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Farewell to a lively and funny star
From: Robert Kandt, Bracewell, near Skipton, North Yorkshire. THE tragic death of Natasha Richardson has brought back many pleasant memories of my all too brief association with her when I was the film officer for the Bradford Film Office.
In 1996, the Film Office had successfully campaigned for a commemorative plaque from the British Film Institute as part of their Centenary of Cinema celebrations, to honour the achievements of her remarkable father, film director Tony Richardson. The plaque was to be positioned on his boyhood home in Saltaire, West Yorkshire.
It was important to us that this honour (and all the local activities associated with it) had the blessings of his family. Natasha immediately took the lead and for 18 months we communicated regularly between New York and Bradford about aspects of the event which included a reception, plaque unveiling ceremony, commemorative booklet and a charity screening of Tom Jones, her father's Oscar winning masterpiece.
She was directly involved and was forever helpful, patient, understanding and immensely committed to the event, even shipping (at her own expense) some personal and family memorabilia for an exhibition at the then National Museum of Photography Film and Television in Bradford. It was quickly clear that she took considerable pride in the achievements of her father, her family's Yorkshire roots and the artistic bloodline she had inherited.
When the day of the big event came, I collected her at Leeds railway station and like any man who ever met her was instantly smitten. She was lively, down to earth with a wicked and ironic sense of humour and a complete absence of any pretences of self importance. Her father was the star – not her – during the celebratory events.
Two situations particularly stand out which said it all to me about her character and approach to life. During an evening civic reception at Pictureville Cinema in Bradford, I required her advice and sought her out. She was nowhere to be found. Someone eventually pointed to the projectionist room in the rear of the cinema and to my great surprise, there was Natasha in a linen designer pant suit, legs elegantly crossed and sitting on a stool with a glass of champagne in one hand talking to the two projectionists about their work.
When it came time for me to take her back to the railway station to begin her return to New York, she inadvertently let slip a secret – she had to turn down an invitation to join her husband, Liam Neeson, at a Presidential dinner at the White House that evening honouring Irish Americans in order to meet her long-standing commitment to me and the Film Office to come to Bradford on that day to honour her father.
No substitute for TV diary
From: Mrs Anona Dawick, Acaster Lane, Bishopthorpe, York.
I WOULD like to add my voice to those earlier ones who mourned the loss of Luke Casey's Dales Diary programme on ITV.
Having watched ITV's latest offering of Countrywise, I was forcibly struck by the contrast with Luke Casey's quiet elegance and style of presentation. In Countrywise, we were rushed from pillar to post with far too much content packed into a 30 minute slot. If this is intended to be a "modern" presentation of country life then it didn't work for me, or, I suspect, many others. Why can't the powers that be listen to the viewers?
When there is a programme which encapsulates the life and times of the countryside in such a sympathetic and delightful way as Dales Diary, leave well alone.
Still jobs
for the boys
From: CD Round, Lee Lane East, Horsforth, Leeds.
I FIND it quite surprising that BP not only retains on its board of directors Sir Tom McKillop, the ex-chairman of failed RBS, as a non-executive director and a member of the remuneration committee, but that he has the brass nerve to offer himself for re-election at the forthcoming annual meeting.
ITV also retain on their board Andy Hornby, ex-chief executive of HBOS together with another director of one of the failed banks. Surely these people should have been summarily dismissed after their contribution to the banking collapse – 50,000 a year for a part-time job is not a bad little earner. Talk about jobs for the boys!
Vindictive treatment of Scargill and the miners
From: HH Greaves, Lea Close, Leven, near Beverley.
I SEE that the Scargill-bashing season is once again upon us; no doubt to escalate and spread like a rash getting beneath the skins of believers and non-believers as to who was to blame in the 1984-85 strike.
Wesley Paxton (Yorkshire Post, March 16) praises Thatcher for her defeat of the strike.
Who ever can forget her recruitment of Sir Ian McGregor – an American-Scot who defeated a strike by American miners, by sending in armed men to break the strike – as part of her plan of revenge for the miners attacking Edward Heath?
The Glasgow University media studies group concluded that the miners were right to strike for their cause and to safeguard their jobs and their communities.
Even Harold McMillan, a one-time Tory Prime Minister, gently chided Thatcher with his words: "But these are the men who fought for us."
And, likewise, who will ever forget the action of the police who blocked main roads in order to question the direction of travellers to ensure that they were not about to support the miners?
The march by the miners down "millionaires' row" in
Park Lane, London, saw hundreds line the streets and cheer the miners for their cause.
The true enemy was the breakaway Union of Democratic Miners, perhaps hoping to save their own pits by grovelling to Thatcher, but in the event, their mines were closed one by one.
Should the need for coal be upon us because of oil running out, when perhaps the government of the day will appeal for miners to return to the pits, they will find no response.
Mr Scargill, no doubt, will never forget that convoy of police cars arriving at his door to arrest him for a minor traffic offence, it was said.
Vindictive is a word that ought not to be used in our modern society; alas, it is still ready and willing to aid distressed governments of the future.
Watchdog should apologise for hospital deaths
From: Dr SU Ruff, Gowland Court, Ogleforth, York.
I HAVE carefully studied Monitor's statement on the Healthcare Commissions report into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
The clang of door-bolts in empty stables is deafening, but there is not a word of apology, excuse or explanation of Monitor's own part in the debacle.
Monitor is the independent body responsible to Parliament (and not any part of the government) set up to judge hospital trusts for fitness for Foundation Trust status and for their performance in every aspect of their duties.
It must have been obvious, even to the most mindless bureaucrat, that the management of Mid Staffordshire Trust was failing, yet it promoted the trust without any change in management to a foundation trust.
I have been a governor at York Hospitals Foundation Trust for some three years and what concerns me is the damage done to the image of foundation trusts and the regulatory body, Monitor, and to the status of foundation trust governors by the unjustified establishment of hospital foundation trusts. This has been made worse by Monitor's failure to acknowledge its own responsibility.
From: Duncan L. Long, Coxley Crescent, Netherton, Wakefield.
YOUR editorial comment "Hospital horror" was spot on (Yorkshire Post, March 18). The betrayal, however, also extends to the very organisation that produced the report and that is the Healthcare Commission. This organisation regularly gives out clean bills of health to hospitals it has never been anywhere near, as in the case of Stafford.
It has yet to carry out an investigation of its own accord. When and only when, a member of the public, goes out of their way to pursue a concern, does this government quango show any interest.
This "watchdog" is nothing
of the kind, simply yet
another "lap dog" of the government. This is why "hospital horrors" continue to happen in 2009.
From: Robert Bottamley, Thorn Road, Hedon.
JUST hours after news broke of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust crisis, the Health Secretary was giving television interviews.
For this, Alan Johnson deserves some credit.
Unfortunately, the plaudits end there. Mr Johnson's principal concern was political: namely, to disassociate Government policy from the emerging scandal.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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