One of the perks of being a part-time academic is having to do lots of unpaid work aimed at raising one’s profile within your discipline. However, sometimes this work is more a pleasure than a chore. Such is the case with being a co-convenor on the IHR’s (Institute of Historical Research) Sport and Leisure History seminar series.
Our next seminar is by Professor Matt Taylor of De Montfort University on sport and the BBC during World War Two. The paper is drawn from research from Matt’s book on Sport and World War Two which should be appearing towards the end of 2018 so there’ll be plenty of scope in questions for discussing the role of sport both in the home front and the armed forces. The abstract appears below.
Prof. Matt Taylor will be speaking in the Past and Present room at the IHR at 5.30pm on Monday 14th May 2018.
Abstract
Existing studies of the wartime BBC have explored the role of the corporation in promoting a unitary sense of British identity (Nicholas, 1996; Hajkowski, 2010; Baade, 2012). Perhaps because it is often erroneously dismissed as having had little wartime significance, sport has been almost completely ignored in this literature. This paper sets out to put this right by examining how sport was treated by the BBC during the Second World War and the extent to which the conflict altered existing relationships between the broadcaster and sporting bodies.
Drawing mainly on material contained in the BBC Written Archive at Caversham Park, this paper will consider three main aspects of the relationship between the corporation and wartime sport. First of all, it will assess the role of the BBC as a facilitator, as well as a straightforward broadcaster, of sporting events, connecting this to wider debates over popular recreation and public morale. Secondly, it will gauge the success of the BBC in accommodating the national-regional tensions endemic in wartime Britain. Finally, it will examine how sport was ‘represented’ in BBC programming; in live and delayed transmission but also in the ‘retrospective’ features which became a characteristic of wartime sports broadcasting. The main argument of the paper is that sport in general (and certain sports in particular) became key elements of the BBC’s wartime policy to maintain civilian and military morale; and that in the process, the connections between sport and notions of class, war and Britishness were redefined.
#History #BBC
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