter that Cathy the character was Ôa pre-feminist constructÕ, but chided me for writing with the political correctness of hindsight. ⁴⁴ I looked again at what I had written, and what struck me was that I had found the notion originally in a book (ShubikÕs) which cast general as well as particular doubt on Cathy Come Home. The force of her apparent scepticism had reinforced my own epistemological and representational doubts.

Cuts and ÔCathyÕ

But the material about factual inaccuracy and enforced cuts has been more frequently discussed. In his influential 1996 book The Art of Record, for example, John Corner quotes in full ShubikÕs paragraph on the excision of statistics from Cathy Come Home, italicizing the key sentence: ÔOn its second showing, most of the background comments giving statistics were, in fact, omitted because of doubt [sic] about accuracy.Õ He uses Shubik to underline the perfectly valid point that the film as a Ôknowledge deviceÕ was Ôcontroversial in a number of waysÕ, and that Ôa stronger referential base than most playsÕ made Cathy Come Home at once more authoritative and more vulnerable. ÔIts use of voiced-over data,Õ he writes, Ôinevitably carried it into the more narrowly contentious area of controversial current-affairs broadcasting.Õ

Julian Petley also paraphrases and references Shubik to repeat the charge: ÔMuch of the statistical material which makes the film so distinctive Éwas omitted from the repeat, because pedantic and nit-picking complaints had shaken whatever confidence the BBC had in its accuracy.Õ This issue of the BBCÕs ÔconfidenceÕ is crucial, and I believe Petley is correct in the general thrust of his argument. But what is illustrated here is the way academic concerns (about the status of a film within its historical conjuncture; about its re-articulation in the subsequent debates; and about ÔknowledgeÕ itself) have developed from a point which is less authoritative than it perhaps looks Ñ more about the contesting of facts than the facts themselves.⁴⁵

Irene Shubik, then, claims the following: (1) that Laurence Evans Ôof the Local Government OfficeÕ found Ôblunders and omissionsÕ in the play; (2) that Ôanother officialÕ also found Ôfactual inaccuraciesÕ; and (3) that the BBC bowed to accumulated public pressure after November 1966, cutting material for the playÕs second transmission in January 1967. Sandford acknowledges that Evans and other officials challenged his work, but refutes the assertion that there were changes before second transmission. Tony Garnett, too, denies that alterations were made:

There were no changes, no changes at all Ñ there was no problem on repeat transmissions. If weÕd changed it, IÕd say so and give you the reasons why, but IÕve no recollection of changing anything. I double-checked most of the statistics myself, because I wasnÕt having my name on anything I couldnÕt defend. ⁴⁶

Neither deny that the play was controversial, and that its accuracy was challenged; what they unequivocally state is that it was never either proved to be wrong or altered.

There was certainly newspaper talk about accuracy, as journalists followed up official displeasure with Cathy Come Home in the build-up to the second transmission. Brian DeanÕs story in the Daily Mail, ÔTwo Million Try to Trap CathyÕ (11 January 1967), is representative of these. He quotes Laurence Evans almost word for word, as Shubik does, claiming the play Ôis full of blunders and omissionsÕ. Henry Kay, Ôsecretary of the Institute of Housing ManagersÕ, is quoted too: ÔWe have had many complaints about factual inaccuracies since the play was first shown.Õ

The Guardian also ran the story, mentioning Evans and Kay, and had a headline Ô2M Asked to Spot "Boobs" in TV PlayÕ. Shubik echoes this material in her assertion (p. 126) that others complained of Ôfactual inaccuracies.., and the deliberate misrepresentation of officers of a public authorityÕ.

Evans had written an article attacking Cathy for the Municipal and Public Services Journal of 2 December 1966. This drew him, briefly, to media attention before the second transmission in newspapers and in the television magazine programmes Twenty-FourHours and The Frost Programme. Shubik, then, reports what was common media talk at this time, seeming to quote from newspapers which are not referenced.⁴⁷

What is more interesting is the emphasis on negative rather than positive outcomes of the dual transmission. The bulk of the reporting on the play was positive. It was only as time went on that Sandford became aware of the extent to which his work had generated opposition:

Later I learned that quite strong pressure had been put on the BBC to not stand firm by the film but instead to admit that it was a fabrication and this sort of thing was not going on in Britain.

In 1972 a published interview with Irene Shubik led to Sandford writing to The Guardian to contradict claims about the writing of Cathy.⁴⁹ By the time of the Theatre Quarterly articles in 1973, he was aware enough of the attacks on his play to present an account of his allegedly impressionistic research methodology, to defend himself vigorously against the idea that Carol White was unsuitable casting, and to protest the purpose behind the composite character.

In the 1976 text of the teleplay, Sandford publicly thanked Sydney Newman, Kenneth Adam, and Hugh Greene (respectively the Head of Drama, Director of Television, and Director-General of the BBC), noting that: ÔStrong pressure was put on the establishment of the BBC to recant, to "confess" that the picture was inaccurate, to apologise.Õ The three senior managers, he remarks, Ôstood by the filmÕ. ⁵⁰

Sandford now understood the extent to which such doubts in the canteen culture and beyond had threatened to undermine his play. Martin BanhamÕs research files show him still angrily refuting doubts at the end of the decade. Researching this article, I too have found him even now keen to try to prevent the continuing re-circulation of what he calls a ÔmythÕ about his playÕs status as a factual intervention in a social problem.

ShubikÕs claim about second transmission alterations to Cathy Come Home is actually an unsupported assertion; it is this which subsequently disturbed Sandford. Her book is, on the whole, careful to reference quotation; the very page on which she alleges changes to the second transmission of Cathy is otherwise an example of good practice. She references au article of 6 September 1970 in the Sunday Times about Sandford (in which the research methodology for Edna is outlined).

She also quotes and references an interview of 28 August 1967 by Robin Douglas wrote in WomanÕs Own. Yet the three serious assertions she makes about Cathy further up on the same page are not referenced. As I have demonstrated, there was certainly evidence that some agencies had objected to Cathy Come Home; there is evidence, too, that the BBC found it difficult to contain this. It is the third allegation, of enforced cuts, which is the most difficult to substantiate.

ShubikÕs files, fascinating though they are, reveal nothing about the source of the information. I believe the answer may lie in one newspaper report in the BBC Written Archive at Caversham. In a Times review of the second transmission of the play (12 January 1966), Robert Wright Cooper noted:

It seemed even more convincing and disturbing, I found, than it did last November; the line between play and documentary was now more dearly defined by the deletion of most of the spoken background comments [my italics].

This, like the other examples, is again very close to ShubikÕs words.⁵¹ The review is actually enthusiastic about the play, as was this criticÕs earlier review of 17 November 1966 (with its Ôsearing indictment of housing conditionsÕ). It may have been that Wright Cooper simply noticed the drama more and the voice-overs less, second time around. What is certain is that no other reviewer or writer, of this or any other subsequent transmission, makes any claims about cuts.

In addition, there are no significant differences between the script used for filming (code number ÔBBCI 2116/A369Õ) and the text published by Marion Boyars. In the absence of further corroboration, and noting the continued denials of its makers, one can only conclude that the remarks in ShubikÕs book were based on this review, on canteen culture doubts about Cathy, and on her own concerns about Edna the Inebriate Woman.

Managing Dissenting Voices

Harry Whewell, writing in The Guardian of 25 February 1967 after the publication of the Pan novelization of Cathy, remarked:

The impact of Mr. Jeremy SandfordÕs study of homelessness when put out on the television was little short of phenomenal. And for all that television is he most ephemeral of mediums, some echoes of it are still buzzing around. Newspapers still get letters about it and only this week a Cabinet Minister was talking about Ôthe Cathies in our midstÕ. The word Cathy for a homeless young mother shows signs of passing into the language.

