HSIktVHJM RadioTimes 35 MARYLEBONE HIGH STREET, LONDON W1M 4AA. TEL 01-580 5577. Published ON THURSDAY BY BBC Publications. VOL 223 No 2894 © BBC 1979 In the week of a General Election RADIOTIMES provides some of the electoral background to aid listeners and viewers sitting up all night. And, of course, there is the usual wide variety of BBCtv and Radio programmes this week. itzmaurice conserver, "":' 'and thus' has an eye trained to recognise the fake. He presents a new BBC2 series The Genuine Article; David Benedictus finds out about his provenance 4 John Tooley h is General Administrator I ** PM '..," Administrator Royal Opera �..'.",.,',"'.,..',..',,"'...',".'."','..',",..'".,.".,,.,., ":"ii:'\..ilH House Covent Garden. David Gillard follows him through a working day 9 Looking forward to the Bath Festival 13 Peter Seabrook writes on annuals. Bill Sowerbutts answers questions 14 The Leader of the Labour Party, James Callaghan, 0 La Boheme (9.10 BBC2) * The News Huddlines » , . and the Leader of concludes Opera Month. (10.2 Radio 2) embarks NEXT WEEK the on a seventh series. Conservatives, Month Margaret Thatcher 17 0 BBC2's Opera continues with a Bolshoi Map of the 18 marginals of Mick Brown visits production 0 Ten Years of THURSDAY Khovanshchina (8.10, also four marginal Yesterday's Witness are � BBC2's Douglas Sirk constituencies 19 on Radio 3). See page 35. renewed on BBC2 (7.40). film season starts with 0 The last of The Roger Woddis day 0 Film director Douglas Written on the Wind World on the Election 29 Embassy Sirk is profiled and Shockproof, both in Films Professional Snooker in Behind the Mirror Midweek Cinema by is featured Sheridan Morley 29 Championship (10.30 BBC2). Double Bill (9.30). in Snooker (5.0 and 11.20 0 In Conversation Piece Preview by 0 It's Susan Hill 31 BBC2) and visited in (10.40 Radio 4UK) Grandstand (12.30 BBC1). Sue meets Polling Day. Programme pages start 33 MacGregor BBCl's 0 Radio 4UK sets off crime writer Ed McBain. Frequencies 55 round the smaller British election results service Fifty years ago 63 isles in Offshore Britons opens with Decision 79 Local radio 88 (10.15). (10.55). The Radio 4UK Letters 89 0 This week's Chandler 0 Miss Scotland 1979 coverage starts at 9.30 BBC2 gets down to Brass with Countdown to Tacks on the farm. There OQ^| Tom was film is The Brasher (8.10 BBC1) is a change Doubloon from other elections. Number Ten; Radio 2 has are radio phone-ins to fol- �H patriarch (12.10 am BBC2). TIMES looks of a group � BBC1's cameras Jimmy Young's Election low and RADIO " «H go at the and cons of ^ of farmyard Behind the Scenes at Night Special 79 (11.2). pros *\JPi organic and factory farm- SUNDAYCovent Garden ....'. " .A! Devon. ing. Nepal's crumbling 0 Beecham Conducts Bizet (9.40). See 9. For a year little that he page FR IDAY temples are featured in and his fellow cats did (3.30 Radio 3) marks 0 Top Gear (10.30 BBC2) The World About Us and went unnoticed by the 100th anniversary of returns for motorists. 0 For we meet an architect work- science. Nigel Hawkes Sir Thomas's birth with details of ing on them. British girls observes the observers 92 a 1949 performance of WEDNESDAY continuing compete in the European The Fair Maid Perth. see Ladies' Gymnastics Cham- Review by of -Election coverage Noel Coward's Robert Cushman of 0 The World About Us 0 The Genuine Article pionship. programme pages. Design Living is Play Out 102 the 0 The ABA for Coming spies upon private (7.55 BBC2) Championship of the Month. I Didn't View by Peter Brookes 102 life of The Curious Cat starts a weekly look at Finals of 1979 are Know You Cared returns. Cover by Stephen Dalton (7.25 BBC2). See page 92. faked antiques. See page 4. also fought (10.50 BBC1), for another series. Decision 79, Thursday 10.55 BBC1; Election Breakfast, Friday 7.0 am BBC1; Election Question Time, Friday 9.0 am BBC1; Decision for the 80s, Friday 10.0 am BBC1; Election Summary, Friday 12.0 BBC1; Election Round-Up, Friday 9.25 BBC1; The Election Results, Friday 6.0 am BBC2; Jimmy Young's Election Night Special 79, Thursday 11.2 Radio 2; Jimmy Young's Election Special 79, Friday 11.3 Radio 2; Election Results, Friday 7.5 am Radio 3; Countdown to Number Ten, Thursday 9.30, Friday 10.45 Radio 4UK; Today-and the Election, Friday 6.0 am Radio 4UK; and coverage on all BBC Local Radio stations The General Election campaign reaches its climax this week. Here we sum up the political careers of the leaders and provide a guide to constituencies where the result hangs very finely in the balance The leading question