Books in the post and words on the air: John Scupham, education and the BBC

John Scupham (1904–1990) was a former teacher and broadcasting executive who worked at the BBC from 1946 to 1965, rising to the position of Controller of Educational Broadcasting in 1954. He was brought up in a household with few books and received a scholarship to attend the De Aston Grammar School in Lincolnshire, England, until the age of 18. A former De Aston pupil, Edward Welbourne (1884–1966), had become the junior tutor at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and he sent the schoolboy Scupham books through the post. He was hoping to encourage the academic success of a current pupil from his own former school. This article argues that this act of transmitting relevant educational material, sharing insider knowledge which otherwise would have been beyond Scupham’s reach, shaped Scupham’s life-long interest in education and broadcasting. Using oral history interviews, BBC Written Archives holdings and poetry published about John Scupham (by his son Peter Scupham) this article outlines how Scupham’s interest in ‘widening participation’ in education through broadcasting continued throughout his life, including his work in retirement to support the setting up of the Open University.