Letters from an innocent man

BROADCAST NEWS Deborah Thomas "GUILDFORD? Where's Guildford?" asked one of Gerry Conlon's sisters as the family sat in front of the television watching a newsflash about the 1974 IRA bombing.
The irony of this remark coming from one of the Conlons, to whom Guildford would soon be horribly far from obscure, was characteristic of the fine quality of Tony McGurk's drama-documentary Dear Sarah, broadcast on ITV on Monday after four difficult years in the making, and very nearly not-,rnalsing.
The play fbcussed on the Conlons' father, Guiseppe, who was convicted as one of the "Maguire Seven" for allegedly making IRA bombs. These convictions were declared unsafe only weeks ago. The script was based on the letters exchanged by Guiseppe and his wife Sarah during the four year period he spent in prison before dying there in 1980, but it was not excessively epistolary, and so avoided the obvious trap of being too undramatic to hold the attention.
In fact, far from it. This was a production which combined sensitivity and a delicate touch with the power of passion and conflict. The arrest of Gerry Conlon was typically finely handled. A leisurely build-up of everyday detail and domestic tenderness induced a feeling of cosiness, shattered all the more painfully therefore by the deadof-the-night banging on the front door and the sudden and violent swoop of the security forces.
The fine balance was maintained as the drama progressed, telling the story of Sarah Conlon's steadfast campaign to secure her husband and son's releases and reunite her family. It was hard to know whether to be more moved by, say, the way in which prison officers were shown bundling the frail and dying Guiseppe in and out of vehicles like a sack of potatoes, or by the dignity and forbearance shown by the afflicted the understatement of these words from one of Guiseppe's letters comes to mind: "Try not to allow this to spoil Christmas. We're all right. It's all a terrible mistake."
The script was safe in the hands of a good cast, with Sheila McCusker as Sarah Conlon giving a particularly good performance, full of sweetness and serenity. The only
blot on the landscape was the fact that Dear Sarah was
broadcast in two parts with
News at Ten, a goodly number of commercials and several
trailers for other programmes stuck in the middle, which rather destroyed the tension and poignance built up in the first hour.
But we should be glad that we got to see Dear Sarah at all.
It came close to going under when first conceived because it coincided with the BBC's getting its fingers burnt with other allegedly Brit-bashing "docudramas". The veracity of this particular account can now be in little question Sarah Conlon, who holds the copywright of Guiseppe's letters, had the opportunity to correct factual errors, and of course both the "Guildford Four" and the "Maguire Seven" are safely exonerated.
It may not be very controversial, but it is surely very important that we remember and are reminded that we live in a world where it is possible for a prison chaplain to sit back in his comfortable chair and say, of British justice, "it doesn't make mistakes".
THE WEEK AHEAD
Sunday July 8
11.00 Morning Worship, ITV. Mass from Buckfast Abbey, Devon, led by Fr Aldan Conlon with commentary by Canon Bede Davis.
20.30 Immortal Diamonds, Radio 4, Rosemary Hartill concludes her series.