"PROJECTING THE FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN" BY PAUL WRIGHT OF THE FESTIVAL OFFICE (1951)
This article is taken from the Penrose Annual 1951 : A Review of the Graphic Arts and makes for an interesting comparison with the similar arrangements for the Millennium Dome, Greenwich in 2000 which ended in failure to attract sufficient visitors.
"It is a good sign and perhaps may even be taken as a measure of success that, from the first, even the suggestion of the Festival of Britain, let alone its purpose and plans, should arouse intense interest and a range of emotions from burning enthusiasm through apathy to passionate opposition.
Its predecessor, the Great Exhibition of 1851 which we celebrate this year (1951) by so different an event, was an occasion for a violent outbreak of public clamour. It was even referred to in the House of Commons as 'The greatest trash, the greatest fraud, the greatest imposition ever palmed off upon the people of England...', a distinction we have so far not achieved.
All this is understandable, and to be desired. The British people have never accepted plans for the future complacently, or without discussion; long may this be so, for if we were to lose our critical faculty as a nation we should be poor indeed. Furthermore, the idea and plan of the 1951 Festival of Britain is not easy to grasp; awareness of its scope and the extent to which we believe it will reflect and influence the life of the nation can only grow gradually.
A nation-wide programme of exhibitions and festivals of the arts demonstrating, as much for ourselves as for visitors from abroad, British contributions to civilization in various important fields- the exhibitions themselves being not trade fairs, but narrative displays of quite a new kind, is a conception very different from 1851, or the normal precedent of national or international fairs. That is to say, the Festival is at once less obvious but more inspiring than anything that has gone before; and throughout the difficult months of planning and preparation its inspiration has sustained, not only those working directly and full time on the programme, but countless other advisers, experts of talent and genius, well-wishers and helpers whose faith in the Festival's ultimate benefit to the nation has never faltered.
Part of the fascination of the task of publicizing the Festival lies in the complexity of the problems. The whole Festival is, in a sense, publicity for the nation, but must itself be publicized. It must be projected overseas and, equally if not more important at home. The weight of publicity must find the right level in both fields, but in different ways, between extravagance and poverty of effort.
Even within this framework, the effort by the Festival office has not been small. Over 2,000,000 leaflets in eight languages have been despatched overseas, together with posters, showcards and bulletins of information. Press advertising, informative in character and concentrating in the main on the Festival programme, has been undertaken in thirty-four different countries. Other publicity efforts have been arranged - for example the European tour of four London double-decker buses containing an exhibition trailer for the Festival, and a special film on the theme and purpose of the Festival, the last work of the late Humphrey Jennings; these have added their individual contribtions to a scheme designed not only to publicize the Festival, but Britain itself.
At home similar activities are going on, often at the same time as the overseas efforts. Leaflets, posters, information centres, and a network of co-operation with local authorities and voluntary bodies are all helping to bring news and information about the purpose and scope of the Festival into the people's homes. To this has been added the general co-operation of the Press and of the B.B.C., and the task of keeping up an adequare supply of news and information.
It would have been wrong, however, and wasteful, to place the entire burden of this publicity on the Festival office, thus setting up an organization to compete with others more experienced and better qualified in their particular fields. Accordingly it was decided that the Festival organization itself should undertake a basic campaign of information to place before the public the facts about the Festival programme, and should in addition, encourage and assist all other organizations to use the Festival in their own publicity, and in whatever ways best suited to their purpose. Thus, we have enjoyed the help and invaluable co-operation of such bodies as the British Travel and Holidays Association, the British Railways and London Transport Executives, airlines, shipping companies, and many industrial concerns.
The timing of our campaigns, late rather than early, was determined mainly by our ability to sustain them once they were launched, and by the desire to run no risk of the Festival becoming stale, or attracting too large crowds. Among the misconceptions current about the Festival as a whole is the notion that it is intended exclusively for foreign visitors. While hoping that one of its benefits to the nation will be an increase in our tourist trade and its spending power, limitations of transport and accommodation in 1951, will, of necessity, restrict severely the numbers we can expect over and above the normal flow. There is no doubt that those who do come will carry back with them a sense of Britain's continuing vitality as a creative force in the world today.
