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Re: delia derbyshire video



Zoe,

Yeah, I grew up with the classic old BBC series too (rebroadcast in the 
USA on PBSof course).

It has remained a sort of guilty pleasure over the years (including 
it's current reincarnation and spin-offs).

My wifa nd my children have all come to love the old goofy, corny, 
campy old Brit si-fi enterprise as well.

One of the first things my youngest son (a freshman in high school) 
sought to teach himself to play on his clarinett was the "Dr. Who 
Theme."

I guess the story goes that although Ron Grainer was given the original 
task of creating the score for the show, he subsequently heard some of 
Derbyshire's music and (humbly and appropriately) realized it would be 
even more perfect for the job. However, Delia was not a member of the 
musician's union (or some other politic requisite of the time) and the 
BBC was forced by said organization to delete or "demote" her in the 
end credits (not being a supposedly accredited "musician" - no category 
for "electronic musician" existing at the time). Plus it probably 
didn't help that she was a woman edging in on an "old boy's" network 
either. So, Grainer has been given public credit over the years for 
music that was likely entirely Delia Derbyshire's and she given the 
patriarchal pat-on-the-head (slap in the face) as in the "realized by" 
credit. To give Grainer own credit, I understand it was he who fought 
for her to be given full credit at first . . .   and at least that much 
as a compromise (the union and the BBC intended to leave her off 
altogether).

Look it all up on Wikipedia sometime.

Cheers . . .

Ted Killian.

On Jul 20, 2008, at 11:17 AM, info at zoekeating wrote:

> I grew up with a television series called Dr Who