| By
Andrea MacDonald
A woman
who has achieved a "series of firsts" was how Joan Bakewell
was introduced to a packed audience in the Bodleian Library. Her
broadcasting career is long and distinguished and her autobiography
"The Centre of the Bed" illustrates how her life and career
reflect the social changes of the post-war period, particularly
in education and women's liberation. It was this sociological aspect
that Ms Bakewell chose to talk about, rather than the more salacious
aspects of her life such as her affair with Harold Pinter.
She
was born five years after women got the vote and went to Cambridge
seven years after women were able to receive their degrees. These
statistics startle when one looks at the woman making them. She
is attractive, exceedingly vital, if not now the "thinking
man's crumpet" of the sixties, a label which has dogged her
over the years.
It
is the 成人快手 which Bakewell focuses on, throwing herself open to any
questions as she is no longer answerable to the corporation. In
these post-Hutton Blairite days Ms Bakewell harks back to an era
when the 成人快手 provided "an arena in which society could debate".
She
makes incisive comments on the 1960s: a "culturally flourishing"
period in which TV drama could make news and have an effect. She
laments the multiplicity of channels and the multimedia age which
robs TV of its ability to unite society in the discussion of social
issues. While she is wary of the phrase "dumbing down"
in relation to the 成人快手 she is vitriolic about the damaging nature
of the Hutton saga: "it is complicated and it is disastrous".
The
audience received Ms Bakewell's opinions warmly and with real affection;
if anyone dared call this intelligent broadcaster "crumpet"
they would have had an angry Bodleian mob on their hands.
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