IAN HYLAND’S TV DIARY
He writes about telly... weekly
Over at C5’s Inside Chernobyl With Ben Fogle on Wednesday, Ben called it “one of the most toxic places on earth”.
He didn’t name any of the other contenders, but as he’s great mates with Princes William and Harry you’d have to wonder whether Buckingham Palace makes his list.
In the absence of any better reason, I might even suspect Ben only went to Chernobyl to get a break from the royal soap opera. Fair play to
Ben for giving it the usual “unprecedented access” spiel, but there was little here that we hadn’t seen before
– either in Sky’s award-winning drama or countless other Chernobyl documentaries. Lots of people visit the area these days.
In fact it’s probably easier to book a seven-night stay in Pripyat than it is for someone with an Irish surname to secure a lodge at Pontins. As with Sky’s drama, Ben’s film was at its best when real people’s stories were heard.
In a rundown house in the otherwise deserted suburbs of Pripyat, Ben met resettled survivor Valentina, who joyfully played her accordion as her dog Dana sang and danced along. A tenner says Simon Cowell’s Ukrainian fixers have been on the phone already.
AN officer who survived the novichok attack has thanked the NHS for saving him, and his wife has hailed it for working “miracles”.
Det Sgt Nick Bailey was left fighting for his life in intensive care after coming into contact with the nerve agent as he probed the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal on March 4, 2018.
Nick has marked the third anniversary of the attack by saying: “I wonder what might have been, and just how lucky I am to be here thanks to the NHS and the Salisbury District Hospital critical care team.”
His wife Sarah said on Twitter: “Can’t help but reflect today. Feel very emotional even after 3 years.
“So much changed in such a short space of time.
“Thinking about our brilliant #nhs who work miracles and how lucky I am to still have ExDsNickBailey by my side, when others weren’t so fortunate.”
The couple have two children. It is alleged Russian spies targeted compatriot Sergei, a former double agent, by smearing novichok on the handle of his front door in Salisbury, Wilts.
Sergei and daughter Yulia survived after being found unconscious on a bench. Det Sgt Bailey was one of the first police to investigate at the home. After his life was saved he returned to action but later said he had to “admit defeat” and he retired from the force. Mum Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after spraying the contents of a discarded perfume bottle which contained novichok. Her partner Charlie Rowley fell ill but survived.
I can’t help but reflect today. I feel very emotional
SARAH BAILEY ON HER HUSBAND NEARLY DYING
ON the morning of the Budget, the family of Errol Graham – who starved to death in his Nottingham flat eight months after his disability benefits were stopped – lost their High Court case against the Government.
Errol weighed four-and-a-half stone when his body was found by bailiffs. He had been living with a single lightbulb and his cupboards were bare except for a couple of tins of fish.
There were distressing clues to his state of mind, and a letter in neat handwriting pleading with the DWP to “please judge me fairly”.
It reads as if he intended to take it to a meeting “I have come on my own today”, it says at one point.
Yesterday, Alison Turner, fiancée of Errol’s son Lee, said the family were “deeply disappointed” by the verdict.
“It’s easier to see someone as a statistic and forget what it means to be human,” she told me the evening before the case began.
“We want the DWP to admit they were in the wrong and they should have taken better care of Errol. We want them to acknowledge the human cost of one bad decision. My kids can’t see Granddad any more because someone made a bad decision.”
The timing of the judgment in Errol’s case was a coincidence, but it seems to sum up so much of how Conservative-led governments have treated disabled people since 2010.
This week’s Budget – yet again – had nothing for disabled people.
Earlier this week, No11 refused to receive hundreds of letters from disabled people that told how they couldn’t even afford
incontinence pads, heating, bathing, phone credit to speak to loved ones, or nutritious food.
Nearly 200 envelopes containing testimonies calling for the Chancellor to extend the £20 Universal Credit uplift to those on legacy benefits were rejected. But the DWP did accept a letter summarising the testimonies from Disabled People Against Cuts.
