It starts like this. One slow-building fanfare, developing over 30 seconds. Each chord change increases the anticipation. It peaks. Everything calms and slows down. The voice of Redvers Kyle, incredibly familiar and reassuring, tells us the basic fact: "This is Rediffusion, broadcasting on the London station of the Independent Television Authority".
What follows, Johnny Dankworth's "Widespread World of Rediffusion", is as inspirational and definitive of a particular mood of incredible national self-consciousness and security, so calm and relaxed compared to what had come before (the incredibly authoritarian "Associated-Rediffusion March", as discussed later), as any piece of instrumental music I've heard. Its middle eight, especially, flows so quietly and perfectly that I can almost believe everything I've been told that people are less happy than they once were. Of all the pieces of music used as ITV start-ups from 1955 to the mid-80s, it is the finest. Along with its many contemporaries and the whole era of TV presentation that has since disappeared, it captivated Chris Bowden-Smith, one middle-class child of the 60s, who has become a great personal friend. His story is told at http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/features/kif_1.html and http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/features/kif_3.html.
There's so much I love. Eric Coates's "Sound and Vision", the rushing original ATV start-up music first heard right at the start of ITV in 1955. Johnny Pearson's "Midlands Montage" (ATV 1976-1981), as beautiful as Corporate 70s music will ever get. Michael Roberts's "Perpetuum Mobile", used by ABC between 1957 and 1968, and by Thames from 1968 to 1969 and from 1970 to 1985, which deserves its familiarity. Tony Lowrie's "Granada March" (Granada 1956-1967), which says it all about the "ethos" and national cultural aesthetic of the 1950s. Arthur Wilkinson's "Three Rivers Fantasy", the dreamers' serenade which opened the day's programming at Tyne Tees from 1959 to the mid-80s. Two marvellous pieces of early 80s Promotional magic - TVS's "The New Forest" and Central's "Central Theme" - complete it and prove how the ITV start-up could easily have survived right through the 80s were it not for the onslaught of TV-am, Thatcherism and the general mood of cynicism and commercialism that has taken over British broadcasting.
But then there's the 1958-64 Associated-Rediffusion March, which makes Chris (as a confirmed liberal and progressive thinker) feel deeply ambivalent about it (and, contrary to previous suggestions here, he doesn't particularly like it, musically). And with good reason - it is relentless, unfaltering, it makes me feel as though I've got to give in, I've got to give myself over to the ideology of conformity and unquestioning obedience which it epitomises, proving how much the influence of the Second World War lingered into the Macmillan era (the change from this march, probably written by Sir John Barbirolli under the pseudonym "S. Bates", to the wonderful "Widespread World", coinciding with the change from Associated-Rediffusion's aspirations towards the BBC to Rediffusion, London, with its image as part of "Swinging London", is the TV equivalent of the shift from Macmillan to Wilson in politics, and from the Norrie Paramor school to the Beatles in pop music). And, being very consciously liberal and forward-looking, I'm moving into territory I'd normally be suspicious of. I'm dreaming of gingham dresses, Aertex shirts and grey shorts where I'd usually feel queasy at the very mention of that style of dress. I'm listening to music whose every drum-beat and brass flourish implies respect for your elders and betters, a concept I'd normally abhor and despise. I'm loving music that would still make many people lament the demise of the Light Programme and the Home Service, networks on whose grave I generally piss freely as John Lennon did at the precise moment of their burial, polluting Shakespeare through rock'n'roll as those networks were closing down for the last time, preparing for the following day's opening of Radio 1 and the first broadcast of George Martin's "Theme One", another indescribably self-confident and expressive instrumental start-up piece.
The link between this music and right-wing politics was painfully emphasised this spring when Simon Heffer, one of Britain's highest-profile exponents of the Daily Mail / Daily Telegraph / Spectator view of the world and biographer of / apologist for Enoch Powell, wrote a biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who arranged "Sea Songs", the Anglia Television start-up from 1959 to the mid-1980s. No matter for Heffer that Vaughan Williams was a socialist and an atheist. No matter that, like Edward Elgar, he was disgusted at the way certain people misappropriated his music. No, Heffer just goes on about the feelings of unchangable, unalterable nationality that this music brings on for him, the way it apparently contains "atavistic qualities that cause English listeners, at least, to feel a connection with an instinctual past and a common heritage".
I think the essential difference between my playful, joyous and charming use of this music and the grim, monolithic definition which it would hold for the likes of John Major and Norman Tebbit is that, for me, it represents just one of millions of different ways to be British (and a form of Britishness that has largely faded into history), whereas for them it represents a single identity which everyone has to be part of if they are to be considered "normal". I'm playing about with it, playing these pieces next to Cornelius, Asian Dub Foundation, James Lucas and Seventh Heaven Planets. While the Associated-Rediffusion March is perhaps the most imperialist piece of music I've heard, I'm identifying the later tunes ("Widespread World", Thames's "Salute to Thames", LWT's incredibly swinging "A Well-Swung Fanfare") with the progressive democratic socialism of the 1964-70 Labour government, which Tebbit and his ilk perceive as the death of their beloved country. I'm pushing it into all kinds of new shapes, crushing it alongside music and culture that its curators and gatekeepers would have it forever immunised from. In many ways, it's precisely my example of the recontextualisation of the nationalists' cultural signifiers that Momus advocates: http://www.demon.co.uk/momus/thought290100.html.
