giants in those days of shaw, de valera and sir william haley

Giants in Those Days of Shaw, de Valera and Sir William HaleyAuthor(s): Denis JohnstonSource: Irish University Review, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1978), pp. 68-73Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25477208 .

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Denis Johnston

Giants in those days of Shaw, De Valera

and Sir William Haley

The well-worn phrase "There were giants in those days" that is to

be found somewhere in the Bible, is still being trotted out by the

aged and ageing as a stick with which to beat the present day. I am myself one of the few surviving members of an old gang, and I often wonder whether there was any peculiar merit in the

great ones whom I used to admire ? something that is supposedly

missing in the Headliners of today ? or whether we imagine

that people are great or small in proportion to what they may have done for one personally. I mean, fifty years from now is

there going to be a Hugh Leonard Annual Medal for Brilliancy in Playwriting, and a Paddy Campbell Travelling Fellowship for

Fun in the Sunday Papers, and perhaps even a Brendan Behan

Summer School in Ballyfermot. I won't be here to express any

surprise, but ? you know ? it's not impossible. All periods, in

the eyes of later generations, have their illustrious few. The

trouble facing us contemporaries is that we don't know who

they are, apart from how they affect our own lives ? which is no test at all.

I have always regretted that I could never have sat at the feet of either Synge or Wilde, but I dare say that if I had lived next

door to them I would have considered them intolerable because

they would undoubtedly have regarded me as a bum. On the other hand I am quite sure that General Montgomery was a brilliant soldier because he once accommodated me with a jeep. While

Lady Gregory was gravely overrated in my opinion, since I was never invited to carve my name on her damned old weeping willow.

Granted all of this, and the fact that I would very much like to

praise people like Frank O'Connor, and Eugene O'Neill, and parti

cularly the late Maurice Gorham, because of their impact on

my particular requirements at different periods of my life, I

am going to confine myself to some elements of greatness in three

people only, one of whom liked me only at a distance, another of

whom was highly suspicious of most of my work, and the third

of whom hardly knew me at all. They are Shaw, De Valera and

Sir William Haley. Shaw, of course, is the personality, on whose shoulders most

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GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS

people of my generation, assuming that they have any thought

processes at all, are sitting. And this applies both as regards our

successes and our mistakes. Although dangerous to imitate, he is, until recently, the inspiration of a whole generation of modern

dramatists. On the other hand, as a critic of the current scene he seems to have set a disastrous example to all the second-rate

journalists of the day. For all his Fabian activities and long residence in Hertfordshire, he was peculiarly Irish to the end in

insisting that he was hard-up. Living in America for any length of time makes one used to people who pretend that they are

better off than they actually are ? loving to show off their

supposed wealth through big cars and bigger hospitality ? and

very nice too, if you're a guest. It always comes as a surprise to me

to rediscover, back in Ireland, that here in our homeland, the reverse is largely the case. We have, of course, our financial show

offs, but as a rule the technique is to insist that we have no money at all. This may be due to the presence of a high proportion of

spongers in our midst, combined with a traditional fear of being considered mean. But there it is, and Shaw was a good example of it. Before Shaw would thaw you had to spend a lot of time

reassuring him in the course of conversation that you were not

after anything at all. And this was a bit of a bore, particularly if it wasn't true. He must have been a millionaire several times

over at the time of his death, but at that age I believe that he had

really convinced himself that he was financially ruined; and that

every time he had another revival or sold some more film rights, he

would roar that it was costing him more in socialist income tax that he could possibly earn from the deal. His instinct was to be kind in the extreme to people and causes he approved of, but it

had to be in secret. It was entirely thanks to him that any English manager would touch a play of mine; but he never would admit that he had even read them. At the time of his ninetieth birthday,

when all the British and American press was roaring to get interviews and photographs of him, and offering untold sums that

would have further ruined his tax-situation, he fought them all

off with statements that he was far too busy and hated birthdays

anyhow ? both of which excuses were quite untrue. I happened to

be Programme Director of British Television at the time, and as a

fellow Dubliner I seemed to have been regarded as one of their

easiest contacts with Shaw. So I was put on the job, and knowing the peculiarities of the man, I didn't ask him directly to let us

come and see him.