But the Festival has as great, if not greater, implications for the British people themselves as it has for the rest of the world, and will provide frequent and perhaps unique chances for the expression of what we believe to be the best in our life, tradition and culture. Thus, much of our work has been taken up with attempting to inform correctly the British public themselves of the purpose and scope of the Festival, and to put the South Bank Exhibition, so often mistaken for the Festival itself, into proper perspective as merely the centre piece of a great nation-wide event. (italics for emphasis)
The conduct of these campaigns has conformed, in the main, to normal practice, the Press advertising and creative work in connexion with literature being undertaken by the London Press Exchange, the advertising agents appointed in the same way as for all Government accounts. Much of the credit for what has been achieved is due to their unflagging enthusiasm. Similarly all the printing has been done by His Majesty's Stationery Office, who have given the highest possible consideration to our work.
The technical problems involved in the production of this mass of material have been great. The business of collating information from a great many sources, and ensuring its accuracy before translating it into publicity terms has been a major undertaking. Large quantities require careful planning in advance, and tight schedules have to be adhered to in order to meet distribution dates all over the world.
A field of great magnitude has been the production of guides and catalogues for the seven major exhibitions in the Festival programme, and a programme book for the whole country. These, representing a total printing of nearly three and a half million books in sizes varying from the South Bank catalogue of 608 pages to guide books of ninety-six and seventy-two pages each, represent a unique publishing venture in the time available.
Research into the quantities required in relation to the expected attendances, production time-tables, type-setting, illustrations, the production of the texts themselves, securing the necessary quantities of art and litho paper, binding problems, questions of marketing and handling - all these had to be determined and solved far in advance and called for the highest degree of co-operation amongst the numerous sections of the Festival office and of the trades involved. A small regiment of proof readers, working at high pressure to check the complicated lists of exhibits (20,000 to 30,000 in the South Bank Exhibition catalogue alone) provided a vital link in the production cycle.
That these tasks have been accomplished testifies not only to the drive and energy put into the operation of the plans, but to the intangible but real sense of achievement which everyone working to make 1951 a success feels. The imaginative sweep of the Festival plans, its insistence on high standards, and a sense of history in the making, has compensated many a man and woman for late hours and tired eyes. Those of us who have been working from the beginning have always accepted the challenge implicit in such an undertaking, and have never lost faith in its ultimate success. For, in the last analysis, it will be the Festival itself, rather than any preliminary trumpet blaring which will cause a quickening of the heart throughout the world.
The courage and faith of a nation still able to influence a changing civilization can never in history have been so resolutely demonstrated, or so dramatically confirmed, and the last emotion may well be one of thankfulness for the privilege of having been asked to assist, in however small a way, the realization of these ideals."
Subsequently Sir Paul Wright wrote the following for the R.S.A. Journal in May 1995 for the Society's History Study Group:
The Festival of Britain: some memories
"It is quite an effort now to look back nearly 50 years and remember what Britain was like then. When we started work on the Festival, the war had been over for only three years, the nation was tired, and beginning to be disillusioned; many things, including food, were still rationed; the severity of the winter of 1947/48, one of the worst on record, was increased by shortages of fuel; the honeymoon with the Labour Government was long past; the land was definitely far from being the place fit for heroes to dwell in for which we though we had been fighting.
These were hardly promising circumstances in which to embark on a great creative enterprise. I mentioned 'heroes' and if a Festival of Britain was ever to get off the ground, let alone succeed, it would be an heroic task and would need 'heroes'. Fortunately there were still some left over from the war. The first was undoubtedly Herbert Morrison. He picked up the idea, first mooted in the "News Chronicle" by its editor, Gerald Barry, sold it to the Cabinet and in the face of a certain amount of scepticism set about creating the machinery that would make it possible.
The Government started well. They gave the responsibility for creating and running the Festival to Gerald Barry. It was an inspired appointment; not only was he one of the authors of the concept but he had the one quality essential for success in those circumstances: an inability to recognise the meaning of the phrase 'It can't be done.' He was in my view, the chief 'hero'.
