If you don't recognise Bill's name you're bound to recognise his face. He was a BBC TV journalist who was on our screens over many years. And he's still a football referee! He was one of the youngest in the country when he started as a 14-year-old, and he got a special award from the FA when he clocked up 50 years.Now aged 66 he's more or less retired but still does a bit of freelance work - including for my department at The Salvation Army (he's a Salvationist himself). He co-presents our quarterly DVD compilation and occasionally fronts one of the films included. He makes some nice comments about us (see page 331!) so it's obviously a good book!
It's full of anecdotes. I particularly liked the one about how as a very junior reporter for ITV he turned up to do a piece about an armed robbery. The film crew were a bit surprised to see him as none of them had met him before, but they all got on with the filming. He then discovered the crew were from the BBC - the ITV team hadn't turned up yet. Graciously the BBC team handed over the tape for him to use anyway!
Where it really takes off is when he talks about his trips to Albania. He and his cameraman were the first western TV crew to get into the country after the collapse of communism and his news reports revealed to the western world the desperate, obscene situations that orphans and the disabled were being kept in. As a result millions of pounds were raised in appeals. He's kept going back and not surprisingly he's received Albania's top humanitarian award for his efforts.
I enjoyed it.
Interesting - I didn't know Bill's background. The Albanian connection is fascinating: I've just discovered my great great grandfather on my paternal grandmother's side, Alexander Thomson, worked in Albania with the Bible Society, and there's a symposium on his work in Kosovo in November this year to mark 111 years after his death.esse
ReplyDelete