Chapter 3: Newfoundland's Vernacular Radio Culture

FOLKWAYS AND AIRWAVES: ORAL HISTORY, COMMUNITY & VERNACULAR RADIO
IEUAN FRANKLIN
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Bournemouth
University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2009
This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who
consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its
author and due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any
material contained in, or derived from, this thesis. Abstract This thesis investigates a variety of uses of actuality (recorded speech),
oral history and folklore (vernacular culture) in radio broadcasting in
Britain and Newfoundland (Canada). The broadcasting of vernacular culture
will be shown to foster intimate and interactive relationships between
broadcasters and audiences. Using a theoretical framework that draws upon
the work of communications theorists Harold Innis and Walter Ong, the
thesis will explore the (secondary) orality of radio broadcasting, and will
consider instances in which the normative unidirectional structure and
'passive' orality of radio has been (and can be) made reciprocal and active
through the participation of listeners. The inclusion of 'lay voices' and
'vernacular input' in radio broadcasting will be charted as a measure of
the democratization of radio, and in order to demonstrate radio's role in
disseminating oral history, promoting dialogue, and building and binding
communities. The thesis will predominantly focus on local and regional
forms of radio: the BBC Regions in the post-war era; regional radio
programming serving the Canadian province of Newfoundland both pre- and
post-Confederation (which took place in 1949); and the community radio
sector in the UK during the last five years. A common theme of many of the
case studies within the thesis will be the role of citizen participation in
challenging, transgressing or eroding editorial control, institutional
protocols and the linguistic hegemony of radio production. Conversely,
close attention will be given to the ways in which editorial control in
radio production has circumscribed the self-definition of participants and
communities. These case studies will provide evidence with which to
investigate the following research question - is the democratization of
radio possible through the incorporation of citizen voices or messages
within radio production or programming, or is it only possible through
changing the medium itself through citizen participation in democratic
structures of production, management and ownership?
Acknowledgements This study was undertaken as a Studentship at Bournemouth University. I
would like to thank my supervisors Sean Street, Hugh Chignell and Christine
Daymon for their invaluable guidance and input. I would particularly like
to thank Professor Street, who has been unfailing and unstinting in his
support and encouragement for my work throughout the last three years. I
would also like to thank all members of the Centre for Broadcasting History
Research at Bournemouth University and all members of the Southern
Universities Broadcasting History Group. In 2007 I received a Bournemouth-
Memorial Travel Bursary to conduct research in Newfoundland for the period
of one month, which represented a very valuable opportunity and useful
experience. In Newfoundland, Patti Fulton of the Memorial Folklore and
Language Archive (MUNFLA) at Memorial University in Newfoundland was hugely
supportive and a true friend, and Jeff Webb of the History Department and
Philip Hiscock and Peter Narváez of the Folklore Department at Memorial
kindly gave up plenty of their time to be interviewed and to share their
considerable knowledge of Newfoundland radio. I would also like to thank
the former CBC producers and presenters Dave Quinton, Dave Gunn, Des Browne
and Anne Budgell, the freelance radio producer Chris Brookes, and the
documentary producer Paul McLeod. Thanks also to Ivan Emke, Fred Campbell
and Ryan Hermens for providing interesting information on community radio
developments in Newfoundland. Back in Britain and Ireland, the radio
producers Alan Dein, David Prest and Ronan Kelly gave up their time to be
interviewed about the oral history dimensions of their work. Thanks to Phil
Gibbons, Carlton Romaine and Mary Ingoldby for discussing their memories of
Commonwealth FM with me. Thanks are due to the staff of various archives -
Patti Fulton at MUNFLA; Paul Wilson and staff at the National Sound Archive
in the British Library; Jeff Walden and colleagues at the BBC Written
Archives in Caversham; Ken Puley and colleagues at the CBC Programme
Archives in Toronto; Ken Dahl at the Saksatchewan Archives Board in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; staff at the Charles Parker Archive in Birmingham
Central Library; Francis Jones and colleagues at the BBC Northern Ireland
Archive in Cultra, near Belfast; Luke Kirwan and colleagues at the National
Library of Ireland in Dublin; Mike Weaver and colleagues at the Working
Class Movement Library in Salford; and Alison Fraser at the Orkney Sound
Archive. Canadian archivists/historians Ern Dick and Denis Duffy provided
valuable information about CBC's oral history work and archives. Thanks to
Sara Beth Keough for sharing her research on Newfoundland music radio and
to Helen Gubbins for providing me with information about the use of Radio
Éireann's Mobile Recording Unit. Thanks to Armin Medosch for sharing
unpublished work on the Hidden Histories project, and for uploading my
short article on Hidden Histories to his excellent Next Layer website.
