Mrs Dale's Diary was the first significant BBC radio serial drama. It was first broadcast on 5 January 1948 on the BBC Light Programme, later BBC Radio 2; it ran until 25 April 1969. A new episode was broadcast each weekday afternoon, with a repeat the following morning. A few days after the final episode, a new serial drama, Waggoners' Walk, took over the time slot.
The main scriptwriter for many years was Jonquil Antony, and her first collaborator (under a pseudonym) was Ted Willis, later to create Dixon of Dock Green.
The lead character, Mrs Dale, was played by Ellis Powell until she was dismissed in controversial circumstances in 1963 and replaced by Jessie Matthews.
Format
An innovative characteristic of the programme was that a brief introductory narrative in each episode was spoken by Mrs Dale as if she were writing her diary.
The serial centred on Mrs Mary Dale, a doctor's wife, and her husband Jim, and the comings and goings of a middle class society. The Dales lived at Virginia Lodge in the fictional London Metro-land-style suburb of Parkwood Hill. They had moved there from the real area of Kenton, which straddles the border between the London boroughs of Brent and Harrow. Later in the series, to modernise the programme and its setting, the producers relocated the family in the fictional new town of Exton New Town.
Mrs Dale's mother was Mrs Rosemary Freeman, whom Jim always called, rather gravely, "mother-in-law". Dr and Mrs Dale had a daughter, Gwen, and a son, Bob, who worked in the motor trade. He was married to Jenny; they had twins. Gwen was widowed after her husband David was killed in a water-skiing accident in the Bahamas where he was holidaying with his rich mistress. Mary Dale's sister, Sally, (which she always pronounced "Selly") lived in Chelsea and moved in exotic circles. The Dales and their friends (along with Captain, Mrs Freeman's cat, apparently named after the rank of her late husband, who had been killed in the First World War) got along in almost perfect harmony. It was all respectable, comfortable and middle-class.
Treatment of homosexuality
The programme is thought to be the first British mainstream drama which depicted a character known to be homosexual sympathetically in a leading part – Richard Fulton (portrayed by David March), Sally's husband. It was a brave move to feature a gay man, especially when homosexuality was still illegal in the United Kingdom. Clearly the programme's makers considered the time was right for the subject to be featured. Richard Fulton, however, was an odd character to use, in several ways. Not least is that (though apparently based on the homosexual writer Patrick White) Richard's history in the serial was heterosexual. He was in fact a character who had developed a lot, having been presented in the early days as a monster of petulance.
Changes to the format
On 26 February 1962, the serial was renamed The Dales. The linking narratives by Mrs Dale were dropped. The reason was that the BBC was conscious that the series was considered by the media to be twee and hopelessly old fashioned. The changes included a new theme tune composed by Ron Grainer, composer of the theme music for Doctor Who. "Dance in the Twilight" from Eric Coates' Springtime Suite also served as a signature tune for a time.
In 1975, Matthews's biographer, Michael Thornton, wrote: On 19 February, 1963, a plump and embittered fifty-six-year-old character actress called Ellis Powell walked out of Broadcasting House for the last time. She was not a star. In fact, she had earned less than £30 a week. But her voice was as well known in Britain as that of Queen Elizabeth II, for it was heard twice a day by seven million devoted listeners. Miss Powell was Britain's most sacrosanct fictional paragon, Mrs. Dale, in the radio serial Mrs. Dale's Diary. And now, after fifteen years in the role she had created, the BBC had summarily fired her partly because of her drinking habits, and partly because it was felt that the role, and also the entire programme, was in need of a facelift. Three months later, at the age of fifty-seven, she died. Her friends believed she never recovered from the shock and distress of her summary dismissal by the BBC. In the last weeks of her life she worked as a demonstrator at the Ideal Home Exhibition and as a cleaner in an hotel.