It was in the RSA's building, doubly historic in this context, that the Festival's Executive Committee first met. By the time I arrived on the payroll the festival office had mushroomed to such an extent that it had to move from these hospitable rooms to No. 2 Savoy Court., just around the corner, a late Victorian building with huge, high rooms, mahogany doors and brass fittings and a lift that called for an act of faith when used. My first task, I remember, was to get the Press excited (there was no 'media' in those days) by our cleverness in securing 1951 as our telephone number.
Quite early on it became clear that, under Gerald Barry and the team which he gathered, the concept of the Festival which was taking shape was on a different scale to that envisaged by the Government when Morrison made his first statement in the House of Commons in December 1947. Then the emphasis had been on one major exhibition of Industry and Industrial Design in existing buildings in London with some supporting events, unspecified, elsewhere. But as the horizon widened we began to wonder what exactly we were trying to say - or should be saying. In order to clear our minds and find our bearings, Gerald Barry organised two country weekends for the Executive. In the end we hammered out the message, which turned out to be not surprisingly, the answer to Churchill's famous and defiant taunt to our enemies in the war: "What kind of people do they think we are?" We had to demonstrate to ourselves and to the world, British democracy in action, past, present and future, through the arts and the sciences, and our industrial potential.
It is now time to introduce another of my 'heroes' - G.A. Campbell, the Treasury official brought into the Festival Office in an attempt to control expenditure. But what could have been a Whitehall nark, representing the so-called dead hand of the Treasury turned out to be a terrific asset. The Festival was entirely financed by public funds. Far from living up to his Department's legendary ability to dig in. George Campbell often seemed to actively encourage the spending of money. At least, he always seemed to me to take perverse delight in finding ways round his own regulations. The Festival was originally budgeted at a net cost of £10 million. However, the devaluation crisis in the autumn of 1949 forced strict economies in all Government expenditure from which the Festival was not immune. We had lost £1 million overnight.
The result was some desperate cost-cutting. Even the construction of the South Bank itself was threatened and serious consideration was given to housing the centrepiece in existing buildings, for example the Natural History Museum, christened by Gerald Barry 'the Haunt of the Brontosaurus', no doubt to emphasise its total unsuitability for what we wanted to do. In the end we decided that, whatever else had to go, the South Bank must remain our showcase.
The Festival organisation was a kind of quango, although by no means spectacular by today's standards. Our precise status was, as far as I can remember, never defined. We were paid at civil service rates for grades which someone had thought appropriate. The Festival organisation was crowned by a better sort of quango, a voluntary, advisory Council composed in the good old English way, of the Great and the Good, representing all the facets of the nation's life which the Festival would attempt to reflect. It was presided over by another of my 'heroes', General Lord Ismay, known as "Pug", even to us down the hierarchical line, though never, I think to his face.
The appointment of this wise, urbane, and essentially modest man was a stroke of genius by Morrison, as indeed had been that of Gerald Barry himself. As a figurehead he was ideally placed to keep the peace between the competing interests of the Arts, Industry, government and the people for whose benefit the whole affair was being staged. He it was who saw us through yet another crisis which suddenly blew up to threaten our decorative but still unlaunched ship. Sometime in 1950 the Conservative Party, then in opposition, took fright and began to see the Festival in political terms, rightly guessing that, contrary to their expectations, it risked being a success. So they attacked it with great force and vigour. "Morrison's folly!", they cried; "Socialism through the back door", and so on.
Gerald Barry and I took the editor of the "Evening Standard", which was leading the pack, to dinner at the Garrick Club in the hope of correcting some of the paper's wilder charges and inaccuracies. The result was an even nastier leader the very next day. But General 'Pug' was able to cross these barriers a good deal more effectively than we. He bided his time and then went to see his old boss, Winston Churchill. We were not told exactly what transpired, except that the old man, shortly to become Prime Minister again, was reported as saying, "All right, 'Pug', you old fool, you can have your damned festival" and called off the hounds. The epilogue to this episode was the story of an elderly Peer who stumped back to his Club having visited the South Bank. "How was it?" asked a crony. "Bloody good, I'm sorry to say", was the reply.
