Following demob, he attended the Chelsea School of Art for four years; his paintings were of sufficient quality to be exhibited at the Royal Academy.
[2] Mansell sought also to distance the station from the nostalgic war-time nickname "the good old Home" and make it more modern and informal.
In 1963, to bring a "lighter and brighter sound" to the station, he replaced the Bow Bells theme with Handel's Water Music.
Newly elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, determined to deny the "oxygen of publicity" to the IRA, complained to the BBC governors.
Managing director of Television Alasdair Milne was on leave, so the governors called in Mansell and ordered him to discipline Panorama editor Roger Bolton.
[2] The National Union of Journalists called a strike of BBC members and Milne quickly returned, but Mansell satisfied himself that the film was not meant to be used (and had not even been processed), and reinstated Bolton with a reprimand, to the fury of both the governors and the government.