Taking it as an assumption that nobody even knew about his

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IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW

significant age, I got in touch with him with some casual news

about Dublin and the Abbey and how odd it was that so many of

us were helping to make something out of television ? the only service of its kind at the time ? and I finished up with some

expressions of regret that none of our viewers, most of whom

loved his plays, would ever be able to see him in person. A day or

two later, back came one of his celebrated postcards, rather

crossly denying that any such thing was impossible, and next

week there we were out at Ayot St Lawrence with a camera crew

and no interviewers. Just Shaw himself, talking extemporan

eously, or so it seemed, for half an hour, out in the sunlight in his

garden, with an occasional background of Britain's new jet planes

zooming overhead, much to the discomfiture of the cameraman, who wanted to stop work till the interruption was past. But I

wouldn't let them stop, for it was no interruption, but the sound of the post-war world, bidding farewell to Shaw precisely as he

was saying the same to us ? Good Bye ?

(waving his hand) Good

Bye ? Good Bye. And it was in fact Good Bye, and a greater gift

to Dublin and to England's infant television than Shaw ever knew

about. Because, at the time, the newsreels were doing their best

to kill the coming medium as a news-service by refusing us any of

their films. But as soon as they discovered that we had an exclusive of Shaw on the ninetieth birthday, they had to lift the ban and come to terms, which has been the case ever since. Undoubtedly a great man ? Shaw ? who would do anything for his home town

and camp followers, provided he wasn't asked.

This calls to mind my second hero, and something that occurred

during the war when I had previously been working for the BBC as a newsman, during the suspension of any television. In spite of

neutrality, of which I was personally in favour, I was fairly allowed for a time to broadcast a fortnightly radio spot from Dublin for Irish people all over the world, telling them, from a

non-propaganda angle of course, what was going

on at home.

In the course of the job, the Americans landed their first troops in Europe, and the landing happened to be in Ulster ? a very delicate situation you will understand, on which the Irish govern

ment decided to make no comment at the time, and allowed no

newspaper stories either.

Now I had one of my BBC spots coming up on the following Monday, and at once I made the point to Mr Gallagher, my contact with the government, that, if no reference whatever was

made to this notorious fact, in my next broadcast, it would be assumed all over the world that it was because of censorship in

70




Dublin. And this might be a pity. Gallagher saw my point and said

that he would refer it further up, and that very night I was

summoned to Merrion Street to be told what was to be done. To

my great delight it turned out that what was to be done was going to be decided by Dev himself.

Now, in the course of my career I have crossed the path of a

good many politicians, including some whom I have known ever

since our college days together, and I have usually been appalled at the pompous act that they have put on when meeting them in

later life. Not having been myself a notable supporter of De

Valera's policies in my twenties I rather expected to meet with some more of these dramatised insincerities that I had come to

associate with greater and lesser statesmen in the past. But such was not the case. To begin with, he had not bothered to be briefed into pretending that he had ever heard of me before. Quite the reverse. He began by asking me whether we had ever met, and

how it had come about that I was broadcasting from neutral Ireland for the BBC. I told him exactly how it was, and that

although my employers were fully aware that I was a firm believer in Irish neutrality, they had recently decided to send me abroad as one of their war correspondents with the Eighth Army in the

desert. This seemed to amuse him quite a lot, from which we went

on to discuss what was the best use that could be made of this

opportunity for him to express to the world at large his views on

the arrival of the American army in the North, without it being in

any way an official announcement from his government. It was

obvious that he deplored their presence, but the question was how

far could he go in making use of the Empire Service of the BBC at

such a moment. And thanks to my knowledge of my employers, I was delighted to be able to tell him. I would say whatever he

liked, without mentioning my source, so long as he did not insist on using this British facility as an occasion for attacking the

Northern government. This he regarded as perfectly reasonable, and between us with mounting amusement we worked out what

turned out to be the only public expression at the time of the

official Irish point of view with regard to the arrival of a further

belligerent force on the soil of Erin. He trusted my advice on the

subject, and he was right in doing so. And I was right in helping him, and ever since then whatever his politics may be, I have

always added Dev to the list of my most admired celebrities. This, to my mind was greatness, and from a most unusual politician.