Remembering this period from the perspective of the fourth transmission of the film in 1976, Des Wilson, founding director of the housing charity Shelter, estimated that the transmission of Cathy Come Home in 1966 and 1967 Ôwas worth £500,000 to Shelter alone, and that meant it directly helped to house a lot of homeless familiesÕ. He defined the filmÕs basic rhetorical address to the audience very effectively as Ôabove all a scream of painÕ.

The scream continued, and continues, to be heard.⁵²

If pre-transmission newspaper talk had concentrated on opposition to the play, after the second transmission intended changes in legislation and the raising of public consciousness became the focus, and the Evanses and Kays faded from the scene. The Guardian of 13 January 1967 even noted that the Local Government Information OfficeÕs Ôcomment on the play has grown noticeably milderÕ. At the popular end of the market, the Daily Express (12 January 1967) declared: ÔLoaded, but it hurt like mad.Õ The Times of 14 January 1967 ran the sober headline ÔImportance of Cathy above a piece which reflected on the seriousness of the homelessness problem.

A leader in The Guardian of 13 January 1967, headlined ÔHousing for the HomelessÕ, reflected on the film. To cap it all, the Evening Standard of 12 January 1967 printed a cartoon by Whitford in which one troubled civil servant said to another: ÔThe trouble is that the only boobs I could discover were ours.Õ The newspapers of the period suggest that while dissenting voices could be heard, they were decidedly in the minority.

Irene ShubikÕs belief that alterations were made to Cathy Come Home may also have been formed through a slippage in time. In interview, she told me that she was actually not in the country when Cathy was first transmitted. It seems to me possible that the third of the filmÕs screenings, on 13 November 1968, might have been in her mind when she wrote her book. By this time, she was working with Sandford, and had been discussing his work at a number of levels for a year And for this third transmission, the writer did a piece to camera which Shubik might well have seen as relating to the issue of factual accuracy.

On 17 October 1968, the Head of Plays at the BBC, Gerald Savory (ShubikÕs boss too), wrote to Sandford:

My feeling is that the statistics are no longer the same as two years ago and that certain Councils (possibly because of your play) have put their houses somewhat in order.

Savory suggested there should be some form of pre-transmission announcement:

The BBC wishes to point out that the programme you are about to see was first transmitted two years ago, so that certain statistics may no longer apply (be accurate). It is also known that much (a good deal) has been (is being) done by local councils to alleviate the problems presented in this play.

Considering the fact that the play by now two years old, this move was a responsible one, but an institutional voice hedging its bets might also be discerned here. The tone certainly contrasts with a frosty letter from Savory to Sandford (also copied to Shubik) on 27 November 1970, a year before the transmission of Edna:

As you probably know, Edna is proving impossibly expensive and I am unable to give you any assurances about the future [i.e SandfordÕs two other plays commissioned by Shubik] until I have picked up the pieces.

Within this period, SandfordÕs status within the BBC was slipping, even though Edna was a great success.

Trimming Tendencies

In his reply to Savory of 26 October 1968, Sandford counters the claim of improvements in housing conditions: ÔThe statistics have certainly changed somewhat, but not I am sorry to say entirely for the good.Õ While he acknowledges that the filmÕs original journalistic edge had inevitably gone, he preferred the following:

The BBC wishes to point out that the programme you are about to see was first transmitted two years ago, so that some of the statistics quoted may now be out of date although still basically correct.

Local Authorities and the Government have attempted in various ways to alleviate the problems presented in this play, and in certain aspects of these there has been improvement.

In other ways, however, it must be said that the problem has grown even more acute.

The figure, given in Cathy of 4,000 children taken into care each year for no other reason than homelessness has now become 5,000.

The figure of 12,500 inhabitants of Part II Accommodation (the ÔHomes for the HomelessÕ) has now become 15,000.

The number of families on the housing lists has grown in some cases, although it would be right to say that the waiting lists have got shorter in other cases. Actual conditions in Part 111 Accommodation have generally got better although here again there have been exceptions.

