I Believe In You
| Date | 01 September 1982 |
| Author | John Birkbeck |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058202900302 |
| Published date | 01 September 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
83
I
Believe
In
You
John
Birkbeck
Probation
Officer,
Barnsley
In
the
push
for
professional
status
and
independence,
and
with
the
expansion
of
the
Probation
Service
the
contemporary
probation
officer
has
moved
away
from
a
traditional
and,
perhaps,
more
effective
role
and
place
in
the
court.
This
has
resulted
in
a
loss
of
influence
which
needs
attention.
There
is
a
crisis
of
confidence;
the
courts
are
unsure
of
the
Probation
Service,
and
the
probation
officer
in
unsure
of
his
or
her
place.
The
author
argues
for
a
positive
presence
in
court
to
counter
this
trend.
The
Ealing
Film
Studio
was
a
national
institution
whose
memory
has
been
kept
alive
by
the
television
companies’
con-
stant
search
for
cheap
material
to
fill
off-
peak
viewing
hours.
Mention
of
Kind
Hearts
and
Coronets,
Whisky
Galore,
The
Lavender
Hill
Mob
and
Passport
to
Pim-
lico
is
sufficient
to
evoke
fond
memories
of
the
now
charmingly
dated
films
pro-
duced
there.
In
an
authoritative
study
of
the
Ealing
phenomenoni
1
Charles
Barr
points
out
that
eventually
the
Studio
died
because
it
portrayed
a
Britain
which
did
not
really
exist-a
rather
cosy
little
place
where
there
was
little
violence
and
scarcely
any
sex,
where
traditions
were
worthy
of
preservation
however
little
they
contributed
to
the
vigour
of the
com-
munity,
and
where
a
remarkable
propor-
tion
of
the
population
was
either
old
or
eccentric.
The
films
radiate
an
allegiance
to
an
ideal
community;
stable,
gentle,
innocent,
consciously
backward
looking
and
held
together
by
a
consensus
about
social
structures
and
values.
If
Peter
Townsend,
who
as
early
as
1952
began
his
famous
rediscovery
of
poverty,
had,
by
mistake,
wandered
into
an
audition
and
begun
to
expound
his
perspective
on
contemporary
British
society,
he
would
probably
have
been
signed
up
to
star
in
one
of
those
dreadful
films
about
the
arrival
in
suburban
London
of
a
mysterious
being
from
another
planet!
i
In
March
1952,
Basil
Dearden
and
Michael
Relph,
the
team
that
had
two
years
earlier
given
us
The
Blue
Lamp
and
PC
George
Dixon,
released
a
film
called
I
Believe
in
You,
starring
Cecil
Parker
as
Henry
Phipps,
an
establish-
ment
figure
who
joins
the
probation
ser-
vice in
middle
age.
The
film
traces
the
induction
of
the
new
boy
in
the
London
Service
through
a
mosaic
of
individual
stories
designed
to
present
a
picture
of
the
society
of
the
time.
To
the
modern
audience
the
characterisations
are
gener-
ally
unconvincing,
evoking
memories
of
the
fairly
disastrous
attempts
of
the
early
television
soap-operas
to
portray
working
class
life.
At
first
sight
this
modest
film
has
little
to
say
to
the
modern
probation
officer
but
a
recent
revival
did
highlight
something
very
interesting.
A
loss
of
influence
At
several
points
in
the
film
we
see
Mr
Phipps
in
open
court
or
in
chambers,
earnestly
fighting
to
persuade
the
stipen-
diary
magistrate
that
his
clients
had
some
good
in
them
and
could
be
saved
from
crime
and
that
he,
the
probation
officer,
could
be
the
instrument
of
their
salva-
tion.
Most
of
us
today
would
consider
this
approach
naive
and
would
want
to
present
the
Service
in
a
very
different
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