But there are some quite different aspects of greatness that have

nothing to do with personal rewards but are just as memorable.

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IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW

Take Sir William Haley, for instance, who in the later part of the

forties was Director General of the BBC, and on the whole a

controversial figure. He was not a very sociable person. In fact

he used to give weekly lunches to a changing rota of his staff at

Broadcasting House, at which there was so little general con

versation, and so many interludes of profound silence, that it used to be said that on one occasion a mouse appeared through a hole

in the skirting and took a look around to see what was going on.

I won't vouch for this myself, but it was a classic BBC story. But I can say this ?

Haley was a boss who liked memorable

results whether or not they were obtained by the conventional

methods. There was a tendency amongst our immediate superiors in the War Reporting Unit to be more concerned about the safety and condition of our technical equipment than about Corres

pondents themselves, and they were certainly better pleased whenever we came through with a dull report at the right time rather than an unusual or exciting one at the wrong time, and

they did not hesitate to say so. But Haley, with all the other

problems of broadcasting on his hands, always seemed to know what was going on in the lower echelons (to coin a phrase) and it never did us any harm even if we disappeared for a few days,

provided we turned up again with something really worth while ?

particularly if it had never been asked for. He came out to Italy once, not in any phoney uniform but in a London business man's

suit, just to see for himself what was going on, and I remember we went to tea with General Montgomery in some sort of a tent, and while we were waiting for him (Big Shots have all sorts of

tricks to keep each other waiting) Haley asked me if there was

anything in particular that I needed to help me in my work. Ever

ready with an answer, I said, Yes; what I would like best was a

jeep of my own. "But surely", he said, "you're provided with

transport by the Army?" Yes, indeed I was; and also with a

Conducting Officer, whose business it was to conduct the BBC

together with a lot of other Correspondents to wherever the

majority wanted to go. "Then ask for a jeep of your own," said

Haley. "Over tea, I'll do that when I can," said I. "But I can

hardly ask the Army Commander for a jeep. Or can I?" "Listen,"

Haley replied: "When something has been started at as high a level as this, see that you keep it there." And sure enough, over the scones and tea, I was promised a jeep of my own by the General.

And Monty was no man for flinging empty promises about. "Give

the man a jeep," he shouted over the telephone. "I don't care

what strength you put it on. That's an order." And, from then

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on, I was an Independent Republic.

Haley was a man who liked a straight answer rather than a

departmental one, as I well knew when I was second in command

of British Television, and used to be sent to high level Conferences

with instructions as to how to vote on matters that had already been discussed with, say, the engineering high brass. I remember

very well how on one occasion after I had delivered what was

a deal with the engineers, Haley looked at me and asked quizzi

cally "What do you feel about this?" And I said, "I'm here to

report, sir, that we have discussed it with the engineers, and we

agree." At which Haley's eyes narrowed and he leant forward

and repeated: "That's not what I asked you. What do you think

about it ? personally?" I swallowed and gave him a grin. "I'm here

to agree, and I agree". I said. "Personally, I think it's nonsense."

At which the whole meeting, including the Controller of

Engineering, broke into laughter. And in due course the agreement was ratified.

Haley was the best boss I ever worked for, and when I had to

go and argue with him about leaving the Corporation to go to

the States, he came out into the passage to roar after me, much to the surprise of the Corps of Secretaries, "My objection to you is that you don't want anything."

How different from a predecessor with whom I was once

having an earlier discussion about jobs, and I said I'd like a job "where I'll know when I'm doing all right, and get the sack if I'm

not." He just looked embarrassed and answered "Oh, I'm afraid we haven't many jobs of that sort. What we're after these days

is team-work."

1. Published with kind permission of Radio Telefis Eireann.

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giants in those days of shaw, de valera and sir william haley

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