ÔI haveÕ, he says, Ôdiscussed [the enclosed draft] with Tony Garnet [sic] and also Des Wilson of "Shelter".Õ The announcement as recorded was spoken by Sandford post-transmission, and was followed yet again by a studio discussion. Sandford recalls that what he said was based on this letter; certainly, it closely resembles his introductory piece in the Radio Times (7 November 1968).

Cathy had just won the Italia Prize for the BBC and its third transmission was in part a celebration; but beneath the decorous earlier exchange between Savory and Sandford one can detect a trimming tendency on the part of the institution. By 1968, too, Irene Shubik was wrestling with pre-production problems.

On another Sandford play, under a regime (SavoryÕs own) which she has described to me as Ôinfinitely more repressive than that of Sydney [Newman]Õ.

If Cathy Come Home is pre-eminently a social utterance Ôtrue in the way of beliefÕ, part of its success may be measured in the force of the counter-utterance provoked. The voice of the antagonist to the Sandford/ Loach/Garnett protagonist can certainly be discerned at several levels in the contemporary reception of Cathy Come Home. However, I can find no evidence to suggest that the BBC, whatever its internal doubts about this Ôdocumentary dramaÕ, altered Cathy Come Home between its first and second transmissions as suggested by Irene Shubik.

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Martin Banham, Tony Garnett, Jeremy Sandford, and Irene Shubik for interviews and assistance with this article.

Notes and References

1. Joan Bakewell and Nicholas Garnham, The New Priesthood: British Television Today (London: Allen Lane, 1970), p. 78.

2. 1. C Worsley, ÔLife on the WingÕ, Financial Times, 8 March 1967; Peter Ansorge. From Liverpool to Los Angdes: on Writing for Theatre, Film, and Television (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), p. 97.

3. Roots, of course, has had more problems than Cathy Come Home. A huge success in its time, it became the subject of a plagiarism law suit in 1978, and Alex Haley has been accused of over-reliance on oral testimony by academic genealogists. See Pascoe Sawyers, ÔBlack and WhiteÕ, The Guardian, 13 September 1997. See also Note 31 on the British academic debate about documentary drama.

4. John Tulloch notes the propensity of television forms to function publicly Ôlike ancient oral mythÕ; see Television Drama: Agency, Audience, and Myth (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 64. Carl R. Plantinga develops his idea of Ôassertive analogyÕ in Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 22. Like Tulloch, he also writes of the Ôbardic functionÕ of modern societyÕs technological forms of representation (p. 191).

5. Interviews with Jeremy Sandford, 24 November 1995 and 8 September 1998.

6. In the text of Cathy Come Home (London: Marion Boyars, 1976), ÔAct IÕ is p. 21Ñ49; ÔAct 2Õ, p. 49Ñ93; ÔACt 3Õ, p. 94Ñ139. These three ÔadsÕ meant that when the film, was shown on Channel 4 in 1993, advertising breaks were simple to place.

7. Interestingly, the director Ted Kotcheff called Sandford Ôour contemporary MayhewÕ in a piece written in May 1978 and originally intended for the published text of Edna, the Inebriate Woman.

8. See Stewart LaneÕs interview with Garnett, Morning Star, 16 November 1966; and John Hill, ÔInterview with Ken LoachÕ, in George McKnight, ed., Agent of Challenge and Defiance: the Films of Ken Loach (Prowbridge: Flicks Books, 1997), p. 170. See also Graham Fuller, ed., Loach on Loach (London: Faber, 1998), p. 25.

9. See the Epilogue to Bertolt BrechtÕs play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Lii (1941).

10. See Maureen PileÕs interview with Loach, Daily Telegraph, 27 March 1993; McKnight, op. cit., p. 172; G. Smith. ÔVoice in the DarkÕ, Film Comment, No. 2 (March-April 1988), p. 44.

11. The ÔMrs. Alley sectionÕ of Cathy Come Home (p. 49-68), was filmed in Birmingham. In some of the ÔwildtrackÕ for these scenes there are references to Birmingham slum areas, and Birmingham accents can be dearly heard.

