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BBC banned Communists in purge

David Smith

MI5 had an officer to vet all editorial applicants

London: The BBC launched a wartime purge of Communists including Ewan MacColl, folk singer, and his wife Joan Littlewood, theatre producer, documents declassified by MI5 (British counter intelligence) reveal.

The secret files show that even with the fight against Nazism at its height, the BBC was pervaded by an atmosphere of anti-Communist suspicion and paranoia, reminiscent of the CBS newsroom at the height of McCarthyism a decade later, portrayed in the recent George Clooney film Good Night, and Good Luck. MacColl, born in Salford in 1915, led the revival of British folk music after the war. Littlewood was one of the most important theatre directors of the 20th century and creator of the hit musical Oh What a Lovely War!

Littlewood and MacColl, the father of singer Kirsty MacColl, acted and gave readings for the BBC, but were banned from the airwaves during the Second World War after being identified as "subversives." From the late Thirties until the end of the Cold War, MI5 had an officer at the BBC to vet all editorial applicants, stamping the personnel records of anyone suspicious with a distinctively shaped green tag, or "Christmas tree." Only a handful of BBC personnel staff knew what the "Christmas trees" meant.

The MI5 files, released by the National Archives in Kew, south west London, include a 1941 memo by John Coatman, the north regional director of the BBC, expressing fears that MacColl — real name James Miller — and Littlewood could stoke revolutionary fervour among listeners in the north. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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