Page "Mary Whitehouse" Paragraph 8

Sir Hugh Greene, knighted in January 1964, became her bête noire.

He was, according to Whitehouse, " more than anybody else [...] responsible for the moral collapse in this country ".

The CUTV manifesto claimed that the BBC under Greene spread " the propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt ... promiscuity, infidelity and drinking ".

In place of this, the authors argued, the Corporation's activities should " encourage and sustain faith in God and bring Him back to the hearts of our family and national life.

" The ' Clean Up TV ' petition, using the manifesto, gained a total of 500, 000 signatures.

Whitehouse complained in 1993 that during Hugh Greene's period at the BBC, " hardly a week went by without a sniping reference to me ".

Whitehouse's critics responded quickly.

The playwright David Turner had heckled her at the Birmingham Town Hall ; his work was criticised during the meeting, and within a few months Swizzlewick, a twice-weekly series he had created, featured a parody of her.