Thanks to Marjorie Ruse for sharing her memories of working as Denis
Mitchell's secretary in the BBC North Region during the 1950s. Thanks to
Peter Cox, Ben Harker, Paul Long, Mike Rosen and Francis Hywel for help in
researching the work of Charles Parker. Thanks to Padmini Broomfield for
supplying me with oral history publications relating to the Southampton
area. Thanks also to Derek Paget, Janet Graves, Lesley Borzoni, Mary J.
Brody, Alex Gray, Keith Skipper, Gerry Harrison, Beth Lloyd, Frances
Wilkinson, Fiona Julian and Sue Newhook. To Syd Lewis and colleagues -
thanks for giving me a fantastic welcome to the world of Cape and Islands
National Public Radio on that drizzly day in Woods Hole, Cape Cod. Thanks
to Gary Noel, Sheldon Stone and Gary and Joni in Norris Point, Newfoundland
and the Mayo family in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Last but not least, thanks
to Céline for her support.
Table of Contents 1.0 Rationale 4 1.1 The Spoken and the Written 10 1.2 Radio and Orality 17 1.3 The Space-Bias of Radio 27 1.4 The Professionalization of Speaking 29 1.5 The Emancipation of the 'Common' Voice 40 1.6 Broadcasting as Social Contact 48 1.7 Broadcasting and Mass Observation 50 1.8 Knowable Communities 54 Chapter 2: From Paternalism to Participation? The Post-War BBC Regions
66 2.0 Radio Research Methodology 66 2.1 Radio Features in the Post-War Climate 71 2.2 Brandon Acton-Bond's Micro-Local West Region Features 83 2.3 Sound and Subcultures: Denis Mitchell in the North Region 93 2.4 An Antiphony of Voices: Sam Hanna Bell in Northern Ireland 114 Chapter 3: Newfoundland's Vernacular Radio Culture 138 3.0 Folklore and Popular Culture 138 3.1 The Barrelman 144 3.2.0 The Gerald S. Doyle News Bulletin 154
3.2.1 The Bulletin's Creation of an Imagined Community 161
3.2.2 Humour, Folklore and Vernacular Usage 164 3.3 The Fisheries Broadcast 170 3.4 The Chronicles of Uncle Mose 182 3.5 Between Ourselves 188 3.6 Challenge for Change 195 3.7 The Fogo Process 198 Chapter 4: Editing and Editorial Control 213 4.0 The 'Weaving Medium' 213 4.1 Fieldwork, Poetry & Ethnography 217 4.2 Urban Soundscapes 221 4.3 Between Two Worlds: Five Generations 227 4.4 Shared Authority and the Radio Ballads 234 4.5 The Ethics of Editing 244 4.6 Charles Parker: The Admissibility of Montage after the Radio Ballads
251 4.7 New Horizons: The Wheeler/Prest Collaborations and The Reunion
256 4.8 Micro-Local Radio Features: Alan Dein (BBC) and Ronan Kelly (RTÉ)
266 4.9 Oral History and Authority 271 Chapter 5: Oral History, Local and Community Radio and Social Gain 284 5.0 Introduction 284 5.1 The Millennium Memory Bank and The Radio Research Project 286 5.2 The Linguistic Mapping of the UK for Broadcast Purposes 290 5.3 The Preservation of Local and Community Radio 297 5.4.0 Commonwealth FM 301
5.4.1 Technology, Oral History and Participation 304
5.4.2 Programming: Empire, Free Speech and Traditions 306
5.4.3 'Steam Radio': Bridging the Past and the Present 309
5.4.4 The Relationship between Commonwealth FM and the Museum 311 5.5 The Philosophy, Funding and Social Gain of Community Radio 315 5.6 Connecting Histories 319 5.7 Community: A Contested Term 323 5.8 Conclusion: Communication as Ritual 328 Appendix A 347 Orality and Presence 347 Appendix B 350 The BBC's Talks on Unemployment During the 1930s 350 Appendix C 356 The CBC's Use of Oral History 356 Imbert Orchard 359 Appendix D 369 Notes Towards a Communication Dialectic 369 Telephone Trottoire 375 Hidden Histories 382 References 392 Chapter 1: Radio and the Orality and Literacy Debate Radio, the new tree of speech, is c