It's music for romantics, it's for the dreamers, it's ripe for more recontextualisation. We have to make it our own, because this music is far too good, way too inspiring to be left forever in the hands of the Tories and the Telegraph. We can't get it back, much as some of us would like to. Globalisation is the reality, 24-hour TV is the establishment, satellite is a part of the landscape, digital is on the verge of a mass audience. But we can dream. And when I dream, "Widespread World of Rediffusion" will always be playing.
Robin Carmody, April / May 2000
On 22nd July, I made two minor alterations to the above piece so as to make my meaning clearer, but I'm now revising my earlier personal chart, as it were, of every piece of start-up music I've heard. Previous positions in brackets:
(1) 1. WIDESPREAD WORLD OF
REDIFFUSION by Johnny Dankworth (Rediffusion London, 1964-68)
(2) 2. PERPETUUM MOBILE by Michael Roberts (ABC, 1957-68, and
Thames, 1968-69 and 1970-85)
(4) 3. AN ENGLISH OVERTURE by Paul Lewis (Westward, 1971-81)
(19) 4. YORKSHIRE THEME by Chris Gunning (Yorkshire, 1981-88)
(9) 5. SOMETHING ABSOLUTELY STARTLING by Pete Townshend (London
Weekend Television, 1969)
(3) 6. MIDLANDS MONTAGE by Johnny Pearson (ATV, 1976-81)
(21) 7. NEW GRANADA THEME by Keith Mansfield and Derek Hilton
(Granada, 1975-88)
(6) 8. CENTRAL THEME by Chris Gunning (Central, 1982-88)
(8) 9. HEBRIDEAN HOEDOWN by Gordon Langford (Grampian, 1968-69)
(7) 10. THE NEW FOREST / TVS GALLOP by Ed Welch (TVS, 1982-85)
(5) 11. YORKSHIRE TELEVISION MARCH by Derek New and Ron Goodwin
(Yorkshire, 1968-80)
(27) 12. THE ANTRIM ROAD by Wayne Hill and Ward (Ulster
Television, 1971-88)
(12) 13. AT PEPY'S PLACE Parts 1 and 2 by Syd Dale (Independent
Television Service for Wales and the West / Independent
Television Service Teledu Cymru, 1968)
(10) 14. SEA SONGS arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams (Anglia,
1959-85)
(14) 15. SOUTHERN RHAPSODY / SERENADE OF THE SOUTH by Richard
Addinsell (Southern, 1958-64 and 1964-81)
(16) 16. JAZZY by Johnny Hawksworth (Thames, 1969-70)
(11) 17. PRELUDE FOR ORCHESTRA, COMMISSIONED FOR GRANADA aka NEW
MARCH FOR GRANADA by Sir William Walton (Granada, 1967-75)
(15) 18. SOUND AND VISION by Eric Coates (ATV, 1955-71)
(13) 19. SIR LEW GRADE MARCH by "Aaron Aardvark" (ATV,
1971-76)
(17) 20. FANFARE from ABC MARCH by Arthur Bliss (ABC, 1956-68)
(18) 21. SALUTE TO THAMES by Johnny Hawksworth (Thames, 1968-88)
(20) 22. A WELL-SWUNG FANFARE by Don Jackson (London Weekend
Television, 1968-88)
(24) 23. THREE RIVERS FANTASY by Arthur Wilkinson (Tyne Tees,
1959-85)
(23) 24. MEN OF HARLECH / GOD BLESS THE PRINCE OF WALES MEDLEY by
the Band of HM Welsh Guards (Teledu Cymru, 1962-68)
(22) 25. THE REDIFFUSION MARCH by Eric Coates
(Associated-Rediffusion, 1956-57)
(31) 26. LOCHLAGGAN by Muir Matheson and the New Concert
Orchestra (Grampian, 1961-68 and 1969-74).
(30) 27. YOUNG KINGDOM by Jack Trombey (Harlech / HTV, 1968-81).
(25) 28. BRITISH GRENADIERS MARCH, a FANFARE by Charles Williams,
and part of "COCKAIGNE" by Elgar
(Associated-Rediffusion, 1955-56)
(26) 29. THE GRANADA MARCH by Tony Lowrie (Granada, 1956-67)
(34) 30. ASSOCIATED-REDIFFUSION MARCH by "S. Bates"
(Associated-Rediffusion, 1958-64)
(28) 31. SHAMUS by Van Phillips (Ulster Television, 1959-71)
(29) 32. SOUTH WALES AND THE WEST TELEVISION MARCH (Sunday
arrangement) by Eric Coates (TWW, 1964-68)
(37) 33. NEW HTV THEME (HTV, 1982-88)
(35) 34. SCOTLANDIA by Geraldo and his Orchestra (Scottish
Television, 1957-85)
(32) 35. SOUTH WALES AND THE WEST TELEVISION MARCH (normal
arrangement) by Eric Coates (TWW, 1958-68)
(33) 36. HERE COMES THE BAND by Henry Mancini (Independent
Television Emergency National Service, 1968)
(36) 37. WESTWARD HO! aka THE WESTWARD THEME (Westward, 1961-71)
Robin Carmody, 3rd October 2000
The way we were:
http://www.elidor.freeserve.co.uk/past.htm
The way we are: