Reader Andy McNish — who closes with "Yours combatively" — provides one about my recent boo-boo on the BBC matter:
Methinks your irate BBC correspondent doth protest rather too much. Back in the '70s, there was a frequently broadcast "public information" film showing a TV detector van in operation. The occupants of this vehicle were shown sitting at high-tech-looking consoles, wearing headsets as I recall, in an image reminiscent of Gene Hackman in "The Conversation" or any number of stakeout scenes in cop dramas. The chief "spook" had an air of high seriousness as he homed in on some hapless illicit gogglebox users. I can't remember the full dialogue of the ad, but the final line has stayed with me to this day. Having identified an address (shown from outside with the light from a cathode-ray tube illuminating the tightly-drawn curtains) and the names of the criminals within, this grim-faced agent of the state pronounced his final, damning indictment: "And they're watching 'Columbo.'"
Even until quite recently, it was common to see posters saying something like "TV detector vans are in your area now." Are we now to believe that this was all just a scare tactic? I think we should be told.
Personally, I have immense admiration for the BBC, and cheerfully pay my license fee, but the persecution, fining and occasional imprisonment — for non-payment of fines, not for illicit TV watching per se — of poor people whose chief source of information and entertainment is the humble TV set, is quite simply a national disgrace. The BBC itself may not be a government agency, but you can be darn sure that if you don't pay your "BBC tax," certain blue-uniformed agents of the state will shortly be taking quite an interest in how you choose to spend your leisure time.
I'll offer the following letter to you without further comment. It was just received, and I'm only dropping it in here to show that this is a very controversial matter indeed. No careers hang on this, no huge changes in our futures are anticipated, but we see that a situation that appeared to have been rather simple to settle, is not necessarily that cut-and-dried. This comes from reader Ron Matthews, in Hither Green, London:
I have just had the pleasure of reading the May 6 commentary. I live in London and my late father used to work for the Post Office which was responsible for enforcing the TV license fee. I remember back in the early 60's my father bringing home the detector car and the team that operated it. It wasn't black and scary but, if I remember correctly, it was a pale blue Austin Cambridge estate car. The engineer on the team explained how the system worked and that it was possible to discern what room in the house the set was in and even what channel was being watched. They had a Polaroid camera to photograph the oscilloscope screen so that it could be used as evidence in court. I was sworn to secrecy about all of this, not for some men-in-black reason but because my father feared that if people knew what he did they would wreak some terrible vengeance upon us.
