Royal Victoria Hospital Netley programmes on tv

[jgreen]

Hello, there was a short item about the hospital on BBC1's The One Show last Monday (26th May) which can be seen on the BBC I Player.

Also there is another programme on June 2nd BBC1 at 7.30pm which tells some stories of what life was like at the hospital in WWI. Try and watch it if you can, it's good.

Julie

www.netley-military-cemetery.co.uk[

[Sue Light]

Here's a link to last night's programme presented by Philip Hoare whose book 'Spike Island' tells the history of the hospital

World War One at Home - Royal Victoria Hospital

Sue

[TEW]

Sue - and/or others

I wonder how you feel Hurst and his film were percieved, re; the 'fake' aspect of Sgt. Bisset. In the programme it seemed to come across as a 'shock, horror, probe' type sham and therefore denegrates Hurst.

However, at the RVCP event last month Dr Michael Hammond spoke on what the public mentality at the time understood, believed and expected from films and therefore put forward a counter arguement for 'faking' scenes. Although Hurst's film was probably only shown in medical circles the mentality towards film media would probably exist across the board.

Shame the programme didn't portray this alternative view. Having said that there does seem to be other, more subtle issues with some of the other patients.

I think the only alternative available to Hurst at the time would be to film 100 patients and then to re-film those who had shown some improvement months later. There seems to be logistical and financial problems with doing things that way.

TEW

[Sue Light]

As someone who tends to be a bit critical of programmes about hospitals and the medical services, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I agree that too much was made of the piece of film labelled as a fake. It's not right to judge something made more than ninety years ago by today's standards, and assuming that Hurst accurately portrayed Bisset's condition when first admitted, I would say it was perfectly acceptable. It would only have been a sham if Bisset had never been in that condition initially.

My only personal niggle was that once again the trained nurse didn't get a mention and just the VADs shown to represent the nursing staff. And I shuddered at pin tacks through all those wonderful postcards on the wall! But I thought Philip Hoare did a great job as the presenter. I've read his books but never seen him on TV and it would be good to see much more of him in historical documentaries.

Sue

[jgreen]

I enjoyed the programme too, but like you would have liked to have seen some of the other stories and everyday life of the hospital. Trouble is, you can't cram it all in a half hour programme and the media like to focus on dramatic incidents to get the audience's attention.

Sue, the postcards that had pins in were not the originals, they were photographed copies.

Julie

[Sue Light]

Sue, the postcards that had pins in were not the originals, they were photographed copies.

Whew! Thank goodness for that.

Sue

[Moonraker]

Repeated tomorrow evening (Tuesday, September 2) at 2000 on BBC4.

Moonraker