For the duration of the Second World War the teenage Anthony Smith looked upon the unfolding events with “belligerent glee”. He recalls how they never questioned the “unity of purpose” or “the rightness of the cause”. It was only a post-war visit to Germany that brought him to the realization that the war demonstrated how easy it was for “one bunch of people to be fired headlong at another bunch of people even though each of them knows next to nothing about the other”.
Between 1977 and 1989 writer, broadcaster, adventurer and balloonist Anthony Smith gave over 200 talks for BBC Radio 4 under the title A Sideways Look. These were 15 minute single-authored talks, a radio form that pretty much disappeared when Letter from America ended. They were on a whole variety of subjects, some such as this D-Day broadcast were serious in tone, others more frivolous. The series was described as “a new look at issues, topics and everyday happenings that we tend to take for granted”.
After Anthony Smith’s service with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve that he refers to in this talk, he continued his education at Oxford before working as a reporter for The Guardian and later The Daily Telegraph. From 1953 he also appeared on dozens of radio and tv programmes including The World of Books (Home Service) and Tomorrow’s World (BBC1). Smith wrote 31 books on subjects ranging from human anatomy, natural history and exploration. His best-selling book was The Body which led to a 1970 film and later the 1998 BBC series The Human Body.
He travelled widely and listed amongst his exploits the claim to be the first to fly a balloon in East Africa (1962) and, the following year, the first Briton to fly over the European Alps. His name turns up in film credits including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where he is listed as the consultant for the Ken Adam designed Vulgarian airship which Smith flew for the film. In this eighties he decided to build a raft out of pipes and sail it across the Atlantic. He died in 2014 aged 88.
This edition of A Sideways Look on the subject of the 40th anniversary of D-Day was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 June 1984.
A Sideways Look at ...
First broadcast: Tuesday 10 May 1977
Last broadcast: Saturday 11 March 1989
For the first year the editions were billed in the Radio Times with the subject matter of the talk. They were: Dangerous Animals, British Genius, Smoking, Peking Zoo, Safety, Birds, Europlugs, NHS, Age, Forests, VAT, Women, Athletics, Talking to Strangers, the Price of Life and Limb, the Tower of Babel, Notice Boards,
29 of the talks were published in 1983 by Unwin Paperbacks