1 Once a Caian Issue 14 FINAL 9-14_Once a Caian... 9-12 Issue 12 24/09/2014 14:01 Page 2
2 Once a Caian...
Sir David Frost (1958) – still a hint of the goalkeeper in the young TV presenter
That Was The Life That Was
A
s I sat in a packed Westminster Abbey amongst thousands of the great and the good who had come to pay their last respects at the memorial service for Sir David Frost (1958), I cast my mind back to the young man who had arrived in Caius on the same day as me in October 1958, and reflected on the significance of what he had achieved in his remarkable career. On his arrival at Caius his sole claim to fame was that he had rejected the offer of professional terms to become a goalkeeper for Nottingham Forest. The otherwise rather anonymous young grammar school boy came from a very sheltered and modest clerical home life. Amongst other constraints, his family life involved going to church three times every Sunday, not reading Sunday newspapers, forgoing alcohol, not eating in restaurants and not travelling abroad. It was so sheltered that his first night in Caius was the first night he had spent away from home. One could scarcely imagine a greater change in life style than that enjoyed by the mature Frost, and yet the change in fame and fortune occurred with breathtaking speed. At the age of 23 he exploded onto the nation’s consciousness with the spectacular success of That Was The Week That Was. By his
mid-twenties he was commuting to New York three times a week on Concorde. TW3, as it came to be known, opened with a budget of £3,000 and rapidly attracted an audience of 12 million. It became the most popular, the most un-missable and the most influential programme on the BBC. It set the tone and often the subject matter for each week’s political debates. More importantly, it changed the face of British television satire, and, in many people’s view, marked a watershed in British society. Its high-spirited and unforgiving mockery signalled the end of the deference that the broadcasting media had previously shown to the British Establishment. It delighted in sending up the Church, the Monarchy and the Powers that Were. The mockery so delighted its huge audience that acute anxiety (at times verging on panic) began to spread in high places. Making fun of the Pope provoked anger; making fun of MPs who had not spoken in the House for fifteen years provoked alarm; making fun of Prime Ministers provoked action. So when David Frost, disguised as Disraeli, delivered a powerful political speech predicting that Sir Alec Douglas Home would prove to be a disaster for the Conservative party and, indeed, for the nation, the BBC decided to act.
Frost’s attempt at impartiality between the parties can hardly have helped: “there is the choice for the electorate. On the one hand Lord Home, on the other Mr Harold Wilson. Dull Alec versus Smart Alec”. With an election looming, it was decided that the show should be axed. TW3’s final programme ended with a memorable triumph. It coincided with Kennedy’s assassination and, to the accompaniment of Millicent Martin’s haunting lament, Frost delivered what was described as “a brilliant funeral oration on the death of the President”. So brilliant and so memorable was this final programme that Senator Hubert Humphrey called for the script to be entered into the Congressional Record. Ironically, as British television tried to silence him, American television embraced him. His life as an international star was launched. The Frost Report, The Frost Programme, Frost over England, Frost on Sunday, Breakfast with Frost, Frost over America, Frost over Canada, Frost over Australia, Frost over New Zealand, Frost on Friday, Frost on Thursday, the David Frost Revue, the David Frost Show, Frost over the World – these and many others kept the Frost name alive and the Frost coffers full. The other great highlight of his career was unquestionably the Richard Nixon interview