50. Letter to Rayner Heppenstall

The British Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcasting House, London, W1

24 August 1943

Dear Rayner,

Thanks for yours. I hope your new post isn’t too bloody. I’ll try & fit in a talk for you in our next literary lot, but that will be 6 weeks or more from now — schedule is full up till then.

I wonder would you feel equal to featurizing a story? We do that now abt once in 3 weeks. I featurized the first 2 myself, choosing Anatole France’s Crainquebille & Ignazio Silone’s The Fox (these are ½ hour programmes). I am probably going to hand the job of featurizing future ones over to Lionel Fielden, but he won’t necessarily do it every time. The chief difficulty is picking suitable stories, as they must be a.

approximately right length, b. have a strong plot, c. not too many characters & d. not be too local, as these are for India. Have you any ideas? I could send you a specimen script & no doubt you could improve on my technique of featurization.

Re cynicism, you’d be cynical yourself if you were in this job. However I am definitely leaving it in abt 3 months. Then by some time in 1944 I might be near-human again & able to write something serious. At present I’m just an orange that’s been trodden on by a very dirty boot.

Yours

Eric