One evening in August I was reading the Farmers' Bulletin in one of the little fourth floor studios and found that the name of a certain kind of potato had been written in ink among the usual typewritten items. I had always known these potatoes as 'King Edwards'; but some correcting hand had named them in full as 'King Edward VII's'.
Alas for the poise of the confident announcer! I had just come from the Announcers' Room where Duncan Grinnell-Milne had been talking about Windsor Tapestry [a book by Compton Mackenzie about the Abdication]; and what would I do but call these vegetables aloud, for millions to hear, 'King Edward VIII's'?
As soon as I got back a very authoritative voice with a Scottish accent was speaking to me on the internal telephone. 'Just an unintentional slip?' it said. 'Of course,' said I, brightly, 'I wasn't trying to call our last King a bad potato' - and then realised I was talking to the Director-General [John Reith]. He was not amused.
See Annals of journalism 1 for more like this.
