A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Absolutely fascinating current affairs programme from 1972 looking at advice columnists - Dr Stephen Black talks to Marjorie Proops of the Daily Mirror, Evelyn Home of Woman, Claire Rayner of Petticoat and Jane Firbank of Forum, who between them "deal with more than 100,000 letters a year". Most of these columnists have multiple assistants helping them and offices full of reference books and folders containing pamphlets and newspaper cuttings to do with physical and mental health, sexual problems, etc etc. Dr Black puts some sticky questions to the ladies about responsibility and authority (do they have any training?). They reply earnestly, self-deprecatingly, but ultimately persuasively about their role in relieving anxiety and loneliness, especially for readers who don't live in cities with counselling services readily available.Probably the most interesting for me was Jane Birbank of Forum, in part because of how astute her comments about sexual misery and sexual ignorance were,…