12 All quotations from BBC documents are from material in the Cathy Come Home files at the BBC Written Archive, Caversham.

13. See the Evening Standard report on GreenwoodÕs speech at Enfield, 14 January 1967: Ô[He] said the BBC team did a wonderful job in informing public opinion.Õ Nearly two years later, a leader in The Guardian before the third transmission of the film (ÔStill Homeless in BritainÕ, 13 November 1968), acknowledged the effects of ministerial circulars of September 1967 and the Seebohm Report on social services, but concluded that there was much still to be done.

14. Martin Banham, ÔJeremy SandfordÕ, in George W. Brandt, ed., British Television Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 194.

15. Cathy has been transmitted five times in all, on BBCI (three times), BBC2 (once), and Channel 4.

16. The two ÔBBC Audience Research ReportsÕ VR/66/629 (6/12/66) and VR/67/27 (1/2/67), indicate high audience numbers and interest. They show too Ôthat for every viewer who strenuously objected to the.... repeat there were 60 whose reactions were enthusiasticÕ (VR/67/27).

17. This group, of course, only partly corresponds to party political lines.

18. ÔAngry Scenes as Families Heckle MeetingÕ, Birmingham Post, 29 November 1966.

19. Interview with Tony Garnett, 7 November 1996.

20. Individual social workers were prepared to speak up outside their institutions in meetings, in letters to newspapers, and, of course, on ÔwildtrackÕ in the film itself. There was at least one such dissenting individual at the Birmingham meeting, Ôa young home teacherÕ (unnamed but photographed), who described Ôconditions in some of the homes she visitsÕ. In the 1960 radio programme Homeless Families, Sandford had interviewed other dissenting social workers, some of whose views are heard on ÔwildtrackÕ in Cathy Come Home.

21. See Julian Petley, ÔFactual Fictions and Fictional Fallacies: Ken LoachÕs Documentary DramasÕ, in McKnight, op. cit. p. 28Ñ59. Grace Wyndham GoldieÕs articles were both in the Sunday Telegraph: 13 February 1966 (ÔWhy They Made The War GameÕ), and 8 January 1967 (ÔStop Mixing Fact and FictionÕ). My quotation comes from the later article.

22. Jeremy Sandford, lecture delivered at University College, Worcester, 30 April 1996.

23. See Petley, op. cit., p. 38. Talkback was a BBC viewersÕ discussion programme (1967Ñ71).

24. Interview with Ian McBride, 15 March 1994.

25. Petley, op.cit., P. 39. Other co-signatories of the letter were Jim Allen, Roy Battersby, Clive Goodwin, James MacTaggart, Roger Smith, and Kenneth Trodd.

26. Phone conversation of 12 June 1998, in which Garnett commented on an early draft of this paper.

27. Peter Watkins, ÔThe Future of TelevisionÕ, lecture at University of Bristol, 15 February 1996.

28. See Alan Rosenthal, The New Documentary in Action: a Casebook in Film Making (Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1971), p. 174.

29. Interview, 7 November 1996. One requisition slip at Caversham shows that Loach used the 16 mm sound synch Eclair film camera which had been the founding hardware for US Ôdirect cinemaÕ in the early 1960s. Another requisition is for the tape recorder used subsequently by Sandford for ÔwildtrackÕ.

30. John McGrath spoke at the conference, ÔOn the Boundary: Turning Points in TV Drama 1965-2000Õ, at the University of Reading, 4 April 1998. The Sandford quotation comes from his Worcester lecture (see Note 22).