“I’ve only managed one meal a day” because “costs have gone up so much,” one testimony read.
Another said: “£100 taxi fares for transport to hospital since patient transport which I normally use not running.
No money left for food.”
Another said: “On chemo, need to eat properly.”
Millions of disabled people were already living in poverty before Covid-19.
Yet the £20 uplift to Universal Credit – itself due to end in autumn – doesn’t apply.
A survey of disabled people on legacy benefits by the Disability Benefits Consortium found two thirds have had to go without essentials such as food, heating or medication as a result of higher costs since Covid, and 44% had fallen behind on rent, their mortgage payments or household bills.
Errol Graham died before
Covid, but the way he was treated speaks volumes about now. Above everything, he was a committed granddad and football fan.
When he died, he was surrounded by his version of Anfield, with video tapes of Liverpool games dating back to the 1980s and a collection of rare shirts and memorabilia, all kept in a little ‘cubby’ area with his weights bench and books.
“Football was the one thing in his life that never let him down, that and his pushbike,” says Alison, a former football coach.
But so much else did let Errol down. The former amateur footballer had severe mental health problems including a fear of leaving the house, yet in 2017 his disability and housing benefits were stopped after he failed to turn up to appointments.
“Errol was always good with his grandkids,” Alison says. “It felt as if he could distract himself with them.
“But before he died, he was really struggling. I think he felt ashamed of his mental health.”
Alison, 32, is herself disabled, with hypermobility syndrome. Yet she has spent the last year fighting a court battle, alongside homeschooling children with autism. “We all knew Errol was ill,” she says. “The hospital was aware. The DWP was aware. Yet he was left to starve to death.
“We had no idea they had taken his money – he would be the last person you would do that to.”
Alison says Errol’s struggles with mental health began when his mum died in a road accident in 1996.
“He was a carer for his dad until he died in 2004, that was another blow.”
Errol retreated into the football memorabilia that might have paid off the bailiffs if he had thought to sell it. Instead, he joined a long line of those failed by the safety net built to protect those like him. A good person, overshadowed by depression, and starved by the state.
On Wednesday, the DWP was found to have acted lawfully in stopping Errol’s benefits.
Mr Justice Bourne ruled that the DWP “were confronted with a complete cessation of contact by Mr Graham and an absence of any attempt by him to do anything to permit his ESA review to progress… neither the legislation nor the defendant’s policy at the time mandated any further specific steps to be taken.”
The Graham family are still deciding whether to appeal. Meanwhile, disabled campaigners are now looking at a potential human rights challenge after being left out – yet again – from financial support by the Treasury.
Put simply, in modern Britain, someone’s granddad starved to death. If that’s OK within the system, there is something wrong with the system.
He was really struggling, he was ashamed of his mental health
BRITAIN’S unluckiest Second World War pilot parachuted out after mistaking greenhouses for the White Cliffs of Dover – and landed in Nazi-occupied territory.
The story of Sgt Robert Stirling, who lost his bearings while chasing a German bomber towards France, has only just emerged.
Low on fuel and with his compass broken, the 23-year-old was trying to return to base in Devon in 1941.
Mistaking the reflection of thousands of greenhouses for the Kent cliffs, he thought it was safe to bail out of his Hurricane fighter rather than crash-land in the dark.
It wasn’t. He parachuted on to Lihou in the Nazioccupied Channel Islands and stumbled into an enemy minefield. After somehow avoiding death, Robert crossed the causeway linking Lihou to Guernsey and was given shelter. Next day he gave himself up... and found the tomato-growing island was covered in reflective glasshouses. Robert spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp, returning to his native Glasgow in 1945. After a career in banking, he died in 1984. His remarkable story was pieced together by Guernsey guide Tim Osborne after he met Pat Jenner, daughter of the Brouard family that discovered Robert. He said: “I’m so pleased it came together. People found it fascinating.”