The power of drama to make change
As a former campaigner, journalist and would-be novelist, I'm fascinated by the impact of Mr Bates vs The Post Office. And it evokes another long running battle too.
ITVx’s drama, Alan Bates vs The Post Office, has really captured people’s imaginations. And fury. 7.7 million people have watched the series since its launch on New Years Day.
How could the Post Office, that trusted institution, have treated their sub-postmasters so appallingly?
This lunchtime (January 9th), Paula Vennells, the former CEO at the Post Office, has handed back her CBE. I’m not sure that makes too much difference when what those affected by the Horizon scandal really need is proper financial compensation.
But that’s being covered too, as the Government holds talks with judges to see how justice for the Post Office workers can be speeded up.
Sitting watching this all from Liverpool, I am, of course, reminded of another great miscarriage of justice. Hillsborough.
The two have three things in common.
There are the campaigners battling for the truth to be heard. There’s Alan Bates and all his meetings in Fenny Compton. There’s the families of those killed at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground in April 1989.
There are the journalists, who work to highlight the miscarriages. Constantly going back to the story.
Nick Wallis has invested years in The Great Post Office Scandal.
Brian Reade, from The Mirror, has been writing about Hillsborough since 1989. Back in 2013, when I was working on a Hillsborough documentary for the BBC, Hillsborough: Never Forgotten , he told me that he was constantly being asked why he was ‘still banging on about it’.
I asked him again today about people’s attitudes. He says he calls the time from the tragedy until 1996, the Wilderness Years.
So, what happened in 1996?
Well that’s the third thing.
Granada TV commissioned Jimmy McGovern to produce a dramatised documentary with Christopher Eccleston, playing the father of two girls killed in Sheffield.
Brian says that programme was pivotal:
“It took many more years and knock backs to get anywhere, but at least people now wanted to know. Granada researchers unearthed new evidence which undermined the police case, including that the CCTV camera trained on the Leppings Lane end, which they said was not in operation - was working.”
Brian wrote an opinion piece in his paper, headlined THE REAL TRUTH, where he urged all readers to watch Jimmy’s programme. 25,695 readers added their names to a petition calling on the Attorney General to launch a new inquiry. When Labour got into power in 1997, they agreed to scrutinise the evidence.
What is it about drama that grabs people’s attentions in a way that the campaigning and investigative journalism doesn’t? Julie Hesmondhalgh, who plays Alan Bates’ partner in the ITVx drama, suggested yesterday on Radio 4 that it might have been hard to keep the momentum up because of the timeline.
“People have known patchy things. It’s hard to keep all those facts and figures and characters in your mind. Storytelling is how we make sense of the world and this has been a perfect example of that.”
So the answer then, is to package up a story into a bingeable watch? To get that momentum back up?
But what of the campaigners?
On Saturday mornings I inflict baguettes and ‘posh’ bread on people with other volunteers in a church hall in South Liverpool, as part of a zero food waste project. I messaged on our what’s app group whilst I was watching episode one. Because I definitely saw some Lidl bread masquerading as homebaked in one scene. One volunteer, Lisa, suggested someone from Zero Waste might have been on the crew.
But as the programme unfolded, I wondered what Lisa would be making of it all. Her brother was killed at Hillsborough in 1989.
She says so much of the language was comparable. And as the story unfolded, it evoked many feelings.
“Words like, injustice, corruption, bullying. The feeling of helplessness. Authorities making promises they couldn’t keep. The feeling that you’re on your own. I cried from start to finish. It is literally what happened to us.’
I spoke to another journalist who suggested we should all just pack up and go home, and leave it to the scriptwriters. And that’s what I was thinking too, when I started this piece.
But actually, all the elements make part of an important whole. There’s no story without the campaigners making sure we listen, no audience without the campaigning journalism. And the bright spotlight of TV drama renews energy and sometimes forces change.
So here’s to people like Lisa and Alan, Brian and Nick, as well as Granada and ITVx. And here’s to continued campaigning, investigating and scriptwriting.
Because it does make a difference.