BBC bids goodbye to Bush House: In Memory of the Beeb's iconic Aldwych home

By Lindsay Johns for the Daily Mail

Published: 13:19 GMT, 12 July 2012 | Updated: 14:42 GMT, 12 July 2012

Today I will walk down the Strand and onto Aldwych with a heavy heart.

As I walk past the two imposing and slightly foreboding Corinthian columns which mark the entrance to Bush House, adorned with their shiny brass plaques, I will exhale a wistful sigh, full of nostalgia and regret.

Why? Because today the BBC is sadly vacating Bush House, which has faithfully served as the iconic Aldwych home of the illustrious, flagship BBC World Service for the last seventy one years. The last program to be broadcast from there will be the midday news bulletin in English. After that, subsequent programs will come from Broadcasting House, a mile up the road in Oxford Circus.

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The neo-classical style marble pillars represented something more meaningful than merely aesthetically pleasing decor. For me, they symbolized British broadcasting at its best

The BBC's World Service is undoubtedly one of the great cultural touchstones of our nation and a patrimony of which we can justifiably feel proud.

A remnant of empire and a shining beacon of Englishness in all its many forms, the World Service has for seven decades educated, informed and spread inordinate aural pleasure to countless millions overseas, especially in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. It is, in fact, to this day the most popular international broadcaster in Africa. In addition to English, 68 languages services were also broadcast from Bush House.

Although relocating to the newly refurbished Broadcasting House on Portland Place probably makes good business and logistical sense, it will nonetheless be sad to say a final farewell to the bona fide institution that was Bush House, a 1920s building of consummate class and sophistication.

The neo-classical style marble pillars, the long, echoing corridors and the statues, in addition to mere beauty, represented something more meaningful than merely aesthetically pleasing decor. For me, they symbolized British broadcasting at its best, often in the name of freedom, with a truly global perspective and international message.

Call me sentimental or excessively melancholy, but there was something comforting and reassuring knowing that the World Service broadcast to far flung corners of the globe from the very heart of London and from this building in particular, with its wealth of historical associations.

Amongst many notable moments of importance, General De Gaulle broadcast to the French resistance during the Nazi occupation of his country from Bush House, George Orwell worked as a producer there from 1941 to 1943 and Sir Paul McCartney broadcast live to fans in Russia. On a more personal note, my godfather Cosmo Pieterse, a South African poet and playwright, broadcast from Bush House on the World Service in the late 60s and early 70s.

In a far lesser capacity, I appeared on R3’s Nightwaves a few years ago when they were based at Bush House, so at least I can say that I too was fortunate to broadcast from such a hallowed spot.

Thankfully (for the time being at least) the BBC’s World Service continues. Let us only hope that some of its indomitable spirit and power will not be lost in its change of abode.

A British Institution: Bush House has faithfully served as the iconic Aldwych home of the BBC World Service for the last seventy one years

But on reflection, in a time of great upheaval for the BBC and amidst drastic cuts, perhaps us sentimentalists shouldn’t get too hung up on mere bricks and mortar. It is of course far more important that the World Service continues to fulfill its function to broadcast to the world, irrespective of its domicile.

The alternative – being bereft of it altogether – would be unthinkable and a crushing blow not only to our country and its cultural legacy, but also to the lives of millions around the world whose daily existences would be immeasurably impoverished without it.

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