How soaps cleaned up
QUESTION Why are soap operas so called? What was the first?
The first soap operas were radio serials from the early Thirties called washboard weepies — short entertainments that housewives could enjoy.
Among the first major sponsors of these serials were Procter & Gamble (P&G), Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. Because so many of these sponsors were soap manufacturers, they earned the nickname ‘soap operas’.
In 1923, Ivory Soap created, in comic strip format, a drama about the Jollyco family, composed of Mr and Mrs Jollyco and their three children, whose lives revolved around soap.
In the late Twenties, Procter & Gamble invited Irna Phillips to reproduce the Ivory Soap success on radio. She created a serial narrative called Painted Dreams, a daily 15-minute episodic show that aired in 1930.
Phillips not only wrote the series, but also played the lead character, the elderly, widowed Mother Moynihan, coping with the realities of the Depression era living in Chicago.
In 1933, Ma Perkins became the first real Queen of the Soaps and truly launched the genre. It was sponsored by Oxydol and P&G soap and first aired on Cincinnati’s WLW, soon going national on the NBC network. The 15-minute show ran five days a week and referred to Oxydol 20 times each episode.
Initially, this over-exposure caused a raft of complaints, but eventually listeners warmed to the format and Ma Perkins, played by 23-year-old Virginia Payne, became America’s beloved ‘mother of the air’. Fans wrote in asking for advice on their personal lives. The series was produced by Frank and Anne hummert, with other successful shows including The Romance Of helen Trent (1933-60) and Backstage Wife (1935-59).
In 1944, Lever Brothers sponsored TV versions of two radio soaps, Big Sister and Aunt Jenny’s True Life Stories on Dumont’s New York station. Two years later, Faraway hill, also on Dumont, became the first networked TV soap opera. Britain’s first TV soap opera was The Grove Family which began on the BBC on April 9, 1954. Jayne Barron, Lincoln. The Grove Family was made and broadcast by the BBC from 1954 to 1957 and was claimed to have been viewed by almost a quarter of British people with a TV during 1954.
The family was named after the BBC’s Lime Grove Studios. It was written by Roland and Michael Pertwee, father and elder brother of the actor Jon Pertwee.
The series featured the trials and tribulations of the seven members of a lower middle-class family living in a neat double-fronted house, with father’s builder’s yard attached, in a quiet road in the London suburb of hendon.
A movie version, produced during 1955 by the Butcher’s company, was called It’s A Great Day!.
My late father, Nat Miller, was an executive producer on the movie and as a young girl I met the cast several times during filming. I still have some show stills in my photo collection. The film has recently been shown several times on the Talking Pictures TV channel. Judy Miller, London NW7.
QUESTION What is the origin of the expression ‘beside myself’?
ThIS is one of the most intriguing idioms in the english language. The idea can be traced back to ancient Greece, where it was believed that experiencing an extreme emotion — distress or euphoria — induced a person’s soul to leave the body and stand beside them. Their word for ecstasy meant ‘standing out of the body’.
The expression was introduced into english in the 15th century. In 1476, William Caxton (1422-1492), who had learned the art of printing in Cologne while translating The Recuyell Of The histories Of Troye from French to english, established england’s printing press at Westminster. In 1490, Caxton published eneydos — better known as The Aeneid by Virgil. Describing Dido’s grief at Aeneas’s departure, it said: ‘She sawe the saylles, wyth the flote of the shippes that made good waye. Thenne byganne she, for grete distresse, to bete & smyte thre or four tymes wyth her fyste strongly ayenst her brest & to pulle her fayr heres from her hed, as mad & beside herself.’ Caxton had translated the French phrase hors de soi as ‘beside herself’. The idea was that powerful emotion had led Dido’s mind to escape her control and she wasn’t herself. Dan Jackson, Wolverhampton, W. Mids. QUESTION During the world wars, were battlefield ambulances and medics respected by all the combatants? AS SuGGeSTeD in the previous answer, the Japanese had no respect whatsoever for medics and nurses. This was highlighted in the St Stephen’s College massacre in hong Kong and the Alexandra hospital massacre in Singapore.
In hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941, Japanese soldiers slaughtered 170 recuperating soldiers and a few hospital staff. The eyes, ears, noses, tongues or limbs were cut off many victims. Seventy of the soldiers were killed with swords while they were lying in bed and the hospital’s seven nurses were raped.
In Singapore on February 14/15, 1942, around 250 victims, mainly British, were murdered in the Alexandra hospital. Patients were stabbed in their beds and even on the operating table along with several of the surgeons.
The Red Cross was never respected by the Japanese during World War II. Cecil Lowry, author of No Mercy From The Japanese, Stockport.
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