Source: Josephine May, quoted in Sean Day-Lewis (ed.), One Day in the Life of Television (London: British Film Institute, 1989), pp. 133-134
Text: Madge Mitchell minces Mrs Mangel, or was it the other way round? All I know is that with 16 million others I am hooked on Neighbours. I even say ‘G’day’, and expression like ‘What a wombat’ have crept into my vocabulary … Voices floated back to me this morning in the street from two fashionably jean-clad teenagers: ‘Are they going to get engaged, Jane and Mike?’ At church on Sunday the sermon was all about neighbourliness. The priest had no trouble illustrating his theme from the serial. As a French teacher, I use it too. Exercises on the future tense are a doddle when the question is: ‘What will Mrs Mangel do next?’
Everyone watches, young and old alike. Everyone is portrayed. Nellie Mangel invited Harold to the church dance today and neither could be considered spring chooks. Young Lucy loses her mice and Helen gives Scott advice on budgeting. Daphne, expecting a baby, is not too well as she manages the coffee shop. Willingly or not, happily or not, these people are part of a community which makes up its differences and where no one is lonely …
Comments: One Day in the Life of Television was a project organised by the British Film Institute which documented one day’s television broadcasting in the UK (1 November 1988) with impressions specially recorded by hundreds of television professionals and ordinary viewers. Josephine May was a teacher from Henley-on-Thames. The Australian soap opera Neighbours was first broadcast in that country in 1985 on the Seven Network and in the UK on the BBC in 1986.
