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Saturday, January 31, 2004

Who is Hardiman Scott?

I am somewhat puzzled - what is the relation between Charlotte Smith's poetry and Hardiman Scott.

And is the Hardiman Scott of 'Secret Sussex' (1949) fame the same Hardiman Scott (Jack (Peter) Hardiman Scott, born April 2, 1920; died September 15, 1999) who was a political correspondent for the BBC in the 1950s and '60s. Although he was a Suffolk man rather than Sussex, and is the Hardiman Scott who produced a book on the love poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Don't wish to seem a pedant but my curiosity was aroused by Simon Hoggart's reference to Hardiman Scott today in the context of him embodying Lord Hutton's preferred style of journalism. I'm afraid he was a little before my time.

Even more frustratingly an appreciation piece following up on the Guardian obituary quotes from a poem by Hardiman Scott in the volume 'Part Of Silence,' titled "On seeing myself on television 10 years earlier".

I know that, given the technology,
there is a quite simple explanation:
impulses are stored on videotape,
so that bits of the past, of me, can be
reconstituted, stuck on the present.
There I am uncomfortably set in time
forgotten, to be remembered when chance
requires another look, or to be cut
into extinction by someone else who,
looking back decided on another view.

However, there is no evidence of any such film of Hardiman Scott's journalistic past on the BBCi website or anywhere else on the Net.

For that matter are there any archive footage areas of the BBC site yet.

Posted by Nick @ 13:09 GMT

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