Margaret
Douglas
Margaret Douglas (1934-2008) was the BBC's chief political adviser
In 1951, when Margaret Douglas joined the BBC, it was still very
much a man's world. Douglas, a policeman's daughter from Islington,
started out at the most junior level, but by the time she retired,
more than 40 years later, she had risen to Chief Assistant to the
Director General, one of the most responsible jobs in the
corporation.
Douglas born in London in 1934. Her father was a
sergeant in the Metropolitan Police; her mother came from the East
End. She was brought up in Islington, and liked to call herself a
"Blitz kid"; except for a year when she was sent to live with her
granny in Glasgow, she remained in London throughout the Second
World War.
She attended Parliament Hill Grammar School and
was obviously very bright, but at 17, to the school's dismay,
decided not to go the academic way, choosing instead to train as an
office worker. As always, she had a rational explanation for her
decision: she did not want to be a continuing burden to her parents.
She also recognised that the only thing you could do with a degree
if you were a woman at that time was to become a teacher, and that
didn't appeal to her very much.
Douglas joined the BBC in
1951, starting in the lowest secretarial grade. Luckily, she worked
for one of the many eccentrics around the place and thus enjoyed her
early work in Broadcasting House. She went on the television
production secretaries' course, then straight to Panorama where she
became the production secretary for the producer Michael Peacock,
under the dark sparkling eyes of Mrs Grace Wyndham Goldie, Assistant
Head of Talks, (later Current Affairs), and the most important
assistant head of a department that the BBC ever had.
Douglas became the princess of Panorama, the right hand of the
producer in the gallery, and in the office, the wiper of noses, the
stroker of egos, the calmer of the frightened and corrector of the
inept. She was the woman who had to know everything and then next
morning be first in the office to do the paper-work and clear up the
emotional and physical wreckage of the night before. She was cool,
efficient, hard-working and cheerful, and these were the qualities
that carried her through her long career.
Douglas's arrival
at the BBC coincided with the beginning of what was to be known as
the Golden Age. It was an exciting, stressful, absorbing time. What
made it special was the belief that anybody could do anything –
although the impossible would take another 10 minutes. Mrs Goldie
once said, "I have an idea in my bath and in a fortnight it is a
national institution" – preposterous but more than half true.
Before the 1959 general election programme, Wyndham Goldie was
given the task of running the first competitive challenge from ITN
and she stole Douglas from Panorama. It was a strange coupling;
Wyndham Goldie, the product of Cheltenham Ladies' College and
Somerville, and Douglas, the policeman's daughter from Islington.
At Lime Grove Douglas worked on Panorama, Gallery, 24 Hours
and was for years responsible for the coverage of party conferences.
She went from short-hand typist to production secretary, researcher,
director, producer, editor and then, for the last 10 years of her
BBC career, Chief Assistant to the Director General, later called
Chief Political Adviser. This was a very senior job of great
responsibility which she held through the tenure of three
Director-Generals: Alasdair Milne, Michael Checkland and John Birt.
With the first two, she would meet every morning, five days a week,
to review whatever was important to the BBC.
Throughout her
working life she dealt with political parties and politicians. From
the 1960s to the 1990s she had more dealings with senior politicians
than anybody else in the BBC. She met everyone from Macmillan to
Mandelson, not forgetting Heath, Wilson, Macleod, Butler, Douglas
Hume, Healey, Gaitskell, Callaghan, Jenkins, Crossman, Benn,
Grimond, Steele, Ashdown, Kennedy, Thatcher, and Browns both George
and Gordon, to name but a few.
It was a tough job. It is hard
for an outsider to understand the sustained and vicious attacks made
on the BBC by political parties, but Douglas combined a quick mind
with long experience and patience in dealing with the often absurd
complaints and the bad temper of the people she dealt with. Michael
Checkland remembers her strength and steadfastness when the BBC's
reporting of the Falklands Warcame under attack, as well as her
stout defence of the independence of the BBC's news and current
affairs.
But it was difficult for politicians to get angry
with Douglas, or to try to portray her as part of the Beelzebub that
was the BBC, because she so clearly had integrity. She was slight in
build, with beautiful manners, calm in discussion and lacking
aggression. She performed a tough job, almost with diffidence.
She was also the last stop before the DG in many questions of
reporting politics, especially in general elections. One reporter
from the north of England said, "When it is really nasty and they
are threatening you with the Tower and losing your job, Margaret was
the only one who listened, made you feel better and told you what
you could do".
For some years she was close to Terry
Lancaster, sometime Political Editor of the Daily Mirror – a happy
time. When she married him in 2000 she told me, "Thank heaven
nothing has changed". They were a powerful couple, both
quick-witted, argumentative in the nicest way, hugely knowledgeable
about politics with a whiff, later on, of world-weariness.
Douglas's last job after retiring from the BBC, for five years, was
to be Supervisor of Parliamentary Broadcasting at the Palace of
Westminster.
Margaret Elizabeth Douglas, television
producer, director and executive: born London 22 August 1934;
Editor, Party Conference Coverage, BBC 1972-83, Chief Assistant to
Director-General 1983-87, Chief Political Adviser 1987-93; married
2000 Terence Lancaster (29 Nov 1920-October 6 Oct 2007); died London
20 August 2008.
Terry had two sons by his previous marriage to Brenda Abbot (died
1998).
Any contributions to this item will be
gratefully accepted
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