Mrs Dale’s Diary

1 9 4 8 – 1 9 6 9 (UK)
5,531 x 15 minute episodes

“I’m awfully worried about Jim”.

First broadcast on 5 January 1948 on the BBC Light Programme (later Radio 2), Mrs Dale’s Diary was the first significant Britsh daily radio serial drama.

Episodes were broadcast each weekday afternoon and repeated the following morning. At its peak, the show drew an audience of six million. The main scriptwriter for many years was Jonquil Antony, and her first collaborator (under a pseudonym) was Ted Willis (later Lord Willis), who would go on to create Dixon of Dock Green.

Mrs Mary Dale (a doctor’s wife) spoke a brief introductory narrative in each episode as if she were writing a diary. Ellis Powell played the titular character until she left the show in 1963. Jessie Matthews replaced her.

Mary and her husband, Dr Jim Dale, lived at Virginia Lodge in the fictional London Metro-land-style suburb of Parkwood Hill. Later in the series, the producers relocated the family to the fictional new town of Exton New Town to modernise the programme and its setting.

Dr and Mrs Dale had a daughter, Gwen, and a son, Bob, who worked in the motor trade. He was married to Jenny, and they had twins. Gwen was widowed when her husband David was killed in a water-skiing accident in the Bahamas, where he was holidaying with his wealthy mistress.

Mary Dale’s sister, Sally (which she always pronounced “Selly”) lived in Chelsea, ran a dress shop and moved in exotic circles. Mrs Dale’s mother was Mrs Rosemary Freeman, whom Jim always called, rather gravely, “mother-in-law”.

Everyone got along in almost perfect harmony. It was all respectable, comfortable and very middle-class.

In 1962, the series title was changed to The Dales, and the narrative introductions of Mrs Dale were dropped.

Ellis Powell (pictured) – who earned just £20 a week for her role in the show and was forced to take in lodgers to make ends meet – was unceremoniously sacked by the BBC in February 1963, partly because of her drinking and gambling habits and partly because it was felt that the role – and the entire programme – needed a facelift.

She went home in a daze and wrote in her personal diary, “I’m a dead duck!!”

Reduced to “doing rooms” at a West End hotel for £5 a week, Ellis never recovered from the shock and distress of her dismissal. She died just three months later at the age of 57.

Despite pleas, petitions and even an appeal in the Commons for the Postmaster-General to issue a directive to retain the programme, the final episode aired on 25 April 1969. A new serial drama, Waggoners’ Walk, took over the time slot.

Mrs Mary Dale
Ellis Powell (1)
Jessie Matthews (2)
Dr Jim Dale
Douglas Burbidge (1)
James Dale (2)
Charles Simon (3)
Bob Dale
Nicholas Parsons (1)
Hugh Latimer (2)
Derek Hart (3)
Leslie Heritage (4)
Jenny Dale
Julia Braddock (1)
Shirley Dixon (2)
Mary Steele (3)
Sheila Sweet (4)
Gwen Owen/Dale
Virginia Hewitt (1)
Joan Newell (2)
Beryl Calder (3)
Aline Waites (4)
David Owen
Anthony James (1)
Frank Partington (2)
Gordon Morrison (3)
John Spingett (4)
Robin Lloyd (5)
Lee Peters (6)
Mrs Rosemary Freeman
Courtney Hope (1)
Dorothy Lane (2)
Sally Lane
Thelma Hughes (1)
Margaret Ward (2)