When Harold Wilson, as he then was, resigned as Labour Prime and a Rt Hon in 1970 when Minister a little over three years appointed Secretary of State for ago, it was almost certain that Education and Science in the his Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon Heath government. In the Tory James Callaghan, would get the government from 1961 to 1964 job of forming the next Labour she had been Joint Parliamen- government. As it happened, in Revenue Staff Federation, and Margaret Thatcher took over as tary Secretary to the Minister of the ballot of Labour MPs to was elected to the executive head of the Tory Shadow Cabi- Pensions and National Insurance. elect the next leader of the before becoming a full-time net when the Conservatives A grocer's daughter from Parliamentary Labour Party, he official of the union in 1936. deposed Ted Heath-the man Grantham, she was born on 13 was nearly pipped at the post by His parliamentary career who had called the first of the October 1925, and went to the left-wing candidate, Michael began in 1945 with the landslide 1974 General Elections which school locally before going up to Foot. But after coming from be- Labour victory after the war. the Party lost to Labour. Her Oxford to read chemistry. After hind Mr Callaghan won the MP for the safe Labour seat of victory in that election - for the college, while earning a living as deciding ballot, becoming Prime South Cardiff, his first govern- Tory Party leadership - was un- a research chemist in industry, Minister on 5 April 1976. ment job - Parliamentary Secre- expected, coming as it did she studied law and was called Leonard James Callaghan was tary to the Minister of Transport against seasoned Tory politi- to the Bar in 1953. - born in Portsmouth, the son of came two years later. A mem- cians like Willie Whitelaw, Elected as the Tory member a Petty Officer in the Royal ber of the government or the and especially because she for Finchley in 1959, she held Navy, on 27 March 1912. After Shadow Cabinet since then, he was a woman - the first to the seat for the Conservatives leaving Portsmouth Northern has held all the top government lead her Party. until 1974 when it became Secondary Srhool, at the age of posts - successively Chancellor Not that she was totally Barnet, Finchley. In 1974 she 17 he entered the Civil Service of the Exchequer, Home Secre- unused to high office. Margaret was returned, becoming the as a tax officer. He joined the tary and Foreign Secretary - Hilda Thatcher was made a Tory Party leader less than a taxman's union, the Inland before reaching Number Ten. member of the Privy Council year later. The narrowest margins However swings and roundabouts are calculated, some seats are more marginal than others. Our map (left) shows the most marginal of all, and Mick Brown looks closely at four of them, held by the candidates below Town and gown THE SIGHT of puzzled and frus- trated motorists negotiating the warren of one-way streets around the spired and gabled gothic fantasies of Oxford's ancient colleges encapsulates the abiding concerns of this most picturesque of all English towns. Education is Oxford's raison d'etre; BL's (British Leyland) Morris-Austin works and Pressed Steel Fisher body- plant at Cowley the town's principal source of employ- ment. The fact that the issue of conservation - which is a sub- ject of constant debate - hinges on how best to preserve the character of Oxford in the face of an escalating volume of traffic adds a certain irony to the equation. With truly academic ingenuity, the town- planners have set about solving the problem with a one-way system and a method of park- ing-payment which local resi- dents complain requires a decree in logic to fathom. The two distinct facets of Oxford life are heightened by the town's geography. To the west of the Magdalen Bridge lie the town centre, the colleges and halls of residence and, be- yond, the wide and prosperous avenues of Oxford's profes- sional classes. To the east lies the second student quarter, with its book- and health-food shops and rows of postwar terraces leading to the sprawl- ing Cowley complex with its satellites of service industries and housing estates. If a land- scape can be said to reflect poli- tical division then Oxford's per- fectly reflects the almost equal distribution of votes between the Conservative and Labour candidates at the last election, Labour taking the seat by a maiority of 1,036. Fittingly enough, the candi- dates for the campaign in Ox- ford show a distinctly academic leaning.