31. The articles in Theatre Quarterly were: Roger Hudson, ÔTelevision in Britain: Description and DissentÕ, II, No. 6 (1972), p. 18Ñ25; Paul Ableman, ÔEdna and Sheila: Two Kinds of TruthÕ, II, No.7(1972), p. 45-8; and Jeremy Sandford, ÔEdna and Cathy: Just Huge CommercialsÕ, ill, No.10(1973), P. 79-85. For the debate about Ôprogressive dramaÕ and documentary forms, see Andrew Goodwin and Paul Kerr, BFI Dossier 19: Drama-Documentary (London: British Film Institute, 1983). See also John CaughieÕs seminal article ÔProgressive Television and Documentary DramaÕ, Screen, XXI, No. 3, p. 9-33. For further discussion, see my No Other Way to Tel? it: Dramadoc/Docudrama on Television (Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 1998).

32. Ableman, op. cit., P. 45~ 47; Sandford, 1973, op. cit., p. 80.

33. Irene Shubik produced nearly 50 plays for ÔThe Wednesday PlayÕ and ÔPlay for TodayÕ. She later originated both Rumpole of the Bailey and Jewel in the Crown.

34. See p.30,37,64,76ÑSO, 89,99, 106, 124Ñ38 (this is Chapter 10, actually about Edna, the inebriate Woman), 140,180.

35. On the provenance of this methodology, see Arthur Swinson, Writing for Television (London: Black, 1955); and Caryl Doncaster, ÔThe Story DocumentaryÕ, in Paul Rotha, ed.. Television in the Making (London: Focal Press, 1956).

36. Like most producers, she was never a BBC staff member, but worked on short-term contracts. Tony Garnett recalled that his first BBC contract was for nine months (phone conversation, 12 June 1998).

37. Banham, op. cit., p. 202.

38. In a phone conversation of 11 June 1998, she maintained that her intention had been to celebrate difference rather than to denigrate.

39. In a letter, undated but received the day after our phone conversation of 11 June 1998.

40. Interview, 28 September 1998.

41. Norman Swallow, ÔTelevision: the Integrity of Fact and FictionÕ. This originally appeared in Sight and Sound, XL, No.3 (Summer 1976), but his argument was re-circulated in Goodwin and Kerr, op. cit., P. 57-61; Banham, op. cit., p. 194-216; Derek Paget, True Stories? Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen, and Stage (Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 91-6; John Corner, The Art of Record: a Critical Introduction to Documentary (Manchester University Press, 1996), P. 90-107; Julian Petley, op. cit., p. 30Ñ2.

42. See Banham. op. cit., p. 197; Paget, op. cit., p.96.

43. ChristieÕs first starring role, in Billy Liar, was in 1963.

44. Letter. 7 June 1994.

45. Corner op. cit., p. 106; Petley op. cit., p.30. John Corner tells me he has revised his use of Shubik in the reprinted Art of Record.

46. Interview, 7 November 1996. Garnett acknowledges one alteration to the original film, the result of a missing release form. The scene in which Cathy is rebuffed by prospective landladies had one cut made (see text. p. 63-4). Such problems were not unusual when television was adapting to what were essentially Ôdirect cinemaÕ film techniques. Irene Shubik told me that something similar happened on Edna the Inebriate Woman.

47. Stewart Lane, Morning Star, 14 January 1%7.

48. Alan Rosenthal, The Documentary Conscience: a Casebook in Film Making (Berkeley; London, 1980), p. 161.

49. See Zibba Mays, The Guardian, 2 March 1972. SandfordÕs letter was published on 10 May 1972.

50. Sandford, op. cit., P. 17.

51. In those days, Times reviews were anonymously written by ÔOur Television CriticÕ, but the reviewer was Robert Wright Cooper (1904-92) who took the role for the final period (1966-69) of his 45 years as a Times journalist. Irene Shubik said to me: ÔIÕm absolutely certain that was said in a number of papersÕ, but I can find no other evidence. She used press cuttings and other material in BBC files when writing her book and I have checked these at Caversham. I have also looked more widely, at Colindale Newspaper Library and in her files at the BFI. These files, donated in 1985, consist of 39 box files of which only three relate to the arguments of this article (Boxes 3, 30, and 37 Ñ on SandfordÕs plays, her book, and general press cuttings).

52. See ÔCathyÕs Message Still Comes HomeÕ, Evening Standard, 12 August 1976.

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