Part of my teenage soul
Today the BBC World Service moves for good out of Bush House. It was from there that I heard the first fluent English sentences, regally pronounced, in my life.
And it was a great feeling to sit somewhere in the deep interior of Silesia Inferior* and be able listen to reliable news from across the Channel where the Liberation Movement with the indomitable Margaret, now Lady, at its helm was winning its first battles (and was soon to support** Polish freedom-fighters).
I walked past that grand edifice a few times when I lived in London and it always stirred something inme. The architecture, the professionalism, the imperial accent, the memories - I could relate to them. We were once on the same wavelength.
One evening in early 1982, a boy sitting in his dark room was listening to news broadcast without beating around the bush* (only with some communist interference).
*I know: corny; but deep down, in Lower Silesia, I'm a country boy (understand? corny - a country boy*; and just for the record: this is not the Bush House standard).
**I refuse to believe it.
