410 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
410 lines
19 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
news
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obituaries
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culture-obituaries
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tv-radio-obituaries
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6605110
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-----
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# Mary Whitehouse
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## Mary Whitehouse, who has died aged 91, battled for more than 30 years
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against the liberal orthodoxy which was loth to acknowledge that sex and
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violence on television might produce any harmful effect.
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![Mary Whitehouse][1]
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Photo: GETTY
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12:01AM GMT 24 Nov 2001
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[Comments][2]
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The Clean Up Television campaign, which she founded in 1964 - a year later it
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became the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association - denounced "the
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propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt that the BBC projects into millions of
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homes through the television screens".
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The determination with which Mrs Whitehouse pressed home her attack earned her
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vilification from all quarters of the permissive society. Students bellowed
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obscenities, intellectuals affected a lofty disdain, satirists pilloried her,
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lunatics sent death threats, and for four years the BBC (always her prime
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target) refused to allow her to appear on its programmes.
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This last infliction seemed to rankle more than the others. The only person
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who moved her to bitterness was Sir Hugh Greene, Director General of the BBC
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from 1960 to 1969 - "the devil incarnate", as she once called him.
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"He is the man I hold most responsible for the state of our country today,"
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she remarked in 1993. For 11 years hardly a week went by without a sniping
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reference to me. And he gave access to anyone who was prepared to say anything
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morally subversive. They censored me, while accusing us of wanting to impose
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censorship on television."
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There was, indeed, something pathological in Sir Hugh's attitude towards Mrs
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Whitehouse. He purchased a naked portrait of her, adorned with six breasts, by
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Lawrence Isherwood and (it was said) would amuse himself by throwing darts at
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this picture, squealing with pleasure as he made a hit.
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By comparison Mary Whitehouse seemed well-adjusted and good-humoured. "I never
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had any hang-ups about sex," she claimed. "As for being sexually repressed,
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nothing could be further from the truth. There are more hang-ups now than ever
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there were when I was growing up." She was, she protested, amusing and full of
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fun. "I am not narrow-minded or old-fashioned. But I am square, and proud of
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it, if that means having a sense of values."
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This inner certitude, deriving from a firm Christian faith, left Mary
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Whitehouse impervious to sneers. From the beginning she believed that she was
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backed by a vast silent majority; and in the 1980s the menace of Aids - "a
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judgment we have brought upon ourselves" - began to undermine the confidence
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of her libertarian opponents.
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Suddenly she even gained a respectful audience among the young. In 1986, after
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she had chilled the Cambridge Union with the horrors perpetrated upon
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children, the House voted 331 to 151 that censorship was a lesser evil than
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pornography.
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Yet, as far as cleaning up television was concerned, her campaign failed. In
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the 1960s she had found matter for objection in such programmes as _Up The
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Junction_, _The Man From Uncle_, and _Dr Who_; even Lord Snowdon's documentary
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on the aged drew her disapproval.
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Twenty years on, these broadcasts seemed tame indeed. In 1987 Mary Whitehouse
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was concentrating her attention on a scene between homosexuals in
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_EastEnders_, fulminating against a male bottom that moved up and down in _The
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Singing Detective_, and expressing her disgust at the barbecuing and
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consumption of two policemen in the French satirical film _Themroc_.
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By 1993 she was not even bothering to object to the late-night screening of
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_The Good Sex Guide_, reserving her criticism only for the failure of the
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programme to mention love, tenderness or marriage.
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Latterly her attention was increasingly absorbed by satellite television -
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"our greatest challenge yet". An Italian programme called _Strip Poker_ had
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sounded the alarm in 1989: "If that came over here I would want to tackle it
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at source - via the Vatican."
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But if Mary Whitehouse failed to halt the increasing portrayal of sex and
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violence on television, she was unquestionably a force to be taken into
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account. This was especially true after Sir Hugh Greene left the BBC in 1969:
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Lord Hill, the chairman of the governors, proved far more sympathetic to her
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lobbying.
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Though broadcasters still regarded her as a nuisance, she was a nuisance of
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whom it was politic to take notice. Her pronouncement in 1986 that Jeremy
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Isaacs was "not right" as a candidate for Director General certainly did not
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count in his favour.
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Mary Whitehouse could also claim to have influenced various pieces of
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legislation: the Protection of Children Act (1978), which attempted to curb
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the pornographic exploitation of minors; the Indecent Displays Act (1981),
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which controlled the display of pornography in shop windows and on magazine
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covers; and the Video Recordings Act (1984) which attached classifications to
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videos for hire.
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In 1988 the Government set up the Broadcasting Standards Committee under Lord
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Rees-Mogg, provoking a chorus of outrage. "Mary Whitehouse has won, hasn't
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she," Jilly Cooper trilled. "I mean she apsolootly has." It was true, at
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least, that Mrs Thatcher seemed to approve of Mrs Whitehouse.
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Other potential allies, though, felt that she had scattered her shot too wide,
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seemingly as concerned to eliminate the occasional "damn" or "bloody" as to
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prevent the worst excesses of pornography or violence.
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"Mary Whitehouse has been right about many things in the last 15 or 20 years,"
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wrote Richard Last, _The Daily Telegraph_'s former television critic. "But she
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was so narrow and obsessional that it has been virtually impossible for any
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average, respectable liberal to condemn the same things as she has done
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without being considered over the top or `one of the Whitehouse brigade'."
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But moderation was not Mrs Whitehouse's style. She believed the post-war years
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had seen a deliberate conspiracy to undermine the nation's moral fibre. "The
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enemies of the West," she said in 1965, "saw that Britain was the kingpin of
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Western civilisation; she had proved herself unbeatable on the field of battle
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because of her faith and her character. If Britain was to be destroyed, those
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things must be undercut."
