Mrs Dale's Diary was the first significant BBC radio serial drama, first broadcast on the Home Service on 5 January 1948. It was broadcast twice daily on weekdays, with the afternoon episode being repeated on the following morning. The lead character, Mrs Dale, was played by Ellis Powell until she was replaced by Jessie Matthews in 1963. An innovative charateristic of the "Diary" was a brief introductory narrative in each episode, which was spoken by Mrs Dale as if she were writing in her diary. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC, sometimes also known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, founded in 1922. ... The BBC Home Service was the original name for Radio 4 and was on the air from 1939 until 30 September 1967. ... January 5 is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Jessie Matthews, OBE (March 11, 1907 - August 19, 1981) was a popular British actress and singer of the 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ...

The basic storyline was that of a doctor's wife, Mrs Mary Dale, her husband Jim, and the comings and goings of a fundamentally middle-class society. The Dales lived at Virginia Lodge in the fictional London suburb of Parkwood Hill. This was based upon the real area of Kenton in the London Borough of Brent. Later in the series, the family relocated to the fictional new town of Exton. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... For other uses, see London (disambiguation). ...

Mrs. Dale's mother was Mrs. Freeman, whom Jim always called, rather gravely, "mother-in-law". The family had one daughter, Gwen, and a son, Bob. Bob was married to Jenny, who had twins; Gwen was widowed after her husband David was killed in a water-skiing accident in the Bahamas where he was holidaying with his rich mistress. The Dales and their friends (and Captain the cat, named after the character in Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas) got along together in almost perfect harmony. It was all very respectable, comfortable and middle-class, although one of the characters, an artist named Jago Peters and played by a young Derek Nimmo, had once tried to use a neighbour's Scandinavian au pair as a nude model. Under Milk Wood was originally a radio play and later a stage play by Dylan Thomas. ... Dylan Marlais Thomas, (October 27, 1914 – November 9, 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer. ... Derek Robert Nimmo (September 19, 1930 - February 24, 1999) was a British character actor, particularly associated with upper-class silly-ass roles. ... Au pair is a French term that means equal to, and describes a young person living on an equal basis with a host family in a foreign country. ...

In 1961, the serial was renamed The Dales. The linking narratives by Mrs. Dale were dropped at this time. 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ...

Infamously, Ellis Powell was sacked at this time from the role of Mary Dale. Many allegations were made against her by the BBC, who castigated her for what went on in her private life in those more innocent times. Powell denied everything and when the play (and later film) The Killing of Sister George premiered, she tried (unsucessfully) to sue playwright Frank Marcus, claiming that the central character, an embittered, lesbian alcoholic who had been sacked from a daily serial was based on her. Lord Olivier, who adored "The Dales" (indeed he was a fan of British soap opera per se, and always expressed a desire to appear in Coronation Street, a wish that was sadly never fulfilled) referred to Jessie Matthews being cast as Mrs Dale "The most wonderful example of mis-casting in the history of the profession". The Killing of Sister George is a 1964 play by Frank Marcus. ... Laurence Olivier, as photographed in 1939 by Carl Van Vechten Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907–11 July 1989) was an Oscar winning English actor and director, regarded by many critics as the greatest actor of the 20th century. ... Coronation Street is Britains longest-running television soap opera, and, according to the people who make it, the UKs consistently highest-rated show. ...

In its last few years, "The Dales" became more sensationalist. Mrs Dale became a local counciller, a position she had to relinquish when she caused a man's death by careless driving. Bob died of a massive heart attack after suffering from months of panic attacks due to the stress of running his own business. Perhaps the most famous storyline was Jenny getting measles...listeners wrote in their (literally) thousands, complaining that she had already had measles in 1949!!!

When it became "The Dales", the show did try to copy The Archers, which was originally set up primarily as a medium to disseminate information to the agricultural community, and to give an insight into rural affairs to the general public. Thus medical stories became the order of the day in The Dales, Doctor Jim Dale no longer being a private doctor but a member of a group practice in the NHS. In this manner, The Dales became in the mid 1960's very much like the current BBC One soap opera Doctors, with the plots revolving around medical conditions and problems. The Archers is a British radio soap opera broadcast on the BBCs main national spoken-word radio channel, Radio 4. ...

