A “bone marrow love for the Labour party” Lord Kinnock remembers Lord Hattersley
Matthew Bannister on politician Lord Hattersley, speech therapist Daphne Hamilton-Fairley, journalist Roger Cook and musician Sterling Betancourt.
Lord Roy Hattersley, the former Deputy Leader of the Labour party. He was born and brought up in Sheffield. In his book A Yorkshire Boyhood, he confessed to being passionate about three things: Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, Yorkshire County Cricket and socialist politics. His friend and colleague, Lord Kinnock, pays tribute.
Daphne Hamilton-Fairley, spoke out for tolerance after her husband was killed by an IRA bomb. He had inspired her to become a speech therapist and after his death she set up one of the first specialist schools for dyslexia and other special educational needs. She named it Fairley House, after her husband. Her daughter Diana Hamilton-Fairley shares her memories.
Roger Cook was the intrepid investigative journalist who pioneered the technique known as “doorstepping” - challenging those he suspected of wrongdoing face to face with the camera or tape recorder running. First on Radio 4’s consumer affairs programme Checkpoint and then on ITV’s The Cook Report he took on criminals and fraudsters on behalf of listeners and viewers. Matthew talks to his colleague Tim Tate.
Sterling Betancourt was a pioneer of steel pan music from Trinidad and Tobago. He was one of the first to bring the instrument to Britain in the 1950s and went on to play a big role in the early days of the Notting Hill Carnival. Sterling’s wife Beatrice Elokbi tells his story.
Presenter: Matthew Bannister
Producer: Ribika Moktan
Assistant Producer: Catherine Powell
Researcher: Jesse Edwards
Editor: Andrea Kennedy
Archive:
BBC Midlands Today, 23/02/94; Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 31/01/1986; Labour Party Conference 1983 , BBC News , 2.10.1983; Newsnight, BBC Two, 19/04/1981; Tony Livesey, 5 Live, 24/01/2012; PM, BBC Radio 4, 23/10/1975; Tonight, BBC One, 17/12/1975; Forty Minutes: Women in Black, BBC 2, 21/04/1988; Nationwide, BBC One, 29/11/1982; David Hockney, Desert Island Discs, 07/02/1972; The 1951 Festival of Britain: A Brave New World, BBC Four, 24/09/2011; Steel Pan Alley, Radio 4, 6/12/2003
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