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John Whale

I heard from Andrew Barr that John Whale our former boss died on Tuesday morning. He gave me my first production job in television. He was an interesting character and gave me the job in spite of the fact he didn't think much of my education. The first question I was asked when I walked into the religious programmes department at the BBC - did I go to Oxford or Cambridge? Most did, I certainly didn't.

He was intimidating but supportive. I read his book, Put it in Writing, which was essential because the presentation of written English was supremely important to him. He was deeply old fashioned and I remember he came to me in the office one night terrified about an interview he had to give on children's BBC. He said he couldn't remember anything about what it felt like to be a child and wanted my advice on what to say (I was somewhere in my mid 20s).

Here's his obit from the Guardian

Connie and Alf Smith

Last week Deborah did a wonderful job of organising the funeral of Connie Smith, her aunt. Making such arrangements is exhausting and emotional. In this case we had the unexpected pleasure of discovering that the Rev Val Corey who used to be at St Mary's in Ealing lived just a couple of streets away from Connie and Alf - a fact we hadn't known before.  Val led the funeral.

Connie and Alf met in the 1930s and were married 67 years ago. They moved into a rented house in Cleaveland Road, Surbiton in 1955 where the lived for the remainder of their lives.

Alf died last year  in October, Connie died in May 2008. Her funeral was last Thursday the 12th June.

God on Trial

The conference took a welcome break from new media last night.

Frank Cottrell Boyce gave a moving talk on his film script for the forthcoming BBC Drama, God on Trial set in Auschwitz.

Frank explained that it was not intended to be about the holocaust but finding an answer to the question of why God allows suffering. As he began writing the script he was sure he would find a resolution to the question. He places the characters in a prison camp facing the worst nightmare imaginable and in their last time before death they choose to put God on trial accused of breaking the covenant. The trial is a clinical and systematic examination of why God allowed these things to happen. 

Point by point the film examines God's behavior. With the tense atmosphere of a courtroom (prison camp bunkhouse) they go into the often unpleasant details of suffering and exile experienced in the old testament, the slaying if innocents and so on. It's about humanity, people who have big ideas in their heads and histories, he explained.

In the film one character searches the back of his mind, believing that they must have committed some crime to deserve such punishment, "what could justify punishment like this" they ask. A man's children are dragged away to be killed, the father pleads for them, choose one the guard offers; where is love and free will here. Powerful concepts are examined - was Hitler a servant of God.

We only saw experts from the film and I suppose I shouldn't reveal the outcome though it shouldn't be a surprise. Frank describes it as a flipped version of the Prodigal Son.

We were treated to some humour at the expense of Prof Richard Dawkins. Winning the debate is not what matters, but in the debate we discover there is something much bigger. You have to challenge your faith, but in the end it doesn't matter what you think, all that matters is that God loves you.

Churches Media Conference

I'm at the Churches Media conference right now and this is a message to those of you who have attended my two sessions talking about ITV Local Yorkshire.  Many thanks for coming along and for the excellent and inspiring conversations.  I'm going to write up some notes - possibly here but also on Interlace, a blog on which I keep specilist notes on the subject of user generated content and other thoughts to do with my work. So, pop back here or to Interlace in due course and I'll have some more for you.

The talented Jamie Woon

Moving on

Been a stange few days. Deborah's aunt passed away and it's fallen to her to make the funeral arrangements. Meanwhile I have been organising builders to rework our bathroom. We hadn't planned the two events to coincide, and not ideal. Trying to coordinate plasterers and undertakers at the same time is interesting, especially when they don't announce themselves on the phone.  Anyway, she had a good long life and brought pleasure to many people - and that goes for the aunt as well.













Connie died just a short time after her husband, which is often the way. They had been married and devoted to each other for sixty seven years.