It was an extremely brave move to feature a gay man in the series, especially when it must be considered that homosexuality was still illegal in the United Kingdom then, and thus The Dales has become something of a gay icon. Listening to archive footage now - and there isn't much (the BBC scandalously destroyed over 4000 episodes of the show) - shows the character to be sympathetic, "ordinary", and thus the show's writers and producers should be praised for that.

The Dales problem was that, in the swinging Sixties, it was looking more and more out of touch with reality (cynics have said that was why the gay storyline was introduced, in an attempt to be "with it"). Mary Quant famously said that Broadcasting House was only a rolling stone's throw from Carnaby Street. Alf Garnett delighted - and infuriated - the nation when Till Death Us Do Part started in 1966, the students rioted at LSE in 1967 and in Paris in 1968 and The Beatles were on retreat in India in 1968, and the BBC of Hugh Carleton Greene was becoming more embarrassed about the quaintly outdated "Dales" and their anachronistic "middle class values". When Jim said he was going to retire, as Hilary Kinglsey, the respected British critic said "...tea slopped into saucers all over the land." Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC in London, England. ... Londons Carnaby Street is in the district of Soho and just to the east of Regent Street. ... Til Death Us Do Part (also known as Till Death Us do Part)1 was a BBC television sitcom series written by Johnny Speight that ran from 1964 until 1974. ... The Beatles were an English pop and rock music group from Liverpool, who continue to be held in the very highest regard for their artistic achievements, their huge commercial success, and their ground-breaking role in the history of popular music. ... Sir Hugh Carleton Greene (1910-1987) was Director-General of the BBC from 1960 to 1969, and is generally credited with modernising an organisation that had fallen behind in the wake of the launch of ITV in 1955. ...

The series ran for 5,531 episodes, culminating with the engagement of Mrs Dale's daughter Gwen to a famous TV professor on April 25, 1969. On news of its demise, Liberal party MP Peter Bessell attempted to introduce a reprieve for the series in Parliament. April 25 is the 115th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (116th in leap years). ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ...

A stock expression in Mrs. Dale's narrative was "I'm rather worried about Jim...". It seemed as if this cropped up every day, and the phrase was avidly seized upon by caricaturists. Indeed, the phrase was a staple of many "comedy" programmes, radio and television, in the early Sixties aiming to poke fun at safe, staid and undemanding middle-class lifestyles. In particular, this was the basis of Mrs Wilson's Diary in the fortnightly satirical magazine Private Eye. The writers presented Mrs Wilson as seeing herself as comfortably middle class, in contrast to the middle class pretensions as opposed to working class actuality of her husband, for example the Wincarnis (a brand of tonic wine) and the worsted suits with two pairs of trousers (Wilson was from Huddersfield, famous for the manufacture of worsted cloth). Private eye may mean: Look up Private eye on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Private Eye a fortnightly British satirical magazine-newspaper, edited by Ian Hislop (as of 2005) A private investigator, a private detective for hire (see also crime fiction and detective fiction) Private Eye, a song by Alkaline Trio... Worsted is the name of both a yarn, usually made from wool, and the cloth made from this yarn. ... James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was one of the most prominent and successful British politicians of the 20th Century. ... Huddersfield is a large town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees within the County of West Yorkshire in England. ...

Another famous send-up was the Nineteen Eighty-Five episode of The Goon Show in which mention is made of Mrs Dale's Real Diary: DVD of The Last Goon Show of All, aired by the BBC in 1972. ...

Seagoon: I want to read it. What's it called?

Bluebottle: It's called Mrs Dale's Real Diary.

Seagoon: Mrs Dale's...?? Heavens -- would the BBC stop at nothing? So this was how they kept the masses from thinking.

Bluebottle: Eheehee! Look at this page! Eheehee! It's a Three-D picture of Mrs Dale in her nightshirt being chased by Richard Dimblebee... Eheehee! Eheeheehee! Eheeheeoooooughhhh... pauses to wipe drool off chin.

EPISODE OF "THE GOON SHOW", "THE HISTORY OF PLINY THE ELDER" Richard Dimbleby CBE (May 25, 1913–December 22, 1965) was a British journalist and broadcaster. ...

SEAGOON: Fear not! We shall fight them up hill and down Mrs Dale!

External link

• Nostalgic look at Mrs Dale's Diary