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1972: The Advice Columnists | Tuesday Documentary | BBC Archive
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49:36Now Playing*Warning: This programme contains adult themes, discussions of a sexual nature and references to suicide*
Four advice columnists talk to Dr Stephen Black.
"Advice columns are all written by cynical middle-aged male journalists who make up the letters between trips to the pub...", or so runs the popular mythology.
The reality is not quite so cosy. Every year in Britain more than half a million troubled people seem to find that they have no one else to turn to.
They all get an answer, and the tiny percentage of letters that appear in print give only the palest indication of the avalanche of sexual ignorance, personal anxiety, guilt and loneliness that the columnists are, every day, called upon to cope with. Who then, are these people who have to find all the answers - what is the reality behind those reassuring bylines?
Dr Stephen Black talks to Marjorie Proops of the Daily Mirror, Evelyn Home of Woman, Claire Rayner of Petticoat and Jane Firbank of Forum. Between them they deal with more than 100,000 letters a year.
Clip taken from Tuesday Documentary: Sob Sisters, originally broadcast on BBC One, 9 May, 1972.
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