Wednesday 23 January 2013 It’s now 25 years since the Channel 4 broadcast of Tony Harrison’s poem ‘V’ caused a storm of protest because of its use of four letter words. MPs’ questions, articles in the Daily Mail and protests by campaigner Mary Whitehouse resulted in a huge TV audience for the 1987 broadcast, which went on to win a prestigious prize. The Independent printed the poem in full in its news pages to allow people to make up their own minds. Following an anniversary appearance at the Chester Literature Festival alongside Jeremy Isaacs, who was Channel 4 Chief Executive at the time of the original film, Harrison has now returned to his home city to record a new version of the controversial poem for the BBC. The poem was written by OL Harrison in 1984 following a visit to his parents’ grave in Leeds where he found obscenities had been spray painted on the tomb. He has said of the discovery of the desecration: “I’m not offended by bad language, but I think: my parents are buried here; it’s not appropriate here. It made me angry.” The celebrated poet-playwright was born in Beeston and won a scholarship to Leeds Grammar School in 1948. From there he went on to study classics and linguistics at Leeds University. In ‘V’ he illustrates the conflict in a divided society by creating a verbal duel between himself and an alter ego; a character that he accepts could have been him, had he not had the opportunity of “the education which took me away from this background”. Although the strong language used in ‘V’ is more commonly heard in the media nowadays, the power of the poem still has the ability to shock. Tony Harrison’s new recording of ‘V’ will air on Radio 4 at 11.00pm on 18 February. The original Channel 4 broadcast can be seen on Youtube. Alumni
