Working 9 to 5 is not enough
QUESTION Did the I’m Backing Britain campaign of the 1960s achieve its aim?
I’m BACKING Britain was a patriotic campaign started by five secretaries in Surbiton, Surrey.
For a brief time it became a popular national movement endorsed by politicians and celebrities, but ultimately ended in confusion and failure.
Under Harold Wilson’s government, the trade deficit was embarrassingly large as a result of the decline in competitiveness and a wish to retain a strong pound. Despite tax increases announced in July 1966, the 1967 Budget set the greatest deficit in post-war history.
On December 28, 1967, five secretaries at Colt Ventilation And Heating Ltd — Valerie White, Joan Southwell, Carol Ann Fry, Christine French and Brenda mumford — aged from 15 to 21, offered to work an extra half-hour unpaid each day to boost the economy.
By New Year’s Day, newspapers reported that the scheme was becoming a national movement. most of Colt’s 750 workers had agreed to join in, as did its directors.
‘ Overall the policy will mean an immediate 7 per cent rise in productivity,’ said the firm’s marketing director, Frederick Price. ‘Think if that was the same all over the country. I think this is the way to solve Britain’s problems.’
The secretaries wrote telegrams to the three main party leaders, archbishops and senior officials of the TUC. They called on every worker to follow their example. Some employees even offered to sacrifice their annual pay rises. Bosses could not believe their luck.
Norprint of Boston, Lincs, gave out 100,000 free badges. Union flags emblazoned with ‘I’m backing Britain’ were sold and the Post Office franked 84 million letters with the slogan.
The hit songwriting duo Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent came up with a tune performed by Bruce Forsyth: I’m backing Britain Yes, I’m backing Britain We’re all backing Britain. The feeling is growing So let’s keep it going The good times are blowing our way. However, there were rumblings of discontent. The unions came out against the campaign. People working for no pay wasn’t to be encouraged.
Thousands of T-shirts were made with the I’m Backing Britain slogan and Union flag. It caused a scandal when it emerged they had ‘made in Portugal’ labels!
Robert maxwell, then a Labour mP, tried to hijack the campaign with his Buy British drive, which confused matters.
Harold Wilson tried to get I’m Backing Britain back on track, stating: ‘There is too much knocking of Britain. What we want is “back Britain”, not back-biting.’
He put Edmund Dell, an mP and wellknown intellectual, in charge of it. But when asked privately what he was doing, he replied: ‘As little as possible.’
The campaign was flagging, Brucie’s song sold only a few thousand copies, but the final nail in the coffin came when Colt workers voted to return to normal hours.
In the 1968 film Carry On Up The Khyber, the raising of a flag with the I’m Backing Britain slogan was greeted with: ‘Of course, they’re all raving mad you know!’
Justin Stewart, Tenby, Pembs.
QUESTION What do the various traffic cone colours represent?
ORANGE traffic cones with reflective sleeves are a temporary way to warn of hazards or mark traffic lanes on roads or for parking. Popular as trophies with tipsy medical students, they have even been used in art installations.
In 2013, the Highways Agency introduced three new colours of cones. Green and white, used in motorway roadworks, indicate an opening to access lanes.
Yellow and white mean no stopping is allowed. These are used where a large volume of traffic is moving at high speed. Blue and white are to make road users aware of overhead problems such as bridges and power lines. They may have yellow ‘Danger Overhead Cables’ sleeves with a lightning bolt. Alan D. Wylie, Coalville, Leics.
QUESTION Where is the quietest place in the world?
WHEREVER you are on Earth, there might be the wind in trees, waves on the shore, birdsong or the constant hum of traffic. Even libraries have quite high background sound levels.
Our brains filter out much of this. If we record a dinner party, it comes as a shock to hear that the overwhelming sound is rattling cutlery and scraping chairs.
Background noise can’t be tolerated in professional recordings and acoustic experiments, which lead to the invention of the anechoic chamber lined with sound absorbing material shaped in wedges or cones. Humans soon begin to feel uncomfortable in such quiet surroundings.
Sound is measured in A-weighted decibels or dBA, a logarithmic scale where zero represents the threshold of human hearing.
The record for an anechoic chamber is one built by microsoft at minus 20.6 dBA, which is, therefore, the quietest place on Earth.
Phil Alexander, Farnborough, Hants.
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