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Such sentiments were well calculated to appeal to the puritan heart of
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Britain, which Mrs Whitehouse knew as her own.
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She was born Mary Hutcheson, the second of four children, on June 13 1910. Her
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Scottish father had dreamt of being a professional artist; necessity made him
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a gentleman's outfitter and later a cattle food sales representative in
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Cheshire. Her mother, a resourceful and energetic woman, kept the wolf from
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the door by dressmaking.
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Young Mary was educated at Chester City Grammar School, where she proved a
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spirited child - "a tearaway", as she liked to remember - and an exceptionally
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good tennis player. Indeed, Cheshire County Tennis Association offered
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coaching that might have taken her far in the game.
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As luck would have it, though, she had already accepted a bursary that
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committed her to the teaching profession. So Mary Hutcheson studied art at the
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County Training College, and from 1932 to 1940 taught at Wednesfield School,
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Wolverhampton.
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When she was 20 she fell in love with a 36-year-old married man - though, as
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she stressed, "there was no misbehaving". The affair, such as it was, ended
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when Mary Hutcheson saw the man's wife looking desolate. "I just knew," she
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recalled, "that if I was the cause of so much unhappiness, our relationship
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could not be right."
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By that time she had become involved in the Moral Rearmament movement, through
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which, in 1932, she met Ernest Whitehouse, a sheet metal worker whom she
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married in 1940. For the next 20 years Mrs Whitehouse was busy bringing up a
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young family in Wolverhampton, though there was another excursion into
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teaching, at Brewood Grammar School in 1943. She continued to be a member of
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Moral Rearmament, though she was not active in the movement.
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In 1960 she returned to teaching as Senior Mistress and Senior Art Mistress at
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Madeley School in Shropshire, where she gave sex education classes that laid
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emphasis on the conjugal bond as the sole permitting factor.
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It was the Profumo scandal that first disturbed this anonymous provincial
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existence. Mrs Whitehouse heard of three 14-year-old girls who took up
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prostitution after seeing television coverage which dealt with the
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professional activities of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. "Poor
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kids," she reflected, "they didn't get very far with it, thank goodness."
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Her own pupils gave her the final push. "The girls I taught would be waiting
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for me at the school gate the morning after a programme on sex. I remember
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after a particular one on premarital sex, one girl enthusiastically came up to
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me to say, `I know what's right now, Miss. I can have intercourse when I'm
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engaged, can't I?' That's what the programme had done for her."
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The possibility of adolescent irony did not strike Mary Whitehouse. With
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another housewife, she called a meeting in Birmingham Town Hall and formed the
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Clean Up Television Campaign. She hotly denied the active support of Moral
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Rearmament, but later admitted that "without its ideals I cannot see that I
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would have been interested in starting this campaign".
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Thus fortified, Mary Whitehouse threw up her teaching post to concentrate her
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fire upon the upper echelons at the BBC and, to a lesser extent, the ITA.
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Within a year she claimed to have won the support of "half a million
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housewives, the Chief Constables of Britain, MPs, bishops, leaders of all
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churches, city councils and people of standing throughout the country". The
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postman delivered 250 letters a day.
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"Before I started the campaign," she recalled, "I had an almost pathological
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fear of publicity, and for the first few years afterwards I was permanently
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sick in the stomach with apprehension." It was a malady that she conquered.
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She proved more than willing to resort to the courts when unfairly attacked.
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In 1965 the _Daily Mail_ had to pay pounds 500 for quoting some frivolously
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deprecatory remarks Ned Sherrin had made about her; and two years later Johnny
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Speight, the author of _Till Death Us Do Part_, suffered similarly for
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describing her as a "fascist".
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Mrs Whitehouse also used the law aggressively, bringing a private prosecution
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for blasphemous libel against _Gay News_ and its editor Denis Lemon in 1977.
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The case was taken over by the Crown, which secured a conviction; Lemon was
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fined and given a suspended jail sentence of nine months.
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In 1983, though, Mrs Whitehouse was ordered to pay £14,000 costs after
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withdrawing her action against Michael Bogdanov, who had staged a homosexual
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rape in the National Theatre production, _The Romans in Britain_.
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And in 1985 she was left with costs of £30,000 - subsequently paid by an
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anonymous donor - when the Court of Appeal overruled a High Court decision
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condemning a rape scene in _Scum_, a film depicting violent life in Borstal.
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There were, however, programmes that Mary Whitehouse liked, notably _Dixon of
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Dock Green_, which she presented with a special award in 1967. She also
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enjoyed the Wimbledon fortnight on television, snooker tournaments, nature
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programmes and _Neighbours_.
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Mary Whitehouse's status as a national figure was confirmed in 1989, on the
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25th anniversary of her campaign. The Archibishop of Canterbury thanked her
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for "indefatigable work", and the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher,
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acknowledged her part in making the public aware of the dangers to the
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stability of society from an excess of violence and sex on television.
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An accident in her garden in 1988 fractured her lower spine and forced her to
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give up gardening, her favourite hobby. Latterly, she lived in a nursing home
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in Essex.
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She wrote five books: _Cleaning Up TV _(1966); _Who Does She Think She Is?_
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(1971); _Whatever Happened to Sex? _(1977); _A Most Dangerous Woman? _(1982);
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and _Mightier than the Sword _(1985).
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She was appointed CBE in 1980.
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Her husband Ernest, who helped her greatly in her work, died last year. They
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are survived by their three sons.
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## [TV & Radio Obituaries][8]
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