Mary Whitehouse’s return

She’s enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years. Once she was widely mocked as a puritanical prude. But now, commentators, journalists and campaigners are asking: ‘Was Mary Whitehouse right all along?’ She has returned to the news.

For those who don’t know, Mary Whitehouse came to prominence in the late 1960s and 1970s. It was a time of huge social change. Laws were being repealed as Britain sought to break free from its cultural past and enter a new, more progressive era. Nowhere was this more evident than in the area of sex and relationships. The ‘Swinging Sixties’ saw a sexual revolution which promised liberation and freedom. It was summed up by Roy Jenkins, the then Home Secretary, who said: ‘The permissive society is the civilised society’.

But not everyone agreed. Mary Whitehouse was a Nuneaton art teacher-turned-campaigner and, increasingly alarmed at what she was seeing on the TV in terms of nudity and sexualisation, she began campaigning for change. In 1971, more than 10,000 Christians gathered in Trafalgar Square to take a stand for God’s ways and truth, and to present a challenge to an increasingly secular society. Mary Whitehouse was one of the speakers.