Perhaps we took this opposition too seriously. For whatever reason, at about the same time, the Festival began to generate enthusiasm at many levels and in many places. We were all straining to ensure the Festival would be, and be seen to be, a nationwide display of the best of British and not merely a London extravaganza. A number of cities were chosen as Festival centres. Gerald Barry and I and Huw Wheldon, representing the Arts Council on the Executive, visited them all to advise and encourage. What is more, we were compelled to visit some of those who had not been chosen, to smooth ruffled municipal feathers and to encourage them to go it alone. Major exhibitions were organised in Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh; and a floating exhibition was mounted in a mothballed aircraft carrier and sent round the coast. On top of this hundreds of towns and villages had their own programmes ranging from street parties to the installation of new public lavatories. But despite all this activity and a sizeable PR operation to support and encourage it, London remained the main focus. It dominated most of our thought and work and attracted an overwhelming amount of publicity.
Hugh Casson used to say that exhibitions were understandably viewed with suspicion by serious people. Casson was another 'hero', driving a high spirited team of architects whose genius conjured up that magical city of buildings like none we had seen before: new materials and new designs, housing new thoughts and ideas alongside those backward glances at history and tradition which the British so love.
The last months went by in a hazy crescendo of effort. The problem of selecting, assembling, mounting and most tricky of all, captioning over 20,000 exhibits was in itself daunting. Moreover the winter of 1950/51 was the wettest in recorded history, turning the South Bank site into a quagmire;this, and a few strikes in the construction industry, called for drastic action and near dictatorial methods if we were to open on time. We made it by a whisker.
Once up and running, so to speak, the Festival developed other challenges. Crowd control, for example, an art lost during the war for obvious reasons; and with that, litter, the quantity of which had been hopelessly underestimated. Half way through the run of the South Bank attendances began to drop off and we had to rekindle public interest so that George Campbell, not to speak of the taxpayer, would get the expected revenue. We persuaded the long suffering Gerald Barry to make an ascent in a balloon from the site. He took off in the presence of a large number of working journalists with whom he was personally very popular. But this stunt, quite by chance, coincided with the announcement of his knighthood. I give no prizes for guessing what the next day's headlines were.
Some may remember, or may have heard of, A. D. Hippesley-Coxe, one of the outstanding eccentrics of his time. He was, not surprisingly, a member of the Festival Office and an expert in many strange areas, notably the circus. On the strength of this he undertook to produce a Hungarian tightrope walker who would, for a large fee, walk across the Thames on a high wire. After many uncertainties due to linguistic difficulties and the Hungarian's fondness for wine, he finally made the crossing, on a wire from somewhere near Blackfriars station to the South Bank. Half the river's emergency services- police, fire, and ambulance - were afloat beneath him lest he should fall and he was watched by a breathless crowd of 75,000; the largest recorded attendance. He did, in fact, appear to stumble and nearly fall three-quarters of the way across, but we were told afterwards that this was all part of the act.
Eight and a half million people visited the South Bank during its run from May and October (1951), two and a half million during the last month. The largest largest day's attendance was 158,365 . One success, which did not, alas, last was our plan to encourage and increase river traffic and the use of the Thames. By the end of the Festival, over five million people travelled by water.
What did we leave behind? Unlike the Great Exhibition not much that is visible or permanent. The Royal Festival Hall of course, but that was a London County Council project and would almost certainly have been built anyway. The gorgeous pavilions were torn down and replaced by one of the most hostile sites in Europe. The Battersea Fun Fair has gone; the other London exhibitions are mere memories. But I believe that we did liberate a good deal of creative energy and made it possible for arts and tourism to pick themselves up after the war years, and we gave a boost to industry and industrial design. And some names will always be associated with it- Gerald Barry, of course; Hugh Casson, Huw Wheldon, Max Nicholson, Paul Reilly, Ralph Tubbs, Misha Black, James Gardner, and Abram Games to name but a very few. Quite a roll of honour!
If anyone should be foolish to ask my advice about any plans they may be thinking of for 2000 or 2001 as the case may be, I would suggest the following: first find your man - your Gerald Barry; secure your financial base; get commitments of support from all political parties and make sure you have good weather." (note: this was written for the RSA Journal, in May 1995.)