The BBC at Skye Edge

BBC

In 1948, the Board of Governors of the BBC asked the head of the Variety Department Michael Standing to devise a guiding set of moral standards and protocols for the production of all BBC radio and television programmes. Standing produced something that became commonly know within the BBC as the ‘Green Book’. The purpose of the book was to eradicate smut, innuendo and vulgarity from all BBC programmes. After producing the book, Michael Standing took to implementing his guidance with eccentric zeal. In June 1949, Standing issued a memo to all staff in which he forbade BBC employees from illuminating any room with an Anglepoise lamp unless the main ceiling or wall mounted light was also illuminated. Standing held a firm belief that a man working at a desk in a confined space with only the light from a low-wattage lamp would nurture furtive ideas and produce degenerate programme material. The Director General Sir William Haley later rescinded the Anglepoise lamp edict because he thought that the measure was extreme and unnecessary.^[1]                                                

source: wikipedia.co.uk